Page 124 of Breakaway Hearts

“Without betraying her confidence, or telling me a story that isn’t yours to tell, if someone did want to date her…what would you say?”

“Are you asking for my permission?”

“No, that’s her choice and none of your business. But, like, for advice.”

“Good luck?”

“Thanks, asshole.”

“Look, you’re clearly doing better than I ever thought you would. I don’t like the funk she’s been in this week, or having to worry my captain will be the other team’s sixth player…but I do like the way you make her smile. How she’s making friends for the first time since we came to Wynchester. Other than don’t fucking hurt her or I’ll have absolutely no qualms about killing you…whatever you’re doing seems to be working. Or it was.”

“So just never want more.” I sigh, because it’s as much as I’d come up with on my own.

“See, I let her do her thing. I meet her where she’s at. But I also let her know when I’m doing things, to see if she wants to come. Nine times out of ten, she won’t, but then I’ll ask if she wants to come to team dinner, and she’ll surprise me by saying yes.”

“And regret it,” I point out, mostly to myself.

“If it was that bad, she would have told me so I could hurt you.”

“That easy?”

I shouldn’t have questioned him, because he looks at me like, ‘yeah, she tells me you looked at her funny and they’ll never find your body.’

“That easy,” he agrees.

Chapter Fifty

Madison

The point is to heal

“You’re early,” Dr. Kapoor points out when I’m outside his office at 7:30.

“Early bird gets the worm,” I say instead of admitting I’ve been conflicted and wrestling with myself for days, while also denying myself the one thing—or person—who was relieving my stress and making things better.

“This doesn’t mean you get more time, but we can start earlier if you need to,” he offers.

I want to tell him it’s fine, but we’re both here, and my whole body has been in fight or flight over how confusing it is when I spot Owen and hide when my instinct is to go to him.

We get set up in Dr. Kapoor’s office, his pad and pen at the ready…and I say nothing.

“How was your daughter’s recital?” I ask after a minute of awkward silence. Or I find it awkward, but he just looks at me calmly, waiting me out.

“Wonderful,” he says in that way where you won’t be distracted so easily, but nice try. “How are things with Jason’s teammate?”

He doesn’t have a gotchya! smile, but I know that’s what he’s thinking when my entire body reacts. I take a deep breath and go to lie, but this is therapy, the reason I made an appointment I showed up thirty minutes early to.

“Kind of too good to be true so everything falls apart, only it hasn’t happened yet, and it’ll all be my fault.”

“It’s not…”

“No, but it will be. Because I’m going to blow it up now, when things are good, which sucks, but I’d rather be the bitch who broke his heart for no reason than the shame on me fool who fell for it twice.”

“Things are going well, other than the impending doom?”

“No,” I say, but his inquisitive look has me admitting, “Yes, but I want things to stay the way they are, which they can’t if he wants us to be more, and we can’t be more, so I’m going to have to…end things,” I say instead of the ‘lose him’ that brings a ball to my throat, but Dr. Kapoor looks like he understands the subtext.

“And the reason you’re so afraid of falling is because…”