And I wanted him to stay with me.
I swallowed hard as our fellow dancers shifted toward the dressing room exit, ready to line the tunnel and cheer on the players. Before I could talk myself out of it, I pulled out my phone.
My thumbs hovered over the screen for a beat before I typed:
Thinking of you today. I hope Ginny is doing okay. No need to respond, I just know it must be hard to be here, and I want you to know you’re not alone.
I stared at it for half a second, my heart lodged high in my throat, and then hit send.
That was all I could give him now.
He was in a whirlwind, a tornado, a hurricane of uncertainty. I didn’t hate him for the words he’d said to me or the decision he couldn’t make right in that moment. He held more weight on his shoulders than I would ever understand. I was hurt, yes, but only because I knew what he couldn’t see yet.
That there was a way.
But for now, this was what I would give him. No pressure. No expectation. No asking him to choose me.
Just love.
Even if from a distance.
I tucked my phone away before I could obsess over it and followed the others down the tunnel.
The second we stepped into the roar of the stadium, everything in me shifted into autopilot.
Smile.
Hit the mark.
Count the beats.
Sell the performance.
My body knew exactly what to do even when my heart didn’t.
I smiled on cue, hit every count, and let instinct carry me where joy usually lived. I knew how to do this part.
I’d been performing my whole life.
The lights were blinding and familiar, the bass vibrating up through the soles of my boots as we took the field. The crowd thundered around us, a living thing, and somewhere in another life — maybe even just a few weeks ago — it would have been enough to make my heart soar.
Tonight, it just made me feel hollow.
Because even as I moved, even as muscle memory carried me through counts and transitions and formations, I kept noticing all the places he existed.
The sideline.
The bench.
The spot near the tunnel where he always seemed to end up after warmups.
The flash of his number in the corner of my vision would take me right out of my haze. Watching him catch the ball and run it down the field would have my heart in my throat every time. And even when he wasn’t in view, I felt him.
Everywhere I looked, there was some trace of him. Everything I felt inside urged me to him like a beacon calling me home.
At halftime, he jogged right past me into the tunnel, and just when I thought he’d ignore me, his eyes flicked up.
Right to mine.
