Something hardened her then, and she stepped even farther away, out of my grasp.
My heart shattered at the thought that that might have been the last time I ever got to hold her.
“I don’t trust you.”
The words slid through me like a hot knife, slicing me right in half like I was just a stick of butter.
“Mary,” I tried.
“You have the game,” she said, crossing her arms. “You need to focus on yourself, and I need to focus on me. All of this happened so fast. One day I was full swing in the life I’d created for myself, the one where I was living despite the hell you put me through. The next, I was in a heaven I never knew existed, wrapped up in everything that you are, that we are, together.”
I wanted her to stop there. I wanted that to be the end. But she sniffed and continued.
“And now, I’m in hell again. Deeper, this time, because now I’ve lost the one thing that has always been mine despite what happened to me. I worked my ass off for this, Leo,” she said.
“I know,” I told her. I bit back the urge to remind her that it wasn’t me who took it away from her. It was Nero.
But then I remembered that I’d made matters worse. She’d had a plan, she’d said — and I didn’t doubt it. Mary was strong. She was smart. She could handle herself.
It was me who fucked everything up.
“We just… we need to take a break,” she said with finality, picking up a duffle bag and tossing it over her shoulder. “My parents will be here in twenty minutes. Could you…” She swallowed. “Can you please not be here when they are?”
That gutted me.
Just a few weeks ago at our old high school football field, she’d told me she wanted me to meet them.
Now, I felt like a shameful secret being locked away in a closet never to be found.
“I’ll do whatever you need me to do,” I promised. “I’ll leave. I’ll give you space.” I closed the distance between us, tentatively reaching out. When she didn’t flinch, I slid my hands into her hair, framing her face, holding her gaze to mine. “But I will not give up on us.”
She closed her eyes. “What if I need you to?”
“Then I’ll leave you disappointed.” I paused. “Again. Because I can’t do that, Stig. I… can’t.” That last word left me like a guttural declaration of truth, one pulled from me against my will.
I didn’t know if it was a laugh or a sob that came from her next, but I pressed my lips to her forehead, closing my eyes and praying harder than I had in my entire life that this wasn’t the end for us.
“I love you, Mary,” I breathed.
She stilled in my grasp, and I pulled back until I was looking down at her again.
“I love you,” I repeated. “I may be a colossal fuck up. I may make mistakes. I may disappoint you and fall short in more ways than I measure up. But I love you, and that will never not be true.”
Mary covered my hands with her own, closing her eyes again and leaning into my palm. She let out a slow exhale.
Then, she peeled my hands off her and stepped away.
“Right now, I have to love myself,” she said softly.
My heart was a bloody, bruised, barely living thing — but I let her go.
I nodded. I held her gaze until I couldn’t anymore. I turned and walked numbly down the stairs and right out the door without a plan of where I’d go next. I just walked and walked and walked until my body refused to walk any longer. I’d ended up somewhere in the North End, staring at people laughing and eating and drinking and enjoying their lives, all of them oblivious to the zombie among them.
Eventually, I texted Braden, and he came to pick me up.
We were quiet on the drive back, Braden driving my car because I knew I couldn’t. When we pulled into the driveway, I looked at the door with a pit in my stomach.
“Did I lose her?” I asked.
Braden sighed, looking at the house and then at me. “She’s gone, man.”
And all the strength I’d been using to hold it together left me.
I didn’t care that Braden was still there, that Kyle and Blake were now coming out of the house, too. It didn’t matter if I did care. I was powerless against the emotional dam that split wide open inside me.
I somehow managed to push the car door open and stand up.
Then, I broke.
My roommates rushed to me. They weren’t my friends in that moment. They weren’t my teammates. They were my brothers. My family. And they held me while I fell apart.
“It’ll be okay, man. She’ll come back,” Kyle said.
The air pulsed, because every single one of us knew that was a promise that wasn’t his to make.
Mary
The gray morning matched my mood perfectly, colorful leaves dripping wet from the way the clouds hugged them. It was quiet except for where the dew dripped down into the grass, a soft pit, pat, pit, pat that drew me outside like a magnet. The distinct smell of fall decay hung in the air, and I welcomed the wet morning with open arms. I was so sick of the sunshine, of the world continuing to spin on without a care.
I wrapped myself in a blanket and went outside on the back porch just so I could sit with the fog.
With the blanket wrapped around me, the scent of Leo that still barely clung to the hoodie I’d stolen from him wrapped around me, too. I closed my eyes and inhaled it along with the cool morning air, and just when I thought they’d dried up, my eyes welled with tears again.
It’d been almost a week since I moved out of The Pit and back home with my parents.
It was a last resort, one I’d only chosen after Margie informed me the house wouldn’t be ready for me to move back in until after the holidays. She and I had both decided it was time to let me out of the lease, for us to go our separate ways while she fixed everything up. I couldn’t wait in limbo any longer, and this time, I really didn’t have a choice.
I had to go home.
It had killed my pride to make the call. I’d called Dad, of course, who didn’t ask a single question. He just said he was on his way. And while hearing his voice, his concern, his love for me filled my aching heart with warmth, I knew when he pulled into The Pit, Mom would be with him, locked and loaded with a million questions.
I’d been right.
She’d been tight-lipped and quiet while we loaded up the SUV with my belongings — including Palico. The roommates had helped, minus Leo, who had left because I’d asked him to. I didn’t miss the hard edge of my father’s expression as he watched three male college athletes interact with his daughter. But Kyle, Braden, and Blake showed him and my mother both the highest respect.
They also gave me the best hugs of my life when it was time to leave, and I tried not to cry as we said goodbye.
As soon as we were in the car and on the highway, Mom started in.
She berated me with questions the entire drive home. How in the world did you end up there? What were you thinking? You should have called us. You should have moved home. This is why you never should have moved into that decrepit house to start with. You should be in college, in a dorm room that’s safe and passes a thorough inspection. How in the world did you end up with a cat? And what does that Margie character say of this? You better be getting your deposit back. I can’t believe you’ve been living with men without our permission. You could have been killed, or worse—