Her face crumbles. I watch it happen. Watch the hope drain out of her eyes and something darker flood in. And I keep going, because if I stop, I'll fold. I'll take it back. I'll tell her it's okay, that I'll wait, that I'll always wait, and then I'll spend the rest of my life dying slowly in a house that smells like her coconut shampoo.
"If you can't understand how much this kills me. If you expect me to stand there while the love of my life marries another man. Kisses another man in front of a crowd of people. Lives in his house, plays pretend, while I'm just a good fuck she comes home to when it's convenient."
"That's not what you are, Ace."
"Then what am I, Harper? Because from where I'm standing, I'm the man you love when it's easy and leave when it gets hard. And I'm done being that. I'm done being something you can put down and pick back up when you decide you want it again."
She presses her hand against my chest, and I remove it. Gently. Because if her skin stays on mine for one more second, I'll break.
"No. Harper."
I step back to create a distance. Put air between us that feels like a wall.
"We tried. We had our second chance. And second chances don't come around twice."
She lets out a sound. Not a word. Something underneath words. The sound of a heart actually breaking, and I shouldknow what it sounds like because mine is making the same noise.
"So if that's your final answer, then I'm sorry." I take a breath. The shakiest breath of my life. "I'm sorry I wasn't enough to make you stay. To make you choose me. To let me be the man who marries you."
"Please, Ace." She's sobbing now. Her whole body is folding in on itself. "Don't do this. Please let me come back to you. I promise I'll?—"
I hold up my hand. She stops.
"I needed you today, Goldie. I really needed you. Not for the championship. Not for the cameras. I needed you because I'm grieving a man who was a father to me when mine couldn't be, and I was about to climb onto the back of a bull that could have killed me, and all I wanted was a text. One text. To let me know you were okay."
My voice cracks. I let it.
"And where were you? Lying to your parents. Telling them you were sick. Lying to me. You couldn't even check in. Do you understand how crazy that sends me? Not knowing if you're safe? How much of my life have I built around loving you?"
I look at her. Really look at her. One last time.
"I didn't touch another woman in six years, Harper. Six goddamn years. Because you were all I could think about. Every night. Every morning. Every second in between. You were the only woman who existed in my world, and you weren't even in it."
Her hand slams over her mouth as she stumbles backward. The pain in her green eyes will haunt me forever. But we can’t keep doing this to each other. This has to end.
"I'll always love you, Harper Jones. Always. But I can't be with you. Not like this."
I walk toward the door. My legs move. My hand finds the handle. My body does the mechanical work of leaving because my mind has shut down, and my heart has stopped contributing, and all that's left is the muscle memory of a man who knows how to walk away from things that hurt, because the Sterling brothers learned that skill before they learned anything else.
"I'm sorry," she whispers behind me.
I stop. Don't turn around. If I turn around, I'm done. I'll let her marry someone else, and I'll sit in that house, and I'll wait, and it will kill me, but I'll do it because I can't exist in a world where I'm not loving Harper Jones.
But I can't exist in a world where loving her means watching her choose someone else.
"Yeah," I say. "So am I."
I open the door and step through, closing it behind me.
The hallway is dark. The house is quiet. Her mother is standing at the bottom of the stairs with her hand over her mouth and tears on her cheeks, because she heard everything, and the look she gives me is the worst thing I've seen today.
"I'm sorry, ma'am," I say as I pass.
She doesn't try to stop me. She just watches me walk through the front door of the house where Harper grew up. Where I used to sit on that porch and plan a future with her daughter. Where I was supposed to ask her father for permission one day.
I make it to the truck. Close the door. Sit in the dark.
Then I slam my fists against the dashboard. Over and over. Until my knuckles split and blood smears across the leather, and the pain in my hands finally matches the pain in my chest.
