Chapter 23
“Ezra?” Truett slowly pronounces my name like he’s moments away from losing it. “Your mom didn’t know where you were. You texted me you weren’t feeling well, but it looks to me like you’re drunk off your ass and ignoring me.”
I flinch and look down at the raw, irritated outline of the tattoo Damien had been in the middle of.
It’s a sketch I drew of a sharpened dagger, tall and regal.
Coiled around the blade is a dragon, his eyes burning with undefined purpose.
It’s a piece I’ve been wanting for a while, but hadn’t committed on a spot…
until today. I needed to feel the red-hot pain of a needle to distract myself from the whirlwind of emotions warring inside me.
That pain I can handle, but all the shit just thrown at me? I feel like I’m drowning. Which is why I numbed more of the pain with alcohol, even if Damien said it was a bad idea. The sober part of me knew it was, but I didn’t want to be sober. It hurt too damn much.
Truett looks at me expectantly, and for a moment, I forgot what he said. Slowly, his words come back to me. “You spoke to my mom?” I run a hand through my hair.
Truett purses his lips together. The hurt and judgment in his eyes slice through me, hurting more than the tattoo needle from earlier. It’s the genuine disappointment on his face that fucks me up. I don’t like disappointing him, but it seems to be a theme in my life currently.
Not able to make enough at the alley to pay bills.
Not upholding my father’s legacy.
Focusing on my dreams, rather than the very real reality in which I live.
Just add Truett to the list of people I’ve let down.
“You’re drunk,” he says again as if I’ve suddenly forgotten. I watch the light die in Truett’s eyes. He says nothing more; he just stands there, like he’s trying to hold himself together with nothing but the pieces I just smashed.
The regret is instant, sharp, but I don’t reach for him. I can’t. I don’t deserve to. He deserves better.
Maybe it’s better if he lets me go. Maybe it’s better if he never looks at me like that again. Maybe he needs to hate me as much as I hate myself for getting my hopes up.
“Can we talk? Please.” His voice is quiet, missing the vibrancy he normally possesses. It only serves to drive the dagger deeper.
I should say no. But I can’t do that to Truett. He deserves some sort of an explanation. I would have liked to do his sober, but here we are. “Alley,” I slur, feeling lightheaded.
Truett follows me out the door, and we walk in silence to Spare Time.
The alley is closed today—another shitty decision on my part because I need the money, but I just don’t have the energy to keep it open today.
The front door opens with a turn of my key, and I step inside, letting it close behind Truett.
“So?” he asks once we’re alone. “Care to tell me why I found my boyfriend drunk and getting tattooed in the middle of a work day?”
I ignore the word “boyfriend.” Not because I don’t like the title, but because I like it too much.
Like him too much. But liking him jeopardizes everything.
I was once foolish enough to think we could be something, despite the rules USBC laid out for us.
But now? I can’t screw up yet another thing, especially when I no longer have a safety net to fall back on.
Instinctively, I fold my arms across my chest, a barrier between us that says more than words ever could. Truett notices. His mouth tightens, and after a beat of painful silence, he steps back, giving me the space I silently demand.
Fuck, I’m an asshole. The biggest fucking jerk for breaking his heart.
“Ezzie, baby, what’s going on? Your mother and I are worried about you.
” The pain in his voice cuts deeper than before.
His anger, I can handle and match with my own.
But this? This fucking sucks. Seeing the man who is starting to mean more to me than anything in this world in so much pain because of me is the worst kind of punishment.
Truett deserves better than this.
I should have never let it go so far.
But he deserves the truth. An explanation. It won’t change anything, but maybe he’ll understand why I have to break our hearts.
“I can’t do this anymore, True,” I whisper, and like a weak man, I can’t meet his gaze. I don’t want to see the pain and hurt I’m causing him. Feeling it is enough.
“What do you mean?” His voice is thick with emotion. It sounds like he knows exactly what I mean, but he’s going to make me say it.
Every part of me wants to go back to the bubble we lived in this weekend. Back when I thought I had a say in my life. Back when I could allow myself to fall in love with the one man who has done nothing but support me and Spare Time since the beginning. A man who will haunt all of my dreams.
“Today when I got back to the alley, there was a foreclosure notice on the door,” I finally say, looking up just in time to see Truett’s eyes widen.
“It freaked me out. So, I called my mom and asked her about it. She admitted we are three months behind on the mortgage, and she didn’t want to tell me because she didn’t want me to worry.
She also didn’t want me spending the money meant to renovate the alley on bills. ”
“Okay, yeah, that’s pretty bad. But we can fix this. I just got—”
“It’s already been paid, True.”
“But… how…” Truett’s voice trails off, but I see it—the moment the truth hits him.
His expression twists in slow-motion horror, eyes widening even more as the pieces fall into place.
“No.” He shakes his head, like he can undo it, like he can will the truth into being something else.
“Please tell me you didn’t—” His voice cracks.
There are tears in his eyes, which he furiously tries to blink away.
“Tell me you didn’t use the tattoo money you’ve been saving for years to cover the delinquent payments. ”
I don’t need to speak because he can see the answer all over my face.
His breath leaves him like I punched it out of his chest. And for a second, he just stands there, staring at me like I broke something sacred.
Because I did.
“I had no choice, Truett,” I break the silence. I couldn’t stand it any longer. “I can’t lose this alley.”
“You can’t lose out on your dream either, Ezzie!”
“What the fuck do you want me to do?” I snap, my anger bursting out of me.
Anger at my mom for keeping this from me.
Anger at my dad for fucking dying and leaving this shitty alley for me to run.
And anger at myself for hurting him. For hurting everyone in my damn life because I can’t seem to get my shit together.
“This is the one thing my parents had. The one thing my father left for me. Losing it will devastate my mother. I can’t do that to her.
I won’t do that to her. My focus has been elsewhere, and I should have been checking in on the finances more.
This is my life, Truett. I don’t get to choose a different one. ”
“But you can. It doesn’t have to be one thing or the other.
You can have both things! I can help you, Ezra.
Let me help pay,” Truett urges, but I don’t want to listen to him, and there’s no way in hell I’m taking a handout from him.
I’m already destroying his heart; I don’t need to take more from him.
“I don’t want your money, Truett. You might have the opportunity to choose a different path, but I don’t. This is my family’s livelihood. What they built for me. My place is and will always be here.”
“But—”
“I don’t want to hear fucking judgment from someone who can’t even tell their own father they hate being a professional bowler!
” I snap, hating the cruel words as soon as I say them.
But I can’t stop. Even when I see the first tear fall down Truett’s cheek.
“It’s not so easy leaving the family legacy, is it? ”
“Ezra—”
“Is it!?” I scream, my voice reverberating around the entire alley.
Truett’s lower lip trembles. “No,” he admits in a whisper so soft I barely hear him.
“That’s why I have to focus on making the alley the best it can be for the tournament. If I don’t get that money, Truett, I…” I shake my head, not wanting to think of that possibility. One problem at a time.
“Please, let me help you.” Despite everything, Truett still wants to help me. The guy who is breaking up with him. The world—but mostly me—doesn’t deserve Truett Thorne.
“You can help me by staying away. Why don’t you just go finalize your registration with the USBC Championship?
Your daddy is going to make you compete anyway.
You can’t say no to him, and I can’t let whatever this relationship is jeopardize the alley’s chances of being chosen.
We need to face reality here, Truett. You are a professional bowler.
Stop thinking you actually care about some small-town alley. Get real for once in your life.”
My words are the final nail in the coffin, hitting their mark perfectly. My eyes sting with unshed tears, which I blink away. Crying won’t serve me now. And I fear breaking down will only make me beg for Truett’s forgiveness.
I don’t want to do this, True. I care about you too much. I think I’m in love with you.
But I don’t speak the words. I need him to hate me.
For him to leave. Because the reality of the situation is, even after the tournament, my life still will be tied to the alley.
Truett will push me to chase my dreams, but I can’t do that.
I need to provide for my family. For my mother, who loves this alley, and for my father, who saw a future for me here.
I no longer have my savings as backup, so I have to put all my focus into the alley.
Truett was born to shine—bright and bold. He was made to be seen. And me? I’m afraid I’ll dim that light just by standing too close. That one day, the weight of me will wear him down until all that brightness fades into resentment. I can’t let that happen. I won’t be the reason he loses himself.
Truett’s jaw clenches, and he balls his fists at his side. “So that’s it?”
“That’s it,” I say.
Truett takes a step forward, and my body locks up.
This close, I can see all the anger and pain in his eyes.
“I know you’re pushing me away, Ezra,” he says, making me stiffen.
“And you know what? Fine. I’ll go. If that’s what you want, I’ll go.
But know this. You are so much more than this alley.
I’ll never know why you limit yourself, and maybe I’m not supposed to.
But I hope one day—” his voice breaks, and my instinct is to comfort him.
But I can’t. Not when I’m the one hurting him.
“But I hope one day you realize you are allowed to walk a different path than the one people expect of you. And I truly hope you will. You’ll be a great tattoo artist. I just wish I could be part of that.”
“Truett…” His name leaves my mouth laced with regret, heavy and bitter, like I’ve just torn something I can never put back together.
I don’t mean to reach for him, but I do—reflexively, desperately. He’s already pulling away. His warmth vanishes before I can touch him, and all that’s left is air and silence.
Then he turns his back to me.
And that—that—is what breaks me.
Because no matter how loud my heart screams, I know I’ve already lost him.
“Goodbye, Ezra. I…”
His voice cracks, barely a whisper, like the rest of the sentence hurts too much to say. He just shakes his head slowly, defeated, and turns away.
Then he walks out the door without looking back. Not even once. The click of it closing behind him feels final. Like a period at the end of a chapter I wasn’t ready to finish. Or a play missing the last act.
And then I’m alone.
The weight of it hits all at once. The grief I’ve been trying to outrun slams into me like a tidal wave, and I break completely.
I don’t cry. I collapse.
Every part of me unravels in the echo of his absence. I sink into a darkness I haven’t felt in a long time, the kind that swallows everything.
The kind I don’t think I can crawl out of.