Rumor Has It I'm Dating the Football Captain

Chapter 98: Chapter 98: The Ones Who Stay

The campus library was nearly empty.

Zoya sat at her usual corner table. A thick pile of law notes rested in front of her. She held a yellow highlighter, but she had not highlighted a single word in twenty minutes.

Her mind kept drifting back to her apartment. Audrey was completely broken. Zoya had never seen her roommate cry like that. The pure, agonizing heartbreak was terrifying to witness.

It proved everything Zoya believed about love. It was a statistical disaster. It was a chemical reaction that ended in total destruction.

She stared blindly at her textbook. She told herself she was safe. She had rules. She had a strict physical arrangement with Jackson that prevented any messy emotions from taking over.

A shadow fell over her table.

Zoya blinked and looked up.

Jackson was standing there. He wore his dark gray team hoodie and faded jeans. His messy brown hair was pushed back from his forehead. He did not have his usual arrogant smirk. His jaw was tight. His dark eyes were completely serious.

Zoya felt a sudden, sharp spike of anxiety in her chest.

"It is not Tuesday," Zoya stated quietly. She closed her textbook. "You are violating the schedule again."

"We need to talk," Jackson said. His deep voice was incredibly flat.

He did not sit down. He did not lean across the table to invade her personal space. He stood perfectly straight, keeping a very deliberate distance between them.

Zoya noticed the distance. Her anxiety instantly morphed into cold panic.

"I am studying," Zoya said. She tried to sound clinical and annoyed. She reached for her highlighter again. "If you want to discuss the terms of our contract, you can email me."

"There is no contract, Zoya," Jackson replied softly.

Zoya froze. Her fingers slipped off the plastic highlighter. It rolled quietly across the wooden table.

"What do you mean?" Zoya asked. Her voice shook just a tiny bit.

"I mean it is over," Jackson told her. He looked her directly in the eyes. "I am ending the arrangement. We are not going to see each other anymore."

The words hit her like a physical slap across the face.

For one agonizing second, the perfect, icy mask on Zoya’s face completely shattered. A wild, crazy look of pure desperation flashed in her dark eyes.

She did not want him to go.

Her brain screamed at her to stand up. She wanted to grab the fabric of his hoodie. She wanted to tell him the rules were stupid. She wanted to tell him she liked the way he smelled, and she liked the chaotic way he kissed her, and she did not care about the schedule anymore.

But then she remembered Audrey crying on the floor. She remembered the absolute devastation that happened when you let a football player past your defenses.

The fear completely swallowed her.

Zoya locked her jaw. She forced the desperate look out of her eyes. She built her protective wall higher and thicker than ever before. If he was walking away, she was going to make sure he thought she did not care at all.

She stood up from her chair. She grabbed her textbook and shoved it aggressively into her bag.

"Fine," Zoya said. Her voice was pure ice.

Jackson watched her. He saw the frantic way her hands were moving.

"Zoya," Jackson tried to speak softly.

"Do not use that tone with me," Zoya snapped loudly. A few students at the other end of the library looked up, but Zoya did not care. She glared at him with absolute venom. "You are exactly what I thought you were."

Jackson let out a slow breath. "And what is that?"

"A chaotic, inefficient mistake," Zoya listed cruelly. She slung her heavy bag over her shoulder. "You cannot follow simple instructions. You cannot commit to a basic set of rules. You are just a dumb athlete who thinks the world revolves around his moods. This arrangement was a complete waste of my valuable time."

She waited for him to yell back. She waited for the loud, arrogant football player to insult her in return. She wanted him to fight back so she could justify the terrible pain in her chest.

But Jackson did not yell.

He did not defend himself. He just stood there and took every single insult. He looked at her with incredibly sad, understanding eyes.

He knew exactly what she was doing. He saw right through the insults. He saw the terrified girl hiding behind the cruel words. And because he actually cared about her, he let her win the argument. He let her keep her armor.

"You are right," Jackson said quietly. "I am too chaotic for you. You deserve a quiet life."

Zoya felt her throat close up. The lack of anger in his voice hurt ten times worse than a shout.

Jackson took a step backward. He put his hands deep into his hoodie pockets.

"Take care of yourself, encyclopedia," Jackson whispered.

He turned around. He walked slowly out of the quiet library, his broad shoulders slumped in defeat.

Zoya stood completely frozen by the table. The library was totally silent again.

She had won. She was safe. The chaotic variable was entirely removed from her life.

She gripped the strap of her bag so hard her nails dug into her own palm. A single, hot tear escaped her eye and slid down her cheek. She aggressively wiped it away. She walked out of the library, telling herself over and over that she had made the logical choice.

---

The athletic dorm room was entirely depressing.

Leo sat on his bed with his back against the wall. He was tossing a small rubber ball into the air and catching it. Over and over.

Chloe was lying on her stomach next to him. She was reading a textbook for her economics class, but she had been staring at the exact same paragraph for an hour.

The empty corner of the room was entirely unavoidable. Mason’s stripped mattress looked like a glaring reminder of everything that had gone wrong.

Leo caught the rubber ball and held it tightly in his massive fist. He let out a long, heavy sigh.

"Is it wrong?" Leo asked quietly to the ceiling.

Chloe finally closed her biology book. She rolled over and looked up at him.

"Is what wrong?" Chloe asked.

"Us," Leo said. He looked down at her. His dark eyes were completely serious and incredibly guilty. "Is it right for us to be together right now?"

Chloe frowned slightly. She pushed herself up until she was sitting cross-legged facing him.

"Why would it be wrong?" Chloe demanded softly.

Leo gestured vaguely around the room. "Look at this place, Chloe. Captain is on a plane to a different country because his heart got ripped out. I tried calling him as well, he didn’t pick up. Jackson walked in here an hour ago looking like he just attended a funeral, and he refused to talk to me. And Audrey is sitting in your apartment crying her eyes out."

"I know," Chloe said gently. She reached out and placed her small hand over his large fist.

"Everyone is suffering," Leo whispered. He looked completely miserable. "My best friends are hurting. Your best friends are hurting. It feels like a massive betrayal to sit here and hold your hand while their lives are falling apart. I feel like a terrible friend for being happy."

Chloe let out a soft, patient sigh.

She understood exactly how he felt. She had felt the exact same guilt when she left Audrey in the apartment to come see him.

But Chloe was pragmatic. She knew how to separate her own life from the drama of the people around her.

"Listen to me, Leo," Chloe said firmly. She squeezed his hand to make him look at her. "It is not your fault. You did not cause this."

"I know, but..."

"No buts," Chloe interrupted. "They are adults. Mason made a choice to leave. Audrey made a choice to push him away. Jackson and Zoya made their own stupid choices too. We cannot control them."

Leo looked at the empty bed again. "I just wish I could fix it."

"You cannot fix a broken window by breaking your own window," Chloe told him logically. "Our friends are miserable. But that does not mean we have to be miserable in solidarity."

Leo fell silent. He slowly opened his fist and let the rubber ball drop onto the blankets.

Chloe watched him carefully. She saw the heavy conflict on his face. She knew Leo was fiercely loyal. He lived by the bro code. Sometimes, his loyalty made him do incredibly stupid things.

Chloe slowly pulled her hand away from his. She sat back slightly.

"Unless you want to," Chloe said. Her voice lost a little bit of its warmth.

Leo blinked in confusion. "Unless I want to what?"

"Be miserable in solidarity," Chloe clarified. She crossed her arms over her chest. "Do you want to break up, Leo? Do you want to take a break so you can mourn for your captain without feeling guilty about having a girlfriend?"

Leo’s eyes went completely wide. The guilt on his face instantly vanished, replaced by pure, absolute panic.

"What?" Leo gasped loudly. "No!"

"I am just asking," Chloe shrugged lightly, though her heart was beating a little faster. "If you feel like it is a betrayal to be with me right now..."

"No, not at all!" Leo practically shouted.

He threw the rubber ball across the room. He scrambled forward on the mattress and grabbed both of her hands tightly in his. He looked entirely horrified by the suggestion.

"Do not even joke about that," Leo pleaded frantically. "I do not want to break up. I do not want a break. I just got you back, Chloe. I will literally fight anyone who tries to take you away from me. I just felt guilty for five seconds!"

Chloe stared at his panicked face. A tiny, relieved smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.

"Good," Chloe decided. She uncrossed her arms and let him hold her hands. "Because if you tried to break up with me over Mason’s drama, I would have thrown your game console out the window."

Leo let out a massive breath of relief. He slumped forward and rested his forehead against her shoulder.

"Thank God," Leo mumbled into her shirt. "You terrified me."

"You needed a reality check," Chloe said softly. She wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders and hugged him tight. "We are allowed to be happy, Leo. Even when everything else is a mess."

Leo closed his eyes. He squeezed her back.

He knew she was right. The storm had wrecked the people they cared about, but Leo was not going to let it wreck them too. He had lost his captain today. He absolutely refused to lose his girl.