Rumor Has It I'm Dating the Football Captain

Chapter 67: Chapter 67: She Wanted Space, But Not This Much

Audrey sat on her bedroom floor. The apartment was completely silent. The digital clock on her nightstand glowed a harsh, bright red. It was two in the morning.

She pulled her phone out of her pocket. Her fingers were completely numb. She turned the screen on.

The text message was sitting right there on her lock screen.

**Mason:** *I do not know what I did, Audrey. But I cannot do this camp if I think I am losing you. Please just talk to me.*

Audrey read the words over and over. Her chest felt like someone was stepping heavily on her ribs. She could clearly hear his desperate, exhausted voice in her head. She knew exactly how he looked when he was stressed. He probably had his head leaning against a painted hotel wall, waiting for his phone to buzz in the dark.

She unlocked her phone. She opened the keyboard.

*I am right here,* she typed. *I love you. I am just trying to protect your contract.*

She stared at the tiny letters on the glowing screen. She blinked, and a hot tear finally dropped onto the glass.

If she sent the text, he would call her immediately. He would spend the entire night talking to her. He would be completely distracted during his morning drills. The scouts would write him off. Director Hayes would cut him.

She loved him entirely too much to be the reason he failed.

Audrey pressed the backspace button. She deleted every single word.

She locked the phone. She put it face down on the carpet. She pulled her knees tightly to her chest and buried her face in her arms. The physical distance had always been hard, but this forced silence felt like total torture.

She had to stay strong. She had to let him think she was too busy. It was the only way he would focus on the pitch.

”Just play football, Mason,” Audrey whispered to the empty room. ”Please just play.”

---

The campus stadium was freezing on Tuesday afternoon. The gray clouds blocked out the sun completely. The wind smelled like dry leaves and cold metal.

Leo sat in the very top row of the bleachers. He wore his thick team jacket, but he was shivering. He stared down at the empty green turf. He had not eaten lunch. He had skipped his morning classes. He felt entirely empty.

He heard footsteps clanking softly against the metal stairs.

He did not look up. ”Go away, Jackson. I am not going to practice today.”

”I am definitely not Jackson.”

Leo turned his head slowly.

Daisy stood a few steps below him. She wore her bright yellow cardigan. Her curly blonde hair blew wildly in the cold wind. She held two large paper cups from the campus coffee shop.

”Daisy,” Leo said quietly. He sounded terrible. His voice was rough and entirely hollow. ”What are you doing up here?”

”Ben sent me to get wide angle photos of the stadium,” Daisy explained. She walked up the last few steps. She held out one of the warm cups. ”But I saw you sitting up here looking absolutely miserable. So I brought you hot chocolate.”

Leo stared at the cup. He slowly reached out and took it. The heat felt incredibly good against his freezing hands.

”Thank you,” Leo muttered.

Daisy sat down on the cold metal bench right next to him. She kept a polite distance. She did not point her camera at him.

”You skipped lunch,” Daisy noted softly.

”I am not hungry,” Leo replied.

”Audrey told me what happened,” Daisy confessed. She looked straight ahead at the empty field. ”She said Chloe broke up with you.”

Leo flinched. Hearing the words out loud made the pain in his chest flare up entirely anew.

”She hates me,” Leo said. He stared down into his dark hot chocolate. ”I completely ruined it.”

Daisy frowned. She looked at him with genuine confusion. She still had a massive crush on him. She thought he was an absolutely perfect guy.

”I do not understand,” Daisy said. Her voice was full of naive frustration. ”You are so nice, Leo. You are sweet and protective. Why would she break up with you?”

”Because I treated her like a helpless victim,” Leo admitted. The guilt in his voice was incredibly heavy. ”Some guys got her drunk last weekend. I was terrified. So I tracked them down and threatened them. I thought I was protecting her.”

Daisy tilted her head. She looked at him like he was crazy. ”But you were protecting her. That is what a good boyfriend is supposed to do. She should be really grateful.”

Leo blinked. He looked at the sweet, innocent freshman.

Hearing Daisy say it out loud made everything click perfectly in his tired brain. Daisy wanted a traditional, protective boyfriend. Daisy wanted a knight in shining armor.

But Chloe was not traditional. Chloe was a fighter.

”No, Daisy,” Leo said softly. He shook his head. ”Chloe does not want a knight in shining armor. She does not need saving. She wants an equal.”

Daisy looked confused. ”But you were just trying to help.”

”I took her choices away,” Leo explained. He was not just talking to Daisy anymore. He was finally understanding it himself. ”She fought for her independence her whole life. And the exact second things got hard, I went behind her back. I made her feel weak.”

Leo took a shaky breath.

”She told me not to follow her,” Leo whispered. ”She looked at me like I was a complete stranger.”

”So what are you going to do?” Daisy asked softly. ”Are you going to text her? Are you going to send her flowers to win her back?”

Leo looked down at his phone sitting next to him on the cold metal bench.

He wanted to text her so badly. He wanted to apologize a hundred times. He wanted to buy her food and wait outside her classroom.

But he finally understood.

”No,” Leo said. His voice was quiet but incredibly firm.

”Why not?” Daisy asked.

”Because she explicitly told me not to follow her,” Leo said. ”If I text her right now, I am just ignoring her boundaries again. I am proving that I still do not respect what she wants.”

Daisy looked at him. She saw how much it hurt him to stay away. She finally realized why he liked Chloe so much. He respected her entirely.

”That is very brave, Leo,” Daisy whispered.

”It is terrifying,” Leo corrected honestly. He picked up his hot chocolate. ”If I give her space, she might just forget about me.”

”Nobody forgets about you, Leo,” Daisy smiled warmly. ”You are entirely too loud for that.”

Leo managed a tiny, weak smile. It was the first time he had smiled in two days.

”Thank you for the hot chocolate, Daisy,” Leo said.

”Anytime,” Daisy said. She stood up from the bench. ”Now, you need to go to practice. Jackson has been trying to run the defense without you, and it looks completely terrible.”

Leo laughed. A real, genuine laugh. He stood up next to her. His broad shoulders did not look nearly as heavy anymore.

Daisy turned around and walked down the metal stairs.

Leo stayed on the bleachers for one more minute. He looked down at his phone. He locked the screen and shoved it deep into his jacket pocket. He was going to give Chloe all the space she needed. He just hoped she eventually realized that he was waiting for her.

Leo jogged down the stairs and headed for the locker room.

---

Across campus, Chloe sat in the back of the library.

She had a thick economics textbook open on the table, but she had not read a single word in an hour. She stared blindly at the pages.

She kept checking her phone.

The screen was completely blank.

It had been twenty four hours since she walked away from Leo on the pitch. He always texted her. He always fought back. He was the most stubborn, persistent person she had ever met.

But he had not sent a single message. He had not waited outside her classroom. He had completely vanished.

Chloe tightened her jaw. She told him not to follow her. He was actually listening.

She should have felt relieved. She should have felt completely safe and back in control of her life. She got exactly what she demanded.

Chloe swallowed hard. She rested her head on her arms. She closed her eyes.

She had total control again. But for the very first time, control felt incredibly lonely.