“Well, you’re talking to me now.”
“Can I come to you? Maybe I can get on a plane between games one and two. Maybe I can skip the press conferences and media stuff.” His tone is frantic, words rushing together.
“You know you can’t do that. No one would allow you to do that.”
“I can’t lose you, Stevie.”
The buzz from the air-conditioning unit fills the room with its white noise, helping to drown out the silence.
“You left me,” my voice cracks. “I never would’ve left you.”
“Please, I’m begging you, don’t leave me now.”
“Zee, look at it from my point of view. You spent months building me up, being proud of me, making me proud of myself, then the second anyone found out about me, you ran. Do you know how terrible that makes me feel? I just wanted you to choose me, choose us regardless of what people had to say.”
He stays silent on the other end.
“Do you know what it feels like to watch someone walk out the door after you begged them to stay?”
Once again, he doesn’t answer.
The memories of my words flash through my mind. Why’d you let me fall in love with you? It was humiliating the first time he walked out after I said it, but what’s another round of embarrassment?
“It was simple. I wanted you to love me.”
His silence is deafening, telling me everything I need to know, causing my heart to shatter all over again.
“I wanted you to let me love you, but you can’t, can you? I don’t think you know how to trust someone else to love you unconditionally.”
“Vee,” he finally speaks. “I just…”
The quiet line lingers between us for far too long.
“I don’t know how to do that.”
My eyes close from the pain vibrating through my entire body, confirming what I already knew. As much as I love him, how could we live a life together where he doesn’t believe that I do?
“Good luck tomorrow night.”
“Stevie—”
I hang up before he can say anything else.
50
ZANDERS
Three days of torture. Three days of unanswered calls and texts. Three days of wondering how I fucked up the best thing to ever happen to me. Three days of asking myself why I can’t trust her to love me the way she says she does. Three days of wishing I wasn’t so fucked up from my past that I could take what she’s offering because it’s everything I need.
But my most constant thought over the last three days has been, how the hell am I going to get Seattle to pick me up when I don’t even have an agent?
I don’t want to leave Chicago. I don’t want to leave Maddison and Logan or my niece and nephew. I’m only a two-hour drive from my dad’s house, and my sister is a quick flight away.
But I can’t lose Stevie. I might not understand my trust issues or my fear of love, but one thing I know for certain is I can’t lose her.
I’m beyond desperate right now, needing to see her, needing to talk to her, needing to heal myself. Needing to feel anything other than the giant aching hole in my chest that only she can fill, but I don’t know how to fix any of it.
Even at two in the morning, fans line the airport gate, eager to greet us after coming home with two road wins and only needing two more to win it all. Shouts and cheers echo from the enthusiastic crowd, all wearing their red, black, and white waiting to get a glimpse of us stepping off the airplane in Chicago.
But I don’t care. Sure, I’m grateful for their support, and I’m stoked that we’re dominating this series so far, but the only reason I’ve been playing as well as I have been is because I need to pull off a miracle and somehow be able to choose where I land next season.
“Zee, hold up!” Maddison shouts while doing his captain duties, waving to the crowd, thanking them for coming out. “I drove you.”
“Well, hurry up. I need to go.”
I throw my suitcase in the bed of his truck before jumping in.
“You’re not going over there right now. It’s two in the morning.”
“Yes, I am. I need to see her. If she wants to move across the country, then okay. Fine. But I need her to say it to my face.”
“What if she does want to go?” Maddison pulls out of the private parking lot, heading home.
“She doesn’t.” Shaking my head in disbelief, I stare out the passenger window. “There’s no way in hell she wants to leave her brother or the shelter. This is my fault. She doesn’t want to go. She just wants to get away from me.”