She stepped back because she wanted me too much.
Do you know what that does to a person? When you want someone who wants you back but is terrified you’re the thing that’ll break them? It feels like someone reaching for you with shaking hands and choosing to burn alone instead. I can’t breathe around that.
When she said she’d fall into something she couldn’t climb out of, it hit like a blade. Because I'm already drowning. Already hers in every way you’re not supposed to be someone’s when they’re pretending you aren’t.
And I have to pretend this is fake.
Pretend I’m not counting down the days until the gala like it’s either salvation or execution. Pretend I didn’t hear the break in her voice when she told me she can’t have me look at her like we’re something. But we are something. God help me, we are.
I told her she’d look better in blue. It wasn’t a line, but the closest I could get to saying I haven’t gone five minutes without thinking about her since that kiss. That her not telling me how she was really doing sat under my skin like a bruise no one else can see.
And she walked away because it is going to cost her more than me because the world judges her differently. Harder. Crueler. And I hate it in a way that sits low and hot under my skin, like a storm I can’t outrun.
I’m trying to respect the lines she needs and not be the reason she gets hurt. Trying not to become the angry kid who ended up in therapy for not knowing what to do with emotions this big. But today, I felt every demon in my chest sit up and turn its head because every time she walks away, something loud and dangerous burns inside me.
It scared me tonight—how close I got to breaking. How easy it would’ve been to let it out sideways at someone who didn’t deserve it. So, I grabbed this stupid notebook like a lifeline and am sitting on the floor like I’m eighteen again, trying not to shatter something important.
I don’t know how to want someone this much and not ruin their life. I don’t know how to stand beside her on Saturday and pretend it’s fake when her eyes tell me it never was. I don’t know how to breathe around her and not break.
I just know that it hurts in places I don’t have names for and in ways I don’t know how to survive.
I think I’m in love with her. And I think it’s going to ruin me.
~ Kyle
Chapter Twenty-One
Alycia
The office is already awake when I arrive, which means I’m late—at least by Gala Week standards. Technically, it’s 7:45 a.m., fifteen minutes before I’m supposed to be here, but the Timberwolves Foundation Gala runs on its own kind of time. By that measure, I might as well be strolling in at noon, with a latte and a casual disregard for the concept of urgency.
The Wednesday before the gala always feels like the universe is holding its breath. It’s the biggest night of the season—short of the team making the Stanley Cup Finals. It’s the night that funds Cooper’s entire partnership with the Boys & Girls Club: tutoring, after-school programs, youth hockey scholarships. The city expects generosity. The team expects polish. And PR is responsible for stitching both together with an invisible seam.
This year, Janine handed the entire event over to me. Every logistic. Every crisis plan. Every moving part. After eighteen months of being an intern—longerthan anyone should have to be—this is my chance to prove I’m not a placeholder, but someone worth betting on.
So, yes, 7:45 counts as late.
The PR floor hums with caffeine and controlled panic. Phones ringing, printers spitting out run sheets, someone muttering about a sponsor who does not understand the literal meaning of the word deadline. The air smells like burnt coffee and toner and too many bodies in too little space. It’s my battlefield. I shrug out of my coat and weave toward my office, dodging a rolling rack of sponsor banners and a social media intern juggling three tripods like a newborn giraffe.
“Morning,” Janine calls from her office, already with her headset on and a screen full of tabs.
“It’s barely morning,” I say, though the joke lands lighter than I feel.
She gestures toward her desk to a to-go holder of coffee. “Grab your fuel. You have about nine minutes before the staff briefing eats you alive.”
“I love a challenge,” I reply, taking the blessedly hot cup.
My office is small, windowless, and undeniably mine. A plant that’s half-alive. A color-coded, four-page Gala Week schedule taped beside my monitor. I set down my bag, hang my coat, and let my eyes sweep the grid—media training, sponsor interviews, security walkthrough, red carpet run-of-show, player arrival windows, owner photo ops. Every minute slotted.Every risk accounted for. My gala. My responsibility. My chance not to screw this up.
Janine appears in my doorway. “You ready?”
We both know she’s not asking about the briefing or the gala. She’s asking if I’m ready for the first big test of my fake relationship with Kyle. The coffee date and community skate went well, but the most we had to do was smile for a few selfies. The gala is a whole different level.
“No,” I admit. “But it’s happening anyway.”
Her smile says she expected that answer. “That’s my girl.”
The words land heavier than they should, threading through the ache under my ribs. I fuss with my skirt hem before I can stop myself.
