He studies me for a long moment, then shakes his head. “She’s doing well, you know. She's stronger than I’ve ever seen her. Maybe it’s time you let her be. Let her move on. Maybe you need to move on, too.”
The words hit harder than I want them to. I rake a hand over my face. “I don’t… I don’t know how to live in a world without her in it.” My boot drags at the dirt, grinding it under my heel. “She’s really doing well? Really fine without me?”
Mac doesn’t flinch, but he doesn’t let me off either. “Then maybe you find a way to start over somewhere else. Someplace that doesn’t bleed her name every time you turn a corner.”
I stare past him, out at the ranch lights flickering against the hills. My throat works, but I can’t find anything to say that doesn’t sound pathetic. All I can think is that he’s right. And I hate him for it.
So I shove my hands into my pockets and keep staring at the horizon, as if, I look hard enough, I’ll find a place where it doesn’t hurt to breathe.
A month passes. And I still can’t get Mac’s words out of my head.
“Maybe you can find a way to start over somewhere else. Someplace that doesn’t bleed her name every time you turn a corner.”
I tried. God knows I tried. Applications sent. Interviews lined up. But every door slammed in my face before I even had a chance to push it open.
It’s Coach Headstrom who finally calls, voice tight with something that sounds a lot like pity. “Donovan… I got bad news soon. The reason no one’s hiring you is that someone’s been sending out a dossier. Detailed. Dates, places. Every time you cheated on Stella. There’s even proof that some of it happened under school funding. On the program’s dime.”
The words won’t stop echoing. Not just what I did—but that she wanted the world to know. Not to punish me. To bury me.
“They’re not just seeing a cheating scandal, Donovan. They’re seeing a funding misuse scandal, too. No one’s going to put their program on the line for that.”
The line clicks dead, and I just sit there, phone pressed to my ear, like maybe if I hold on long enough, the words will change. They don’t.
No team. No job. No way forward.
Not just losing Stella. Losing the only thing I’ve ever been good at. The only thing I knew how to be.
I drop the phone onto the passenger seat, my hands gripping the wheel until the leather bites into my palms. Whoever put that dossier together didn’t just take my marriage. They stripped me down to nothing.
And for the first time, I don’t know if there’s a way back.
I should drive home. Instead, I sit there, engine idling, staring at nothing.
Mac told me to start over somewhere else. But where the hell do you go when the one person who made the world make sense won’t even look at you? When the thing you built your whole life around is gone?
For a second, I think about calling Stella. Just to hear her voice. Just to beg. But what would I even say—sorryI destroyed everything, sorry I dragged your name through the dirt, sorry I can’t breathe without you?
I shove the phone into the console before I do something stupid. My chest feels too tight. My boot scuffs at the floorboard like I could grind the ache out through the steel. But nothing moves. I let out a guttural scream, all the anger and guilt escaping me.
So I just sit there, staring at the dark road stretching out in front of me. No play left to call. No field left to run.
For the first time in my life, I can’t see past the next minute. And all I can think of is her face—calm, steady, already gone.
My whole world has shattered around me.
Stella
Amonth earlier, the plan was still just pieces—diary entries, flashcards, and late-night whispers. Nothing concrete. Nothing sharp enough to cut.
But Donovan showing up, laying his guilt at my feet, changed everything. He saw the journal. The cards. He knows now I’m not mourning the life we should’ve had—I'm documenting the one he ruined.
The second he left, I sent a text to Elaine.
Me:Donovan was here. The time is now.
Homewrecker:What do I need to do?
Me:Nothing. Just sit back and watch. His world will collapse on its own.
