by Claire Adams
"Veronica," she started, "you asked him not to talk to you? I know he would have at least wanted to hear from you before he left."
"I felt like if I left that door open, he would give himself a reason to stay, somehow," I admitted. “I didn't want him to have any hope that it could go differently."
"Vee. Do you realize what happened here?"
"What?" I sniffed.
"You just did the same thing that he did. You broke up with him so he had a chance to do something that makes him happy. Last year, he left you because he wanted to give you a chance at the same thing."
"He should have talked to me about it. I would have waited. Why did he think that I wouldn't? Both times he had a big decision to make and he never talked to me."
"You didn't talk to him, either, Vee. You decided that he'd go when you could have asked to talk about it instead," she said.
"He didn't even tell me that he'd been talking to anyone."
"You were doing the same thing, protecting each other, when I think maybe you should have taken the risks."
I was crying now. Tiff didn't try to stop me or comfort me. She let me get it out. Was his really the same thing? Was I punishing myself so he wouldn't have to? Just like he was doing for me? It had made sense in my head...so it must have for him to when he did it. Everything I went through last year, I was putting him through now. I felt wretched, like there had been a better way both times and both times, we hadn't made the choice to take it.
"How did we end up like this?" I sighed.
"You're protective of each other. You went with your instincts instead of slowing down and waiting for another option."
"I feel so stupid," I said, drying my face.
"You aren't stupid, neither of you. You both had good intentions; it just wasn't the right thing to do."
"He still deserves it. To play. I hope he's happy."
"I know what would make this better, for both of you," she said.
"I can't tell him all this now, he just left. He would come back, try to get out of his contract, something risky like that."
"He should still hear it. Don't let him live there thousands of miles away alone with that being the last memory of the two of you together."
"I can't do it yet. I made this decision getting ready to lose him. It hurts, but I made my bed."
"Vee, you're doing it again. You're punishing both of you by not talking to him."
But it's better this way, I thought. I'd pushed him into this and it was where he had to stay now. I couldn't swoop back in and tell him I changed my mind.
"Maybe this is how it was meant to be," I said. "If it isn't, then maybe we'll be brought together again somehow. I don't think right now is our time." Tiffany looked like she was holding back. I knew that she'd respect what I wanted, but it probably irked her more than anything.
"I can't say I get it, but... I don't think it's for me to get."
"Would you trust me on it?"
"I sort of have to," she said, shooting me a crooked smile.
"I'm sorry for dating your brother."
"You were the best thing about him, what does he have going for himself now?" she joked. I laughed at that. It was still a little hollow, but felt good.
I was back in bed fifteen minutes after she left. My hand found its way to the nightstand, picking up my necklace. I put it on, tucking it safely under the neck of my top. He had given it to me before he left the last time. Now, I'd wear it, the way he would have wanted. The barely there weight against my neck was nothing close weight of his body in bed close to me, but it was something. It was all I could get and I was taking it.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Roman
"Roman!"
I stopped and looked behind me. Coach Hayes was walking up the hallway behind me. Coaches never looked like they were supposed to coach the sports that they did. Coach Hayes was tall, really tall, taller than I was, but looked like if he had ever played anything, it was basketball, not football. He caught up to me.
"Yeah, Coach?"
"You're here every day, Roman. You're more dedicated than the guys we've had on our roster the past five years," he said. I shrugged.
"I'm here to do a job. I wanna make sure I can when the time comes."
"It's going to be your first training camp, isn't it," he said, I thought more to himself than to me. He was right. It was going to be my first training camp. I had trained for football for most of my life at this point, but training camp? Professional training camp was not a fucking joke.
All I had to go on were reports from the few other players I'd met who were coming to the facility to get their individual training in before camp started. Apparently, it was brutal. Long days, early start time, two practices a day, weightlifting, and a lot of playbook study. Some of them were coming to the facility to get their injuries taken care of before camp so they didn't end up making them worse. I had made it through playing in high school and college without any really bad injuries, but the point was still to be careful. When you're an athlete, your body is your bread. You break something bad enough and the checks stop coming in.
"I have a feeling you'll be just fine," Coach Hayes told me. "Just concentrate. Remember why you're here. Nobody said it would be easy, but it will be worth it." I nodded, thanking him for his advice. I had been trying to work on my strength and endurance since moving. If nothing else, I didn't want to feel ground down to dust by the end of each training day when camp started. "How's the move been treating you?"
"Fine," I said, shrugging again. The weather had been 89 degrees or hotter since I had gotten here. It was going to stay that high, crawling into the mid-nineties through August. With the humidity, it was kind of ridiculous. It hadn't been long enough for my body to be able to take it yet.
"Where were you before? South Dakota?"
"This isn't Aberdeen, but I'll be okay." He gave a look like he'd heard it before from enough guys to doubt whether it was actually true.
"Keep your body in shape. You go hard in the gym, you make sure you aren't straining anything," he said. I nodded, saying I would. I had already been to the team's chiropractor, who had been disgusted by my flexibility and had me on this stretching routine I had to do after every workout. I wasn't complaining about the massages or using the whirlpools, though.
I had just been getting ready to leave. I had come by just before noon and it was four now. He let me go, heading towards his office and letting me go to the locker room.
It was still pretty easy up to now, I was going to enjoy it before it got tough. I grabbed my stuff and drove back to my apartment, stopping by a little Cuban place I had been picking food up from for the past few days. Cooking wasn't really my thing, but while moving in for the past several days, it had basically gone out the window.
I pulled into the complex I lived in and parked my car in the parking garage. My new car. It had been one of the first things I had gotten when I got here. I had thought that maybe I'd get something used after selling my old one, but with my signing bonus, I didn't end up having to. I parked and rode the elevator up to my place.
Rachel had been right. This place was worth it. It was fucking massive. I had thought the place back home had been a problem because it had two bedrooms. This one had one more than that, a kitchen with equipment I'd never even heard of and was more expensive to rent than the house, even though it was an apartment. That said, it was a five-minute walk to the beach, ten-minute drive to the facility, and the master bedroom balcony looked over the ocean.
It was a lot, but apparently, all the guys lived like this, most even better than this. I was slumming. On the way to the facility each day, I drove past these huge mansions, places with yards and pools, right on the water. One of my new teammates, a guy named Jon, lived along that strip, and he had invited me over. What the fuck did he do with five bedrooms when he lived alone? I didn't get it. It was nice, but it was just more rooms to try keep clean.
I shouldn't have co
mplained about the nice things my signing bonus had managed to get me, but it was just very different from what I was used to. Thinking about it a little, it occurred to me. Privacy; that was it. Those big ass houses were like castles, secure and secluded.
Rachel, an assistant who helped the new transplants out, had tried to get me to buy one but I had passed. This was enough. It was in a secure building, close to work and I could still see the beach. I could probably afford to move, but the worst time to start feeling froggy was now when I could start putting money away for the future.
I had taken a shower before coming home so I just walked straight through to the bedroom. Rachel had taken care of the furnishing for me, which was why it looked like someone who knew what they were doing had put it together. I was high up enough to not need drapes, but she had gone for this general dark, muted color scheme. Leather couches in the living room, a rough-hewn, rugged-looking dining table I had warned her I'd never use, but she had gotten anyway. End tables, nightstands, everything I did and didn't need.
It had grown on me since moving in. Today was the last day that deliveries had come in. I had left Rachel with a key to get everything set up, and I had to say, she had done a pretty good job. Some shit you just wanted someone else to do because they knew what they were doing. I loved the kitchen, even though I didn't use it. The fridge had two doors and was mostly empty.
Ron would love it, I thought when I saw it. She'd have a field day with the whole place. Maybe I'd figure out how to make more than just pasta in cheese sauce, in her honor.
My phone vibrated against my leg in my pocket as I walked to the kitchen to grab some water. Ron had been the last thing on my mind before picking up, so it was a little disappointing that that hadn't somehow made it her name on the phone. It was Tiffany.
"Hello?"
"Rome?"
"What's up?" I asked. She had been checking on me almost every day since I had moved.
"I was just checking in. How are you?" I was older than her, but someone needed to let her know that.
"Same as yesterday. My house is finally done."
"I'm so glad you got a professional to handle that this time."
"I am, too," I laughed.
"Have you talked to Dad?"
"Not since a couple days ago."
"You need to call him. You know how he is about texts," she lectured.
"Okay, mom. I'll call him. How is everything over there?"
"Already missing us?"
"Yeah. I look off my balcony every day at the ocean and feel like, shit, I wish I was still in Aberdeen," I teased. She laughed.
"See if we'll take you back when you're retired in two years."
"I'm trying for at least five," I mused. I knew how short the average guy got to play for the league. I wasn't planning on being the average guy. "How is everything over there?"
"Fine," she said lightly.
"How's Ron?" I asked carefully.
"Veronica?"
I rolled my eyes. Tiff, acting fake surprised at what I was asking her. I knew what she was doing. "Yeah. Veronica. How is she?"
"You've been gone for a week. Why are you interested now?" she asked. I sighed, looking down. How much of this did I tell her? I didn't want to get into it, but at the same time, I couldn't talk to Ron myself to see how she was. I knew that the two of them were still talking and if she had come up when I talked about her, then I had when she did.
"I care about her. I never got to tell her goodbye before leaving."
"I know. I told her you would have liked for her to be there."
"And, what did she say?" I asked. She paused.
"She told me everything."
"What?"
"Did she tell you why she wanted to end things?"
"Yeah. Some stuff about her old life, the one she had made for herself while I was gone. She wanted that back. I know she didn't wait for me that year I was gone, but after weeks of reconnecting, she suddenly changed her mind. It came out of nowhere."
"We were talking... I think it was the day before she broke up with you. I let it slip that you were talking to a team. I didn't know that you hadn't told her already. She decided she didn't want to be the reason that you stayed. She broke up with you, instead of letting you choose."
"I wanted to choose her. I did choose her. Why wouldn't she want that?"
"Because she loves you," she said like it was the most obvious answer in the world. "She knows that you've always wanted to play. She's seen the hard work you've put in for years and years and she understood that in your case, maybe this shot with this team would be the only one of its kind to come around."
"I didn't want it if it meant giving her up."
"She was willing to let you go if it meant you got what you've always wanted."
I didn't have anything to say to that. All I had seen was what she had shown me. Her anger when she told me to get out of her life. Her telling me never to talk to her again. She had pushed me away so violently, right to this place. It had been her plan all along. I was here now. I was going to play, but I had lost her. The way I didn't see my future without her, she didn't see my future without this.
"I can't believe she did that."
"Are you sure? Because it seems like a pattern with you two at this point." I shook my head. It did. It was so fucking dysfunctional. How did we each manage to make each other so miserable while just trying to be happy? I couldn't believe it. This was why the fuck I loved her. She could do things like this. I hated that she pushed me away, but now I could see why she did it. I had done it to her, too.
"Yeah. How many more breakups do you think we'll last?" I asked jokingly.
"How about none? Just makeup already and stop doing it. Do you know how hard it is being in the middle of you two?"
"So sorry that's been difficult for you," I said sarcastically.
"I'm serious. I wasn't telling you this so that you would do anything. I just didn't know whether she would ever let you know herself. As far as she's concerned, she doesn't want to be the reason you pass this up. Do what you need to do. Just understand why she did it."
I thanked Tiffany for telling me and we hung up.
Was it wrong to feel like I knew it? I fucking knew it. I fucking knew there was a reason I still loved her. It was because she still loved me. I knew there had to be a reason, something that made her think that us being apart was a good idea, something that wasn't her not wanting to be together anymore. The only reason we would be broken up would be something like this.
I had to do something. I wanted to call her and tell her that I knew and that it was okay. I loved her, and we didn't have to do this anymore. But that wasn't it. If she had done this in the first place, she'd push back if I tried to contact her now. I had to do something though. I looked down at my phone.
I hit Coach Hayes's number and waited.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Veronica
You did this to yourself. It's almost over. This is the last week you have to do this, then you're free... For like three weeks before you have to do it all over again.
Who had let me talk myself into this? I knew it would all be worth it in the end, but I was ready for it to be over. It was still hot outside, I could make the most of it before school started again and I knew that it had been the right move for me and what I wanted to do.
I could still be bitchy about it. It was still hard. It had still been a sacrifice.
I didn’t even have plans for the few weeks that I would have off of school. All I wanted was to be off. Treating myself to a trip probably wouldn’t be out of order, but I needed to make financial decisions like that when I wasn't highly caffeinated and about to take a test.
"It's finally over," Tiffany said dramatically as we walked towards our classes.
"Almost. Don't jinx it while we're on the home stretch," I laughed.
"Has this semester been longer than the regular ones?"
"No. The days are so long these n
ow it just feels like it has," I reflected. She giggled.
"I can't wait to finish. I'm never doing this again," she said. I'd hold her to that next year when she was a junior.
"Any plans for the last days of summer?"
"Sleep. So much sleep," she sighed. "Nothing else, really. You?" I shrugged, thinking the same thing. I could hold off planning anything till I was really home and free.
"I talked to Roman yesterday," she said.
I paused, feeling my chest tighten slightly. I thought about him every day. Every single day. It would just surprise me when other people brought him up because they, unlike me, were most likely talking to him. That meant they had updates – something I was thirsty for, but didn't want to ask him for myself. I had taken myself out of his life so he could focus on football. That didn't mean I could resist when he came up.
"Yeah? How is he?" I asked casually.
"Great. He likes it over there. He sounded like he's getting on really well."
"That's good to hear."
"I thought so, too. I want to worry about him, then I remember he spent a year in Afghanistan."
"I'd say Afghanistan and Miami are pretty different scenes."
"Yeah. In Miami, all he has to deal with women, money, and scandal," she said lightly, then looked at me. "Sorry. I didn't mean to say it like that."
"That's okay. It's true," I choked out. Roman was happy. If part of the reason why was he was meeting other girls then that was a good thing. I tried to be happy for him and failed. Whatever I was, I couldn't be mad. He didn't owe me anything. I told him to get out of my life and never speak to me again. He could date whoever he wanted.
"I mean, we don't talk about that stuff. I just assume. He hasn't actually mentioned anything like that."
"Tiff, it's fine," I said. "I'm just happy to hear that everything is working out. This was what I wanted for him in the first place, and he's getting it."
"Yeah. I guess it is," she said. I didn't ask whether he had said anything about me. I wanted to know, obviously. I wanted to know everything, but that didn't matter. I knew the most important thing which was he was doing well. That alone meant I had made the right decision breaking it off so he could leave.
