Journal Entry
Kyle
Dr. Shah keeps telling me to notice the moments when the line between pretend and real disappears. Tonight, there was no line.
I am supposed to be sleeping. The clock on my phone says it is way past reasonable, but my head is still in that ballroom, on that dance floor, in that car outside her building.
My body is exhausted and wired at the same time, like I played three overtimes in a row and still have to lace up for one more period.
My hand still remembers the shape of hers.
On the carpet, on the dance floor, in front of Bennett, her fingers locked with mine like it was the most natural thing in the world.
That’s the part that won’t let me go. It didn’t even feel a little like pretending.
It felt like something my body had been waiting for since the day she walked into the rink with that clipboard and those careful eyes.
Tonight, I got to hold her like I already belonged there. And then, in a hallway that smelled like hotel cleaner and money, I had to watch her walk away from it in real time.
I can still feel the exact second she started to pull back. One minute, my thumb was tracing lazy circles along the inside of her hand, every muscle in me finally unclenching after hours under the lights. The next, our fingers were sliding apart as if she was peeling herself away piece by piece.
I knew it was happening before she said a word. That is the worst part. My body felt the tiny shifts in her posture and how her breathing went thin while she said she was fine. I knew she was running before she turned it into words. I just didn’t know she was running from me.
I can still hear her voice in that hallway, begging me not to be kind to her because she wouldn’t survive it right now.
As if my kindness is dangerous. I know she didn't mean it like that, but it landed right in the center of my chest. I have taken hits from defensemen twice my size that hurt less than hearing her say she would not survive me being good to her.
The thing is, tonight was the best version of me I know how to be.
I didn’t pick a fight with Bennett. I pushed back enough to make him feel small without blowing up her night.
I let her lead when every part of me wanted to stand in front of her and block the shots.
I held her hand and kept my temper on a leash.
I danced with her and didn’t ask for anything more than the weight of her palm in mine.
And at the end of all of that, she looked me in the face and told me it couldn’t mean anything.
My chest tightens just writing it down. My hand shakes a little. I did not know words could feel like someone reaching inside your ribcage and rearranging everything without anesthesia.
For some reason, I asked her if I misread tonight. I don’t know why, because my whole body already knew the answer. She told me I didn’t, that I was right, and what I felt was real, that she felt it, too. Then she cut the legs out from under it in the same breath.
None of it can matter.
How do you hold both of those things at once in your body? That it was real, but it’s not allowed to matter. That it meant something but that it has to be treated like it didn’t.
I keep replaying the way the city slid by outside while everything inside me was coming apart. The way she folded her hands in her lap so she would not reach for me. The way her voice shook when she kept insisting she had to walk away from this to protect her future.
I know she’s right about some of it. I’m not stupid.
The double standard is real. The way people talk about women in her position is cruel and ugly.
If anyone decides she chose a man over her career, they’ll crucify her for it.
They’ll question every promotion, every decision, every success she has ever had.
They will say she earned it in the worst possible ways.
They won’t say that about me. I’m passionate.
I get carried away, care too much, and should rein it in.
Then they’ll forgive me. They always do, but she’ll have to pay the price.
But knowing that does not make any of this hurt less.
She said she can’t afford to want something she can’t keep, not even me.
That one sits like a heavy stone in my stomach.
Not because I doubt the truth of it, but because of how much I recognize myself in it.
I grew up being told not to want things I hadn’t earned yet.
Ice time. Autonomy. Breathing room. I learned early to swallow want before it goes you labeled as selfish.
Listening to her choke on those same lessons in a different language broke something open in me that I don’t know how to close again.
Tonight, I watched her do the hardest thing I have ever seen her do. She walked away because she felt too much. That’s the part that keeps stabbing me repeatedly in the same spot.
If she had looked me in the eye and said, You misread it, I’d have believed her.
I would have let her have that lie if it made this easier for her.
I’d have swallowed my pride, my heart, my whatever this is, and told myself my body was wrong.
Instead, she told me I was right, and then she said it doesn’t matter.
So now, I am sitting here, late as hell, staring at a blank page that isn’t blank anymore, wondering what the hell I am supposed to do with that.
Part of me wants to respect her boundary so hard that it feels like never touching her again. Never reaching for her hand. Never saying her name in that soft way that makes her eyes go wide. Never admitting that one night on a dance floor rerouted my entire nervous system.
Another part of me is already lacing up for the fight because when I told her in the car that this isn’t goodbye, I meant every word. I’m giving her space, but I am not done. The problem is that both parts of me live in the same body, and they are pulling in opposite directions.
Respect her. Do not push. Do not let her run from this.
If Dr. Shah had me in the office right now, she would ask where I feel it.
So here it is. In my throat, thick and hot, like everything I did not say is lodged there.
In my ribs, tight, almost humming, like my heart is trying to punch its way out and chase her.
In my hands, restless and useless, because they remember the weight of her waist and the shape of her jaw, and they are sitting here empty.
The silence in my place is loud. My phone is face down, but I keep wanting to pick it up and type something I have no right sending.
Let me make sure you are okay. Tell me you didn’t mean it.
But I don’t send any of it. Instead, I write it in this notebook no one is going to read but me, and maybe Dr. Shah if I decide to hand it over.
I write it so it lives somewhere outside of my chest.
Tonight, I wanted things I’m not supposed to want.
For her. For me. For us. A word I’m not allowed to use.
I wanted her to look at me on that dance floor and choose the feeling instead of the fear.
I wanted her to let the world blur out around us and keep holding on.
I wanted her not to flinch when I told her I’d burn down that ballroom if it meant making things easier for her.
She didn’t flinch at that, by the way. She told me not to say it, but she didn’t flinch.
What kills me is that she believes she did the right thing.
She probably did.
She probably went up to her apartment and told herself she protected herself and her future.
She probably listed all the reasons I’m a bad idea until the ache quieted enough for her to breathe.
She probably reminded herself of every time the world punished a woman who let herself be seen wanting something.
I’m not angry at her for choosing safety. I’m angry at the world that taught her she has to carve herself up like this to keep what she’s earned. I’m angry that, for the first time in a long time, something felt like home for both of us, and the smart move was to shut the door.
I told her this wasn’t goodbye, and I felt her whole body react to that. She walked away, but she did not slam the door. She didn’t tell me to stop caring. She didn’t say she’d never feel this again.
She said she can’t afford to choose it. So here is the truth I’m not going to say out loud to her yet.
I’m already choosing it. I chose it when I stepped onto that carpet with her and let the cameras see me.
I chose it when I took her hand in front of a man who wanted to humiliate her.
I chose it when I called her the story and not the spin.
I chose it in a kitchen at Momma’s house when she welcomed Alycia into the family, and my body lit up like someone had just promised me something I didn’t think I was allowed to have.
I chose it when I told her I wasn’t done.
I don’t know what it looks like without putting her job on the line or turning her life into a circus. I don’t know how to fight for something without making her feel like I’m pushing her over a cliff she already told me she’s afraid of.
All I know is that tonight hurt in a way that feels like truth, not a mistake.
I can work with truth. I just wish it didn’t feel so much like losing her while I am still holding on.
For now, I guess this is the only place I get to be honest. On a page, in a room she’s not in, with my hand still aching for a dance that ended hours ago.
Tomorrow, I’ll see her and pretend like nothing cracked open between us.
I’ll make jokes and be the easy Hendrix brother again.
And underneath all that, I’ll keep noticing every moment my body settles around her.
Because whether she can afford to admit it or not, tonight proved something I can’t unsee.
We’re already real. She’s just not ready to believe it yet.
~ Kyle