Chapter Thirty-Two
Emily
I’d been staring at my reflection since I was a little girl.
I remembered singing in the mirror with my parents before bedtime, the way we’d laugh and twirl until one of them picked me up in a fit of giggles and deposited me into my bed to sleep.
Then, there were the dance recitals, the way Mom would carefully fix my hair and makeup, and we’d have stars in our eyes when the full look was put together.
In high school, that reflection felt like an enemy. I was critical, scrutinizing every flaw, and that carried with me into college. That was when I started to feel resentment toward my reflection — that the young woman staring back at me wasn’t enough.
Ever since, I’d struggled with accepting the woman staring back at me. I’d tried to fit her into a box that would make my parents proud, that would make people understand who I was, that would help me be more palatable. Don’t be so loud, I’d say. Don’t be so crude with your jokes.
Don’t tell them how much you love dance.
Don’t admit how much you long to spend your life bringing others joy through dance.
Don’t stay anywhere too long — they might see right through you.
Now, I was staring at my reflection in a bustling dressing room full of NFL dancers.
My hair was curled and pinned to perfection, my makeup immaculate, eyes bright and edgy with the eyeliner and thick lashes that framed them.
My lips were a bright glossy red, my nails the same, and the uniform I’d worked so hard to have the privilege to wear hugged me like a glove.
I should have been ecstatic. I was finally cleared to dance again — even if it was at a reduced level. I wouldn’t be tumbling or doing any crazy hand-intensive moves, but I would be on the field with my brothers and sisters. I’d be dancing with thousands of eyes watching.
I’d be home.
But the problem was that somewhere along the way in this crazy season, I realized that home for me wasn’t on the field at all.
It was with Braden.
Home was the way he made me feel safe, the way he made space to listen to me when I was at my most vulnerable.
Home was how he laughed with me, how we lost hours in bed together, how my heart pitter-pattered every time I saw him.
Home was his smile and his big warm body encompassing mine.
It was the way he saw me for exactly who I was and said yes. I want that. I need that. Give me more.
I loved him.
I knew before I ever admitted it out loud, but now that I had, it was like a scar or a tattoo — permanent and noticeable, impossible to ignore.
And perhaps what I loved most was how he’d believed in me, seen what I wanted, what I needed, even before I realized it myself.
I blinked out of my daze, tearing my eyes from my glittery reflection to check my phone. There were no texts waiting for me, though I longed for one to come through.
He was here. I’d seen him arrive with the team, watched him file into the locker room. Our eyes had snagged on each other for the briefest, most heartbreaking second before he tore them away.
I had a feeling he’d be on the first plane out after this game wrapped up, heading back to Baltimore to be with Ginny.
My heart ached so fiercely in my chest that I rubbed my ribcage through my uniform, desperate to soothe it. I longed to be with him, to undo the words we shared in that cold hospital, to go back to the bliss we’d existed in before everything came crashing down.
I wanted to be with him.
But maybe even more, I wanted to be there for him.
I knew he was tearing himself into a million tiny pieces, torn between the love for his family and the love for me. He didn’t see a way for the two emotions to co-exist, not with the weight of responsibility he’d put on his shoulders.
And I couldn’t make him see it, either.
He knew where I stood. He knew how I felt.
All I could do now was hope he felt the same.
“Ow, ow, someone call the fire department,” Marcus said, sliding up behind me with a sly smirk as he took in my reflection. “You’re stunning, my love. Going to break some necks tonight.”
I tried my best to smile, but I knew by how his brows folded together that it was flat.
“Hey,” he said softly, dropping down into the empty dressing chair next to me. He pulled my hands into his lap. “You okay?”
I shook my head. “No. But I will be.”
He nodded, squeezing my hands. “He’ll come around.”
I shrugged. “Maybe. I hope so. But if he doesn’t…
it’s okay.” I inhaled a deep breath, and this time a smile did find my lips when I let it go.
“Whatever happens, I’m glad he came into my life.
I’m glad for what he gave me, for how he opened my eyes.
Sometimes people come to us for a season or a reason rather than for life. ”
My heart broke as I said it. I didn’t want to consider that we were really through. But I also meant what I’d said.
I was thankful for him, for the time we had. And if that was all we got, I’d be okay.
“You know what scares me the most?” I asked Marcus.
“That you’ll make a mistake tonight and the internet trolls will eat you alive?”
I puffed a laugh. “Please. I couldn’t care less what the faceless idiots online are saying about me.
They don’t know who I really am. No one does other than me.
” I paused, rolling my lips. “But no, what scares me the most is that for my entire adult life, I’ve never felt like I belonged anywhere.
I never stayed in one place too long, never stuck with any job too long.
But for the first time, I feel like I’m right where I’m supposed to be. In Seattle. With him.”
I pressed a hand over my chest again, wincing.
“God, it fucking hurts. Being in love. Why does anyone do this shit?”
Marcus barked out a laugh. “Trust me. I’ve been asking myself the same.”
“How’s it going with your secret beau, anyway?”
Marcus smiled at that. “Incredible. And heartbreaking, too. I love our time together, but it’s hard, you know? Not being able to meet his friends, him not being able to meet my family. It’s worth it, and I do believe it won’t be forever, but… it’s still hard.”
I nodded. “Marcus?”
“Mm?”
“Would you hate me if I left the team after this season?”
He tilted his head, surprising me by not being surprised at all. “I could never hate you. But I’d miss you.” He squeezed my hand. “You have something else in mind, don’t you.”
I nodded, smiling.
“This have anything to do with that whole teaching seed Braden planted in your mind?”
“Maybe.”
“Then I think it’s a perfect fit. And anyone who gets to learn from you is lucky.”
“And if I’m not on the team…”
“Then there’s no reason you and Braden can’t be together.”
I nodded. “I told him that, you know. I said I’d quit.
He, of course, was hell bent against it.
Doesn’t want to let me walk away from something I worked so hard for.
” I shook my head, eyes glazing as I thought about the pained way he held me in that hospital.
“But what he doesn’t get is what it’s taken me all season to figure out.
This team, this opportunity… it wasn’t the destination for me.
It was the vehicle. You know? It was the path that led to what I really want to do, to where I really want to be. ”
I wet my lips, smiling as it all became so clear.
“That interview went viral because I was talking passionately about something I believed in. And sure, it came with a downside — the bad publicity, the chastising from Claire, crazies on the Internet. But it also came with so much clarity. I saw myself in a different light — as a leader, as someone not just asking for change but demanding it and making it happen.”
“And if you owned your own studio, if you could start with dancers at the beginning of their journey…”
“I could make real change.” I lit up at the thought, my chest fluttering. “And I’d be in the community, showing what’s possible when one of us stands up and does things differently.”
Marcus smiled. “I think you’re right. Braden did come into your life for a reason.”
I squeezed his hand, and then he pulled me into a hug, one that Darcy jumped in on at the last moment.
“We get to dance together again!” She squealed with delight. “Come on. Let’s take some selfies before line up.”
Darcy tugged us both into frame, and I pasted on a smile for the camera, angling my face just right while Marcus threw up a peace sign and kissed my cheek.
To anyone looking at the photo later, we’d look exactly like we were supposed to. Glittering. Happy. Electric.
But the second Darcy dropped her phone and we started toward lineup, that ache in my chest returned with a vengeance.
It was one thing to finally understand what I wanted.
It was another thing entirely to realize how much it terrified me.
Because Marcus was right — and so was I.
For my entire life, I’d kept one foot out the door. Whether it was a job, a city, a relationship, even my own dreams… I’d never fully been in any of it.
I had always known how to leave.
I knew how to tell myself not to get too attached, not to need too much, not to build a life around anything that could be taken from me.
And now, somehow, I had done the one thing I’d spent years trying not to do.
I had rooted myself.
In Seattle. In a version of my future that finally felt right.
In a life that suddenly looked less like proving something, and more like living it.
And worst of all, maybe, I had rooted myself in him.
In Braden.
The man who had let me all the way in just to step back when I finally stopped pretending I didn’t want to stay.
Maybe it was my own doing, the way I’d pretended like it was so casual. I’d acted like I hadn’t felt that connection between us from the start, like I hadn’t longed for his friendship just as much as I’d longed for that first physical connection.
It’s just a little fun, I’d sworn. It’s just a sexy little bucket list.
But I’d known better. I’d felt an inescapable pull to him, like the universe realized well before I did that he was the one I’d been on this long and drawn-out journey to all along.
Finally, she’s found him.
Finally, she can stop running.
That was the part that made fear curl icy fingers around my spine.
Not just that I loved him.
But that I loved him enough to imagine a life around him, enough to realize I didn’t want to keep drifting through my own life anymore, pretending movement was freedom when really, most of the time, it had just been avoidance.
I wanted to stay.
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.
Time slowed, the background of the stadium blurring behind him. The pain in his gaze gutted me, and when he hesitated, when his gait slowed just enough for me to notice, I wondered if he wanted to run to me.
I wondered if he’d say fuck it and do just that.
But it was only a moment, a split second in time before he was tearing his gaze away and jogging into the locker room.
It took everything in me not to watch him too closely for the rest of the game.
Not to search his face for something.
Not to wonder if he was watching me.
Not to hope.
By the fourth quarter, I felt like I was floating outside my own body.
And by the time the final whistle blew, I knew one thing with painful, perfect clarity.
I couldn’t keep doing this to myself.
I couldn’t keep standing in the middle of my own life waiting for someone else to tell me whether I got to have it.
I couldn’t chase him.
I couldn’t make this easier for him.
I couldn’t solve the war inside him any more than I could dance my way out of my own heartbreak.
But I also couldn’t lie to myself anymore.
I wanted roots.
I wanted purpose.
I wanted a life that felt like mine when I woke up inside it.
And God help me, I wanted love, too.
Real love.
The kind that stayed even when life made it complicated.
I didn’t know if Braden and I would ever find our way back to each other.
I didn’t know if this team and this season had been our whole story, or just the beginning.
But for the first time in my life, I wasn’t afraid of what I wanted just because wanting it hurt.
And when I stared at my reflection later that night, smoothing a wipe over my skin to remove the makeup, I smiled.
For once, I didn’t see someone I needed to fix, shrink, or figure out.
I just saw me.
And she was enough.