Page 218 of Saving Forever with the Hockey Captain

“I look for you when I walk into a room. I think about what you’ll say when something happens. I hear a ridiculous joke and want to tell you because I know exactly how you’ll laugh.”

Emotion flickers across her face, but she looks away before I can read it fully. “This is exactly why I’m trying to create some distance.”

Her words hit like cold water. “You were trying to make me stop feeling that?”

“No.” She turns back to me, and the pain in her expression makes my anger disappear. “I was trying to make it easier.”

“For whom?”

She does not answer quickly enough.

“For you?” I ask.

“For both of us?”

“By pretending none of it matters?”

“I never pretended that.”

“You stopped talking to me.”

“Because every ordinary morning makes the ending harder.”

Her voice breaks on the last word.

***

Everything inside me goes quiet. This is not indifference. It never was. It’s fear. And somehow that hurts more, because fear can make people walk away from the things they want most.

I lower my voice. “What ending?”

“My role in your life.”

“That’s your decision?”

“No. It’s reality.”

“Not mine.”

Annette’s eyes shine, though she does not let the tears fall. “You’re going back to hockey.”

“Yes.”

“You’ve worked your whole life for this.”

“Yes.”

“You should be happy.”

“I am.”

“Then let it be enough.”

The words leave her gently, almost like a plea. I stare at her. “Enough?”

She swallows. “You’re getting your life back.”

“And you think there’s no room for you in it.”