The words leave my mouth before I can stop them, harsher than I intend and edged with a vitriol I don’t usually let out in front of her, or anyone, really. Her shoulders shift and her expression hardens just enough to tell me I’ve already lost control of the tone of this conversation. She looks almost defeated.
I take a breath, slower this time, trying to pull myself back into something measured and who doesn’t sound explosive before I even have the chance to explain.
“That’s not—” I start, then stop, because I don’t know how to finish that sentence in a way that doesn’t make everything worse.
Because what she said is true. Or at least, it’s being made true without me.
I drag a hand back through my hair, the motion more abrupt than I intend, and for the first time since I walkedinto this room to find her, I feel it clearly. The way everything has tilted underneath me in a matter of minutes, going from something that I was controlling and deciding to… this.
“I didn’t accept anything,” I say finally, more evenly now, even though my chest is still too tight, my thoughts moving fast. “No one asked me. I am absolutely not moving to Amsterdam.”
Her eyes don’t soften. If anything, they sharpen further, like she’s trying to decide if that makes it better or worse.
“Isabella,” she says, and my name sounds different in her mouth now, cutting and painful and like embodied hurt.
“I’m serious,” I continue, stepping forward and reaching for her hand without really thinking about it, closing part of the space between us because distance suddenly feels like the worst possible option.
“I accepted a job.”
I swallow. The words sit outside of comprehension, something I can hear but not register, and they land all at once, heavy and immediate, knocking everything else slightly off balance.
“In Argentina?” I ask, quieter now, trying to understand what she’s actually saying. The room starts spinning around me. “Like as an accountant?”
Her gaze doesn’t waver.
“I accepted a job,” she repeats, more steadily this time, like she’s already braced for whatever comes next. “Starting in October. After the National Championship back home.”
The timeline clicks into place faster than I want it to, faster than I can control, and suddenly I’m doing the samething she just did to me, filling in the gaps, building something out of information I didn’t have five minutes ago.
“And you weren’t going to tell me?” I ask, and I hate how it sounds coming out of my mouth, given the absolute clusterfuck that surrounds me right now.
Her expression tightens.
“I am telling you.” There’s a defensive edge in her voice now, but underneath it’s unmistakable hurt. “Right now.”
I let out a short breath, something that doesn’t settle into anything useful, because we are suddenly standing on opposite sides of the same problem and neither of us knows how we got here.
“Where?” I ask instead, latching onto the only practical part of this conversation.
“It’s an assistant coaching position,” she says, like the details matter, in case they help to soften the impact. “It’s a maternity cover, not permanent. At a college program.” She hesitates, just for a second. “It’s in Wyoming,” she adds.
“Close to me,” I say, before I can stop myself.
Her eyes flicker.
“An hour and a half from Lake Jasper,” she confirms, and now I can hear it clearly, the thing underneath all of this, the past she hasn’t said out loud until now. “I thought?—”
She stops.
But I know how this sentence ends.
I thought it would make it easier.
I thought it would make sense.
I thought we were going to be together.
Cecilia takes a deep breath as her gaze drifts away,settling anywhere but where I’m standing, like she needs distance even in a room this small.
