22. Ellie #2
“I thought you’d tell me to stay, to work it out with Kedish.”
“You can’t work it out if he won’t let you get close.”
“He tried to apologize.” My throat went tight. “I wouldn’t let him.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m tired of being the one who has to prove she’s worth keeping.”
Crim pulled me into a hug.
I didn’t cry. I wouldn’t let myself. But I gripped his jersey, holding on while he stood solid and steady, the way he’d always been.
“Whatever you choose,” he said into my hair, “I’ll support you.”
“Even if I leave?”
“Even then.”
“But?”
“But don’t leave because you’re afraid.”
“I’m not afraid.”
He pulled back, looking down at me with his dark orc eyes that saw too much. “In all the time I’ve known you, you’ve only been scared of three things. Losing the people you love, not being enough, and disappointing me.”
I could barely breathe.
“You could never disappoint me,” he said.
“What if I leave and it’s the wrong choice? What if I stay and it’s worse?”
“Then you’ll learn.” He squeezed my shoulder. “That’s what we all do.”
I wanted to believe that there was a version of this where I made the right choice instead of the safe one.
“You’ve always been enough,” he said.
“Then why doesn’t he see it?”
“Because he’s afraid of the same things you are.”
“That doesn’t make it okay.”
“No.” He ran a hand over his face. “But it makes it understandable. Look, you want me to go beat him up? I will. Gladly. He deserves it. But that won’t fix what’s broken between you two.”
“Maybe nothing can.”
“Maybe.” His voice went quiet. “Or maybe you’re both so scared of wanting something that you’re destroying it before it can fail on its own.”
That landed like a punch.
“Go to Denver,” he said. “See what they’re offering. Then decide what you want. Not what’s safe or what proves something. What you actually want.”
“What if I still can’t figure it out?”
His smile crooked up one side of his mouth. “You will.”
I drove home, unsure about anything, and went inside. Marzipan sat on my bureau, watching me pace around the suitcase I’d laid on the bed.
“Pros of leaving,” I said, ticking them off on my fingers. “New city. Fresh start. Amazing opportunity. Better salary. Big-name athletes. No painful daily reminders.”
She slow-blinked.
“Cons of leaving.” I stopped pacing. “Crim. Patty. This team. This city. My condo I just signed a lease for. You’d hate the flight.”
She kept staring.
“And…” I sat on the bed beside her. “Him. If I’m being honest.”
Her purr kicked up.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
She headbutted my hand.
I patted her, staring at nothing.
Three days to decide my whole life.
No pressure.
The team was gone when I arrived at work the next morning, the bus taking them to the away game. I worked in relative quiet, then went home early.
Later, I sat on my couch in pajamas, Marzipan curled against my belly, staring at my phone.
11:43 PM.
I could look up the score. See if he’d played. If they’d won.
My thumb hovered over the browser icon before I set the phone down.
It buzzed.
I ignored it.
It buzzed again.
Marzipan’s ear twitched.
I sighed and picked it up.
Brashe had sent a series of texts.
I know you’re probably asleep.
Or ignoring me. Both fair.
But I need you to know that what I said was the opposite of what I meant.
You’re not just my physical therapist. You never were.
I’m a fool. A broken fool.
But I’m going to figure out how to be less broken for you.
My eyes burned.
I read the texts three times.
For you.
Those two words.
My fingers hovered over the keyboard. I could tell him I was broken too. That I’d been so busy being competent that I’d forgotten how to be anything else. That I was terrified of being seen as something other than useful because what if that was all I was?
But typing that at 11:43 PM felt like standing on the edge of something I couldn’t come back from.
I set the phone down instead.
“What if I’m not brave enough?” I whispered to Marzipan.
She slow-blinked, which suggested either judgment or absolution.
I wasn’t brave. That was the problem. Brave people didn’t hide in their cars watching someone sit in a parking lot. Brave people didn’t check their phones seventeen times hoping for a text they’d pretend they didn’t want.
Brave people didn’t run to Denver because staying meant risking another hallway conversation that would gut them.
I picked up the phone again, reading his texts one more time.
I took the phone to bed, and I fell asleep holding it.
Friday morning started early.
I took a shower and dressed. Put my hair in a bun. Makeup covered the shadows under my eyes that concealer couldn’t hide. I sat at the kitchen island and drank a cup of coffee.
Marzipan watched from her perch on the opposite counter, unimpressed.
“I’m fine,” I told her.
She meowed once.
The cat sitter would come feed her tonight. Would she even notice I was gone?
The drive to the airport took forty minutes through morning traffic. I turned on the sports radio.
“—Punishers dominated last night, winning 5-0.”
A shut-out.
“—Kedish was unstoppable, folks. Seventeen saves in the third period alone—”
I turned the radio off.
He’d played well.
Without me there.
Of course he had.
At the airport, the security line moved slowly. I stood with my carry-on at my feet, my boarding pass on my phone, and his text thread still open in my messages.
I’m going to figure out how to be less broken for you.
My thumbs moved before my brain caught up. I don’t know how to be less broken either.
I hit send.
Then I put my phone in airplane mode before I could see if he responded.
The plane was half-empty, mostly business travelers who looked as tired as I felt. I settled into the window seat and stared out at the gray Boston sky.
My phone was still in airplane mode.
Safe.
Going to Denver was the right choice. I needed to see what was possible. Prove I was more than what he’d reduced me to in the hallway.
Except nothing felt right. My blazer was too tight. The airplane seat too small. And while the plane took off, in the space where my phone couldn’t reach me and his texts couldn’t find me, I realized something that made my belly drop.
I wasn’t running toward an opportunity.
I’d spent weeks putting my hands on Brashe’s injury, watching his every movement, looking for compensation or a sign he was protecting something damaged. I could map his trauma in muscle and tissue.
But I’d never let him see mine.
I’d asked him to be whole while I’d stayed hidden behind nitrile gloves and a professional mask.
I was running because staying meant admitting that what he’d said had been true. Not that I was only valuable for what I did, but that I’d been so desperate to prove my worth through fixing him that I’d never let him see the parts of me that were still broken.
As Boston disappeared beneath the clouds, I pressed my forehead against the window.
Somewhere below, he was probably doing his morning stretches. Following the instructions I’d written in the margins, the ones he’d laminated because they mattered.
Like I’d mattered.
The plane leveled out, but I still didn’t know if I was flying toward something or away.