TWENTY-EIGHT
CHASE
MAMA: Leanna’s landlord will be waiting for you this morning.
MAMA: I love you, Chase. Please don’t forget that!
CHASE: Mama, what’s going on? You don’t text!
MAMA: I do when it’s important and you don’t answer your phone.
CHASE: Mama just sent me a message.
DYLAN: She got Madison to show her how.
JAKE: Jeez, she must be worried. You OK?
CHASE: Yeah. Serena is here. It’s weird. Not sure how I feel to be honest.
JAKE: Don’t go blaming yourself for stuff you had no control over. You do that on the field and it’s dumb.
CHASE: Is that your pep talk?
JAKE: More like a big brother threatening to kick your ass for being stupid.
DYLAN: Make that two of us!
I throw the truck into park and we climb out onto a run-down street. The air is heavy with exhaust fumes and the faint tang of something fried from a fast-food place down the block. The sidewalk is damp from last night’s rain and there’s litter in the gutters. The apartment block in front of us is dull concrete with peeling window frames and a metal door at the entrance. There’s a chill to the air as I step around the hood of my truck. Beside me, Serena pulls her jacket tight around her. I follow her gaze to the sky, where low-hanging clouds stretch in a blanket of gray.
“They’re not going to rain,” she says before I can ask. “Just brooding.”
A squat man with thick, red hair and a windbreaker several sizes too large waves at us from the entrance to the building. “Chase Sullivan, I’m Kenny,” he says as we approach, holding out his hand for me to shake and speaking like he’s halfway through a conversation I didn’t know we were having. “I meet all sorts in my job, and I take people as they are. But if I’m honest, I didn’t believe Leanna when she said she was your mother. I thought it was a harmless fantasy, but here you are in the flesh. The famous quarterback for the Denver Stormhawks. It’s a real pleasure to meet you.”
I force a polite nod as I grip his hand, trying not to let it show how much his words have affected me. I never imagined Leanna telling people about me.
The entrance door is stiff, and it takes a firm yank before it’s open and Kenny is leading us up a narrow flight of stairs that creak underfoot. “I left some boxes in there for you,” he says, stopping at a door on the second floor. “I’ve got a meeting down the street. I’ll leave you to it. Take your time.” He hands Serena the key and heads off without waiting for a reply.
Serena glances at me, a question in her eyes. She’s asking me if I’m ready for this. I’m not. The apartment is small but clean, and nicer than I expected based on the outside. Sunlight slants through half-closed blinds, dust motes dancing in the air. There are fresh white walls, a worn, comfortable-looking couch, a bookshelf with mismatched spines and carefully arranged photo frames. There are plants on the windowsill. It’s clear, someone cared for this space. The ache in my chest is sudden and unwelcome.
I move to look at the photo frames on the bookshelf. The last face I expect to find staring back is my own. But there I am, in every photo. The first six are from when I was little, before Leanna left me with Mama. A swaddled baby, a laughing infant sitting in a pram. Then a jump forward in time to photos from a local Denver newspaper, detailing a high school win. Then photos of me playing college football. Professional shots taken on media day. Me holding up the white jersey when I was drafted to the Kansas City Trailblazers. The final photo is from last year, me in my red Stormhawks jersey. Every single photo is framed in a simple light wood and clean. No layer of dust.
On the bottom shelf are thick albums. I slide one out, expecting to find a clue as to who my mom was, what she did with her time after she left me. But what I find is a scrapbook. Dozens of pages filled with newspaper clippings, printed screenshots, photos of me at every stage of my career, all neatly cut out and stuck down. There’s even a blurry shot of me from the sideline of a college game, the caption clipped from a local blog. My name highlighted in yellow. Pieces about me I didn’t even know existed. I pull out the next album. And the next. They’re all the same.
“Wow,” Serena says softly behind me. “That’s a lot of you.”
My jaw is tight; my chest feels like it’s caving in. “I don’t get it. Why has she collected all this stuff about me?”
“She was your mom. Maybe this was her way of feeling connected to you,” Serena replies softly.
“But she never came back,” I choke. “If she loved me…” I can’t finish the sentence. Can’t explain. I yank out the next scrapbook and the next. This doesn’t make sense.
Serena rests a hand on my arm. “We can never know what goes on inside someone’s head. It seems to me that she never stopped loving you. But maybe she felt you were better off without her.”
Tears burn my eyes, but I won’t let them fall for a woman who abandoned me when I needed her the most. A woman I didn’t know. Who never tried, not once, to pick up the phone or write a letter, or come see me. “I didn’t get a choice. She didn’t give me a choice.”
The pain is too much. I shut the album and shove it into one of the cardboard boxes, shoving my feelings down at the same time. “Let’s pack up. I want to get back to Denver tonight.”
An hour later, the apartment is empty. Everything boxed up and loaded in the bed of my truck. We hand the key back to Kenny and hit the highway. Farmland stretches out in every direction, the fields waiting for the next harvest to be planted. All I see is the asphalt rolling out ahead of me. All I can think about is a woman who left her two-year-old son without looking back. I thought it meant she didn’t love me. The truth I’ve packed into cardboard boxes is far worse: My mom loved me, and she still chose to leave and never come back.
Denver city lights blur around the edges as I park the truck outside Serena’s apartment block. It’s late and the weight of the day is pressing down on my shoulders, festering in the pit of my stomach. My muscles ache from the long drive, and the rest of me is a mess. Serena stirs as I kill the engine, blinking sleep from her eyes as she realizes where we are. Confusion flickers across her face. It took me two hours to realize what I had to do, another seven to find the nerve.
“I got a handyman to fix your door,” I say before she can ask. “It’s safe. And I messaged Liv. She’s home.”
She doesn’t respond. We both know the damaged hinge and concern for her safety aren’t the reason she’s confused right now. The plan this morning was to drive back to the ranch with Leanna’s things. That’s still the plan, just not with Serena. Her eyes meet mine like she’s searching for more behind my words.
“Are you coming up?” she asks at last.
I shake my head and climb out, reaching into the back for her overnight bag. The cold night air is a welcome relief on my skin. I’m suddenly more alert, more determined to do what’s right, even if it feels all kinds of wrong. I move around the hood to open her door.
“I don’t want to leave you on your own,” she says as she joins me on the sidewalk and takes her bag from me, hooking it over one shoulder. In the orange glow of the streetlights, makeup free and hair tied in a simple ponytail, I see the younger version of Serena. The high school cheerleader who would bring me snacks after practice because she knew how grumpy I got if I didn’t eat. The girl who made sure I turned up to my classes and handed in my homework on time. Her friendship has been a steady rock I’ve never once doubted.
All I want to do is wrap her into me and allow her to fill the hollow void inside me. But I shut the thought down. I can’t think about all that we are, all we’ve been through. Friends and then fake dating and then the line we crossed that felt like coming home. None of that matters anymore. I can only think about the future.
I force myself to meet her eyes. This is it. The words that have haunted every mile back from the outskirts of Oklahoma finally spill from my mouth.
“I’m sorry, Serena, but I can’t be with you.”
The hurt on her face, in those blue eyes, is instant. I press on before she can ask what I mean or try to coax me upstairs to talk. I know if I cross the threshold of her apartment, if I sit on her couch and let her comfort me, I’ll never leave. And that wouldn’t be fair on either of us.
I push on. “I said all along you deserved someone who could give you everything you want. It’s why in all these years, I never considered crossing the line of our friendship. Because I’m broken and I can’t be fixed, and I can’t be the man you want me to be.”
“I don’t get why you think you’re not good enough,” she cuts in. It’s a gut punch to hear the tremor in her voice. “You know me. You get me. You and I—we like the same things. We laugh at the same lame jokes. You treat me better than anyone has ever treated me. So you might not think I deserve this, but that’s not a decision you get to make on your own. I get to choose you, too.”
And damn I know she’s right, but there’s more I have to say. I thought maybe I could prove myself wrong. That I could be the man Serena sees when she looks at me. But Leanna’s death is the universe doubling down on the truth I’ve always known: I was never meant to have a family of my own.
Serena draws in a deep shuddering breath, getting there before I can find the words. “You’re grieving,” she says, stepping closer, taking my hand in hers. I hate how perfectly it fits. “You’re pushing me away and that’s OK. If you need to do that right now, I get it. I’ll still be here, Chase. Whatever else this is between us, I’m still your best friend. I will always be your best friend. So give me a call when you’re ready to talk again.” She swallows, and I watch the emotion fight to break free on her face. “Being with you has made me realize that I never want to be with anyone else. You’re my one, Chase. You always have been, and I’m done pretending. So you go do what you need to do. I’ll wait.”
Her words feel like a thousand paper cuts slicing through my insides, and I know she means every word, but it’s not enough to change my mind. I go for the killing blow. The one thing I know will destroy us. The one thing Serena can’t argue with me about.
“I don’t want children, Serena.” I shake my head, swallowing down my pain. “I’m not cut out to be a father. I don’t want history repeating itself and, if I learned anything today, it’s that loving someone isn’t enough. I’d screw it up. I’d screw us up. And I love you too much to do that to you.”
Her expression stills. The hope flickers.
“I love you,” I continue, squeezing her hand. “You’re my best friend. And the last few days, the last few months—what we’ve had, it’s been… amazing.”
“Then let’s carry on,” she whispers.
I shake my head. “We’re only delaying the inevitable. You want a family and I don’t. Which means we need to walk away from this now before we fall any deeper.”
Her breath hitches. I can see her trying to convince herself she can let that dream go. That maybe the love she feels for me is enough for her to turn her back on her dream of toys in the yard and giggling children. But it isn’t. We both know it. I would never let her make that choice. It’s who she is.
And me? My biological dad walked away before I was born. My mom stuck it out for two years before doing the same. And no amount of love from Mama and Dad and Dylan and Jake, and all the happy memories at Oakwood Ranch from my childhood and teens, are enough to erase what’s in my DNA.
I force myself to look at Serena, and I see everything I could have had. Everything I can’t allow myself to take. I have to break the cycle.
“You’re nothing like your biological parents,” she says fiercely, tears shining in her eyes. “You love so hard, Chase. You love with your whole heart. You’ve always been there for the people you care about. You’ve never walked away when someone needs you.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t do a damn thing to find my mom, did I? One letter that got sent back. Hardly trying, is it? Now it’s too late. I’ll never know why she gave me up. Or why she thought loving me from afar was the best thing for me.” Serena tries to speak again, but I stop her. “I love you too much to hurt you. So I’m ending it before I do.”
Silence stretches between us. We both know this is hurting like hell already. Finally, she nods. Just once. Tears streak down her cheeks, but she turns away and starts walking toward her apartment building. My throat is thick as I climb back into my truck and wait for her to disappear into her apartment building. Then I drive away.
Pain sits like a rock on my chest. Why does doing the right thing feel so damn hard? But it is the right thing, I tell myself. Maybe I’d started to believe I had old wounds I needed to heal. But I was wrong. My past has wired me differently. It’s not a wound. It’s just who I am. No one, not even Serena with her love and her big laugh and the way she cares for me, not even she can change that.
This feeling. This pain. This sick awful dread in the pit of my stomach is worth living with if it means I’ve saved Serena a future of the same. Loving someone isn’t enough. I can’t forget that.