And the better part of me knows that staying too long in this conversation is playing with fire.
“I am hungry, but I should go. When my drink is done.”
The smile on his face falters for just a second, and then it’s back. Like that flicker of disappointment was never there.
“Is that what you want? To go?”
What I want more than anything is for him to say the only thing he hasn’t said. The only thing I’ve been waiting for him to say since we sat down.
“It’s my turn for a question, right?” I ask.
“Yes…” he says, but skeptically, as if wanting me to address all the questions of his I just ignored, but I have an unanswered question too and my drink is almost gone.
Tempted as I am to stay, keeping my promise to myself about only staying for one drink is important to me.
“Do you regret it? Breaking up with me?”
My cheeks are warm, and I can only bear to look at him through my lashes, head tilted down. Looking him directly in the eyes right now would be too much. I don’t want to read his face before I hear his answer.
My palms are clammy despite the temperature, so I wipe them on my dress. My awareness narrows, and in the space between my question and his answer, I am only my heartbeat, the slow, rhythmic flutter of the piece of me I keep handing to people who keep handing it back. The soft pounding pattern booms in my ears, and I almost don’t catch his answer.
“I think it was for the best,” he says.
“What does that mean?”
I need him to explain because I can’t be sure I heard him right, nor was it really an answer to my question.
He shifts in his seat, his eyes drifting to his near-empty glass and the melted ice cubes, now smooth pebbles in watered-down liquor.
“I mean… I could never have been the hockey player I was with a partner. I was distracted thinking about when I’d see you again and how we could make it work. I wasn’t happier without you or anything, but I think the breakup gave us both a better shot at being successful.”
His words hit me like an oncoming train. No soft tuck of a warm blanket here; this is a battering ram to my chest.
“You mean it gave YOU a better shot at being successful,” I say, my words trembling with all the anger rising from somewhere deep inside me.
As most people do after a breakup, I went through phases. Grief and denial and anger and more grief. My anger stage was short-lived, but this was the core of it.
He left me because he couldn’t be successful with me and wanted success more than he wanted me. And while sometimesthat thought made me cry for hours, for a time, it made me rage. Hazel took me to one of those rage rooms where you put on a face shield and smash plates and wood beams and old technology. I wasn’t very good at it, but it felt good to get my anger out of my body for a bit.
And now it’s back, a boiling, burning thing. Fire in my bloodstream.
Of course he doesn’t regret leaving me. Of course he sees it as something that was best for him.
What did I think he was going to say? That he’d spent the last eleven years regretting his decision and pining over me?
Oh my god. That is so pathetic.
My eyes burn with the sting of tears. I have to get out of here.
I stand, throwing back the rest of my drink, ignoring the frozen burn in my sinuses.
Miles stands too, reaching his hand out to me, but I twist to the side before he can grab me.
“I didn’t mean it like that, Abby. I mean, you—you would have spent your months and weeks traveling to see me, spending time with me when I was exhausted or just watching my games. Your career is probably as successful as it has been because you didn’t have me weighing you down.”
“Say what you need to make yourself feel better, but I would have always been a great teacher, with or without you. And if I wanted a future without you, I should have been able to choose that, but you did what you always did back then and you decided what was best for you was best for both of us. You chose hockey over me, and guess what, I hear you loud and clear. You’re glad you made that choice.”
“Abby, no, that’s—that’s not fair. I didn’t?—”
