Jordan
Chapter Forty-Four
I’d left her in the apartment this morning.
She still hadn’t spoken to me. Not one word. Just that hollow silence through the bedroom door, the kind that echoed every shit thing I’d said the night before.
I’d told myself some space might help. Give her time to calm down. Give me time to figure out how the hell I was going to make it right.
I started with coffee. After my session, I headed to the cafe around the block, sat there for over an hour mulling over my apology but none of the words I could come up with felt like they’d cut it.
I grabbed her usual. Flat white, one sweetener.
Extra hot. Like it mattered. Like anything would be enough.
I knew it wasn’t. She’d probably throw it in my face, and I wouldn’t even blame her.
I fucking hated myself for it. I’d replayed every vile thing I said to her last night, and it was making me sick to my stomach.
The way I’d looked at her. The way I’d spoken to her like she was some burden I couldn’t carry, instead of the one person who’d ever made all of this make sense.
The look on her face before she slammed that door would haunt me forever.
I couldn’t take any of it back, but Christ I had to find a way to make her believe I didn’t mean a single fucking word.
I balanced the cups in one hand and fumbled with the keycard in the other.
The second I stepped inside, I knew something was off.
The room was quiet. Too quiet.
“Kate?”
Nothing. I moved further in. The sofa cushions were neatly plumped. My hoodie still slung over the back of the chair.
But her shoes? Gone.
Those beat-up New Balances she wore nearly every day? Not by the door. Not anywhere.
My chest went tight.
I set the coffees down, carefully. Like if I moved too fast, something might shatter. I checked the bedroom next. I pushed open the door and stood there for a second.
The drawers were all open, even mine, but hers were…empty.
Her side of the bathroom counter, cleared. The moisturiser she used every night, gone. That scuffed little pink makeup bag, gone. Even the claw clip she always left next to the sink, gone.
I backed out of the room like I’d been physically struck. Like someone had taken a sledgehammer to the middle of my chest. My head spun round the room looking for a note, a message, anything. But there was nothing.
I grabbed my phone with shaking hands. Not even a text. I fumbled for her contact, called her. Straight to voicemail. Called again. Same thing.
“Fuck,” I choked. “Fuck!”
Everything hit me at once; the room started to spin. I just knew that if I didn’t speak to her soon, if I didn’t hear her voice, I was going to completely collapse. I didn’t know where she was, if she was safe, if she was okay.
Gwen. My hands were trembling. I couldn’t find her number fast enough.
She picked up on the second ring. “Jordan?”
“She’s gone,” I said, my voice raw. “Gwen…she’s not here. I don’t know where she…”
I heard her draw a breath. “She’s on her way home,” she said gently. “She messaged me from the airport. She’s going back to Cardiff.”
The ground tilted. I dropped into the nearest chair like my legs had given out.
“Jordan…what happened?” Gwen asked, quieter now.
I swallowed hard. I couldn’t speak for a moment. Then it finally came out.
“I overheard her on the phone…with her mum. Talking about maybe going back. I…I fucking lost it, Gwen. I told her she was clinging to a life that gave her nothing. That her job made her miserable. That her husband left her.”
My throat closed around the next part. Shame flooding through me.
“I just unleashed…like she was nothing.”
Gwen was silent on the line, but I could feel her disappointment through the phone.
“You what?” she asked sharply.
“I didn’t mean it,” I said quickly. Desperately. “I was spiralling. After the match, I…I didn’t know who I was. I felt like I was falling apart, and she was trying to help, and I just…” My voice broke—no, shattered. “I lashed out. I didn’t know how to hold it all, and she caught the worst of it.”
Gwen didn’t say anything for a moment.
Then her tone changed into something harder.
“Do you even know what she went through before she met you?”
I blinked, my heart pounding. “I…what?”
“She started IVF the day she found out that idiot cheated,” Gwen said.
“She was leaving that life before you ever showed up. She was already doing the hardest thing a woman can do—rebuilding from the ruins. And then you came along. You were her light, Jordan. Her second chance. She didn’t fall into this. She chose it. She chose you.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“She… she never told me that.”
“Yeah. Because she doesn’t want pity,” Gwen bit out. “She wanted what was between you to be because of who she is. She wanted you to be her new start. She didn’t need you to throw her past in her face. She needed you to love her better than the last man who broke her.”
My whole body caved in. I rubbed my face hard, but it didn’t stop the burn behind my eyes. I felt like I’d been gutted.
I was supposed to be the one who healed her. Who showed her it was safe to believe in something again. I was supposed to protect her.
And instead, I’d gutted her.
“I’m a fucking idiot.”
“Yes,” Gwen said, but softer now. “You are. But if you want her back, Jordan…you better fix it. And you better be ready to earn it.”