“No. No, you don’t get to hold me right now. You don’t get to comfort me while you break my fucking heart.”
She stood, turning from me as her hands flew to her head. She paced three steps before coming right back at me, and the pain in her eyes did me in.
“I want to be here for you. I want to… to…”
“I know. I know, Em, I know but we… fuck, I can’t do this right now. I can’t. Ginny needs me. My parents need me. I have to get myself together and get back in time for the game. I…”
She nodded, biting her lower lip as she watched me struggle with the right words.
“We have to stop,” I croaked. “Maybe not forever. But right now, we can’t…”
“So I’m just supposed to wait?” She huffed, hands plopping against her thighs with a smack. “I’m just supposed to hold onto hope until, what? You go to another team? I get aged out of the squad? The franchise comes around by some miracle and realizes their no fraternization rule is fucking stupid?”
“I don’t expect you to wait.”
That killed all the fire in her, her eyes softening, brows furrowing. “So you’re telling me it’s over?”
No.
God, no.
It’s not over. It’ll never be over for me.
But I nodded instead, unable to look at her as I landed the final blow.
For a long moment she was silent, and then she was crying, and then she let out a muffled scream before she lowered into a deep squat right in front of me. She gave me no choice but to look at her, to face what I’d done.
“Not everything is black and white, Braden. You’ve spent your whole life putting everyone else before yourself. You’ve followed the rules, done the right thing, played it safe, and convinced yourself that sacrifice is the same thing as happiness. But it’s not.”
Her voice trembled, but she didn’t look away.
“I know you. I know how deeply you love your family, and I would never ask you to stop showing up for them. But this?” She gestured between us. “This isn’t you showing up for them. This is you abandoning yourself because it feels easier than sitting in the uncertainty.”
My heart squeezed painfully at the truth in her words.
“Your parents don’t want this for you,” she continued. “Ginny doesn’t want this for you. And no matter how impossible this feels right now, there is a way through it. There is light. But I can’t make you look for it. I can’t make you choose something different if you’re too scared to believe it’s possible.”
She stood then, grabbing her things with trembling hands.
“Your sister needs you right now,” she said more softly. “And I’m sorry if I made this harder. That was never my intention.”
Her eyes found mine again, and everything in me shattered.
“But when you love someone, you don’t just stand beside them. You tell them the truth, even when it hurts.”
She slid her jacket on, pulling her hair free before folding her arms tight across her chest.
“I’ll go. I’ll give you what you’re asking for.” She swallowed. “But only if you give me something.”
“Anything.”
Her gaze locked onto mine.
“I want you to be honest with yourself,” she said. “Not about what you should do. Not about what everyone else needs. About what you want. And I don’t want you to bury it under all the reasons you can’t have it. I don’t want you to dress it up as responsibility or sacrifice or duty. I want you to look at it for what it is.”
Her lips pressed together, a small, sad smile flickering.
“I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life. I’m not perfect. But I’ve never felt surer of who I am or where I’m going than I have with you.”
