“Youth clinic. They asked me to help out.” His jaw tightens. “What are you doing here?”
“I had a meeting. About a job.”
“That’s good since my interview got you fired.”
“You gave the interview. Alex twisted it. But you gave him the ammunition.”
“I was trying to defend us,” he says.
A sudden surge of anger floods me. “By telling him we kissed during probation? By contradicting the statement I released?” My voice rises. “Do you have any idea what that did? The league investigated. Marshall had no choice but to ask me to resign. Everything I tried to prevent happened anyway because you couldn’t keep your damn mouth shut!”
“I couldn’t keep my mouth shut?” Danny steps closer. “You released a statement ending our relationship without even telling me first! I found out we were over from Instagram.”
“Because I was trying to control the damage?—”
“You were trying to control everything! Like you always do.” His voice echoes across the parking lot. People are starting to look. “You decided when the relationship started. You decided when it ended. You decided what story to tell. I never got a say in any of it.”
“You got a say. You chose to talk to Alex.”
“Because you shut me out! You blocked my number, ignored my texts, and released that statement like I was a problem you needed to solve instead of someone you claimed to love.”
“I did love you.”
“Past tense. That’s perfect.” Danny lets out a sharp laugh. “You know what your problem is, Noah? You’re so busy protecting everyone else that you forget to actually fight for what matters. You gave up the second things got hard.”
“Things didn’t get hard. Things got impossible. There was no way forward that didn’t destroy everyone?—”
“So you destroyed us instead. You chose the safe option. The controlled option. The option where you get to look like you did the right thing even though you broke both our hearts!”
“I was trying to save your career.”
“I didn’t ask you to save my career. I asked you to fight for us,” Danny seethes. “But you couldn’t do that. Because fighting is messy. Fighting means you don’t get to control the outcome. So you just... gave up.”
“I gave up?” My voice cracks. “You punched someone at a team event. You got us exposed! You gave an interview that got me fired! And you’re saying I gave up?”
“Yeah. I am. Because when things fell apart, I tried to fix it. I tried to reach out. I tried to explain. And you blocked me.” He steps back. “You made your choice, Noah. You chose your father’s career. You chose the organization. You chose everyone except me.”
“That’s not?—”
“It is. And you know what? I’m done. I came here today because Tate thought it would be good for me to do something productive. To stop wallowing. But seeing you?” He shakes his head. “This was a mistake.”
He turns to walk back down the steps.
“Danny, wait?—”
“No.” He doesn’t turn around. “You were right to end it. We can’t survive this. We can’t survive you being too scared to fight for what you want. So just... stay away from me, Noah. We’re done.”
He walks away.
I stand there on the steps of Play It Forward, watching him go, and all I can think is that he’s right.
I gave up.
I controlled the narrative, released the statement, did everything I thought was right.
And I lost him anyway.
I get in my car and drive home.
