Chapter 48 : She's Mine
HAYDEN’S POV :
I didn’t go home right away. I told myself it was because I needed the extra conditioning. That Coach would appreciate the dedication. That running until my vision blurred was better than sitting alone with thoughts I didn’t want.
The field lights had already shut off, leaving only the dim glow from the parking lot lamps. The air was cooler now, damp with the promise of rain. I dropped my bag by the fence and started running laps around the track.
By the fourth, my lungs were screaming but it still wasn’t loud enough to drown out the replay in my head.
If you hadn’t fucked her, she would’ve still been mine.
The words had been meant to hurt but hey did.
Just not for the reason he thought.
I slowed to a stop near the bleachers where I’d first seen him standing earlier. The image was burned into me—phone to his ear, voice breaking in a way I’d never heard before.
Stephen didn’t break down like that. He could snap, explode, slam doors and punch lockers.
But crying? That was new.
And I hated that I’d witnessed it.
I dragged a hand over my face and let out a shaky breath. I wasn’t supposed to care this much. Ella was supposed to be a mistake. The line we would both cross and couldn’t uncross.
Instead, she felt like the side note.
The real problem was the way my pulse had jumped when he grabbed my shirt.
The way his hand had fisted in the fabric like he didn’t know whether to shove me away or pull me closer.
I swore under my breath and grabbed my bag.
This was messed up.
We were supposed to hate each other right now. That would’ve been easier.
But beneath the anger, there had been something else in his eyes. It matched the thing I had been trying to outrun for months.
I got in my car and drove home on autopilot.
The dorm was quiet when I walked in.
Stephen’s door, at the end of the hall, was closed. I stood there longer than I should have, staring at it.
Then I knocked but there was no answer. I almost walked away. Instead, I tried the handle and it was unlocked.
The room was dim, lit only by the small desk lamp in the corner. Stephen was sitting on the floor with his back against the bed, elbows resting on his knees, staring at nothing.
He didn’t look up when I stepped inside.
“Are you following me now?” he asked flatly.
“I live here.”
“Unfortunately.”
I shut the door behind me. “Are you going to keep pretending you don’t want to talk?”
“I don’t.”
“Liar.”
His jaw tightened, but he still didn’t look at me. I leaned against the wall, crossing my arms. “You think I don’t get it?”
“I know you don’t.”
“Because I slept with her?”
“Because you don’t feel things the way I do,” he shot back.
That hit closer than he realized. “You don’t know how I feel,” I said quietly.
That finally got his attention. His eyes lifted to mine, guarded but searching.
“Enlighten me,” he said.
I hesitated.
This was the part where I should’ve lied and made up some sarcastic comments and left.
Instead, I slid down the wall until I was sitting across from him on the floor.
“I didn’t plan it,” I said. “With Ella.”
He looked away again. “That doesn’t make it better.”
“I know.” Silence stretched between us, thick and uncomfortable.
“She told me she felt invisible,” I continued. “That you were pulling away.”
His head snapped back toward me. “That’s not true.”
“I’m just telling you what she said.”
He clenched his fists. “I wasn’t pulling away.”
“Maybe not on purpose.”
He opened his mouth to argue, then stopped. The fight drained out of his shoulders a little.
“I was stressed,” he muttered. “With school and coach riding me. You and I barely talk anymore.”
There it was. “You think that’s my fault?” I asked.
“I think you shut me out first.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“Is it?”
His eyes locked onto mine again, and this time there wasn’t just anger there.
The hurt.
“You stopped telling me stuff,” he said. “You stopped hanging out. You stopped being… you.”
I swallowed hard. “People grow up.”
“That’s not what this is.”
“Then what is it?”
He studied me like he was trying to solve something. “I don’t know,” he finally admitted. “But it feels like you left before I did.”
The words hit deeper than anything he’d said earlier because he wasn’t wrong.
I had pulled away.
I’d started keeping things to myself. Avoiding the way he would sit too close on the couch. The way our knees would touch and neither of us would move.
The way my chest would tighten when he laughed at something I said.
I’d told myself distance was safer.
Apparently, it hadn’t been. “You think I wanted this?” I asked, my voice lower now. “You think I wanted us standing on a field screaming about a girl?”
“No.”
“Then stop acting like I did this to you on purpose.”
He looked down at his hands. “It feels like you did.”
I shifted closer before I could second-guess it.
“We’re both screwed up in this,” I said. “But not just because of her.”
His breath caught slightly. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
This was the edge. One wrong word and there was no going back.
I forced myself to hold his gaze. “It means this thing between us has been weird for a while.”
His expression flickered. “Weird how?”
“You know how.”
“Say it.”
My heart was pounding so loud I was sure he could hear it.
“It’s not normal,” I said carefully. “The way I… react to you.”
The air in the room shifted. He didn’t move or blink.
“React how?” he asked, but his voice wasn’t steady anymore.
I exhaled shakily. “Like when you grabbed my shirt today.”
His eyes darkened. “That was anger.”
“Was it?” He swallowed.
Neither of us looked away this time. The silence stretched until it felt unbearable.
“I don’t know what you’re implying,” he said finally, but there was no conviction in it.
“I’m not implying,” I replied. “I’m saying I don’t think this is just about Ella.”
His breathing had gone shallow. “You’re my brother,” he said, like he was reminding both of us.
“Yeah.”
The word felt heavier now. He stood abruptly, pacing once across the room before stopping near the desk.
“You can’t just say stuff like that,” he muttered.
“I didn’t plan to.”
“Then why did you?”
Because I was tired of pretending and every time you look at me like that, I forget how to breathe and all I can think of is the kiss.
But I couldn’t say any of that. Instead, I stood up and walked away.