31. Timothy
Chapter thirty-one
Timothy
Bethany’s truck disappears between the trees.
I keep standing in the doorway.
Cold air pushes past me into the boot room, but I do not move to shut the door. The sound of her engine fades until there is nothing left except the wind and the low hum of the lodge behind me.
She left.
I told her to take it all, and she left.
“Tim.”
Shane’s voice comes from behind me.
I close the door.
The latch catches with a clean, solid click.
When I turn around, all four guys are standing in various stages of pretending they were not listening.
Wesley has one hand inside a bag of chips.
Jonah is holding a controller with no television on.
Maxon leans against the wall, arms crossed.
Shane is standing directly in my path.
I walk past them.
“Good meeting?” Wesley asks.
Jonah elbows him.
“What?” Wesley mutters. “We’re all thinking it.”
I head for the kitchen.
The floor is clean. No more water bowl or puppy spills.
She removed every trace of the puppy except the part still stuck under my ribs.
I open a cabinet.
I do not know what I am looking for.
The mugs stare back at me.
I close it.
Behind me, someone shifts.
“If one of you asks how I’m doing,” I say, “I’m moving out.”
“And what? Move back in with your parents?” Jonah asks.
“Then I’m moving into the woods.”
“You’d last six hours,” Shane says.
I grip the edge of the counter.
The kitchen still smells faintly like the cleaner Bethany uses on the stone. The room feels stripped down like it's missing the important bits.
“You all heard.” It comes out rough.
“We heard shouting.”
“Congratulations. You have the highlights.”
Jonah lowers himself into a chair.
“Where’s Bethany?”
I look at him.
He winces. “Right. Dumb question.”
“She left.”
The words do not sound real.
She left because I told her to.
No.
She left because this was already broken.
Because she made decisions without me.
Because I kept pretending silence counted as support.
Because the puppy was never ours to keep, and somehow I let myself believe he was.
Because Bethany was never mine either.
The thought hits hard enough that my hand slips on the counter.
I push away from it.
Shane watches me too closely.
“Where’s the dog?” Maxon asks.
“Gone.”
The word comes out sharper than he deserves.
I drag a hand over my face.
“He has a home.”
“A good one?” Jonah asks.
“The best one, probably.”
That is part of the problem. There is nothing to fight. No bad conditions. No reason to demand Bethany bring him back. She solved it perfectly.
The dog is safe.
Bethany protected her business.
Everything practical is lined up exactly where it belongs.
Only the rest of us are wrecked.
The truth is, I got attached to the dog. To the sound of claws in the hallway. To him waiting outside the bathroom.
But more than that, I got attached to Bethany sitting in her truck, laughing with her hand in mine.
To the whole stupid picture.
Dog between us.
Supplies in the back seat.
Some temporary version of a life that felt real enough to make me forget it had an expiration date.
“I just wish I could have said goodbye.”
Because the dog will be better off without me. And so will Bethany.
Bethany should take opportunities that make her life better.
She should have stability.
Respect.
A future not built around cleaning up after five hockey players in a lodge under legal dispute.
She should not stay because I made one promise when I was sixteen and kissed her years later.
If being with me makes her choices smaller, then the breakup was right.
That logic is clean.
Reasonable.
It does make it easier.
“Bethany shouldn’t build her life around this place,” I say.
Jonah looks around the kitchen. “Why not?”
“Because it’s temporary.”
The lodge. The team. My career. The puppy. Bethany.
Shane’s expression changes first.
“Temporary doesn’t mean meaningless.”
“I didn’t say it did.”
“You’re acting like it.”
“I am not.”
I grip the back of a chair. “This had to happen.”
Maxon’s forehead creases.
“The breakup?”
“Yes.”
The word hurts.
But it's true. Because what was the alternative?
Keep going until Bethany resented me for making her stay?
Wait for her to accept the job and spend every day wondering if she was relieved to get away?
Pretend I did not hear her hesitation when I asked whether we were still talking about the dog?
She could not answer.
That was an answer.
I walk toward the rec room.
The guys follow.
Of course they do.
The puppy’s stuffed rope toy lies half beneath the couch.
I stop.
Bethany must have missed it.
Or the puppy hid it there.
I bend and pull it free.
Blue rope, frayed at one end.
Bethany said that feelings do not change facts.
The fact is the puppy could not stay.
The fact is Bethany built a life before me.
The fact is I am a sidelined defenseman living under team supervision in a house that does not belong to me.
Wanting her does not make any of that disappear.
Nothing about this is better.
It is only necessary.
There is a difference.
Shane finally moves into the room.
“Sorry, man.”
I lean forward, elbows on my knees.
The rope toy dangles between them.
Outside, an engine passes on the road.
For one stupid second, my head lifts.
Not Bethany.
Of course not.
She is gone.
I told her we needed space.
She agreed.
This is what space looks like.
I stand abruptly. “I’m going to bed.”
“It’s seven-thirty,” Wesley says.
“Then I’m going to bed early.”
I carry the rope toy upstairs.
Inside my room, I sit on the bed.
For four nights, the puppy curled against my chest.
Tonight, there is nothing there.
No warm weight.
No restless paws.
No Bethany texting to ask whether he ate or whether I remembered his medication.
I pick up my phone.
Her name is near the top of my messages.
I stare at it until the screen dims.
Then I set the phone facedown.
The breakup was what had to happen.
If I call now, I will only make it harder for her to leave.
Harder for me to let her.
I lie back without changing clothes.
The rope toy rests on the pillow beside me.
This is the right decision.
I repeat it into the dark.
It does not sound any truer the second time.