“So you opted out to stop yourself from getting hurt?”
“Yeah, and it’s the biggest mistake I think I’ve ever made. But I’m going to fix it.”
“You’re going back?” she asked, surprised.
“No, worse. I think I’m going to try to go all in with this,” he said, tapping his camera. “Try and make it on my own. There’s this job I’m going to apply for using the portfolio I’ve been building up,” he said, sounding excited as he explained the conversation he’d had with Hans Leitner and listed all the opportunities he was going to go for when he went back home to the States.
“I think speaking to you kind of inspired me,” he admitted.
“How?” she asked, surprised. “All I’ve done since meeting you is divulge my secrets and fears.”
“But youdid it.” He smiled, squeezing her hand. “In spite of all the reasons you’ve been trying to count yourself out, you made it to the Olympics.”
Ari let it sink in. He was right. She’d been so focused on what came next that she hadn’t really stopped to appreciate how far she’d come.
“Speaking to you has made me realize that I’d rather put my all into something at the risk of failing than keep playing it safe to avoid disappointment. I love what I do so much that I’d rather spend the next ten years being below average for the shot at maybe, one day, getting good.”
Ari knew what he meant; pouring all her time and energy into hockey was a risk. She had trained every day and dedicated yearsof her life to strict routine. But wanting something and working hard for it didn’t entitle her to success, even now. She was at the Olympics, but that didn’t mean she would play well enough for the next four years to come back. There would always be someone who could skate faster or hit the puck sooner than her. There was no guarantee that she would even score another goal again. But she did it anyway, foolishly faced the odds and decided that she loved what she did enough to risk the real likelihood of failure. They both did.
“This could all fail, miserably. There’s a significant chance that I’m going to become one of those failed artists who spends the rest of his life talking about how he peaked at twenty-two,” said Drew. He was joking, but she could hear the undertone of fear.
“And I could become a jaded former hockey star who spends the rest of my life talking about how I went to the Olympics once but got so in my head that I didn’t enjoy a single match,” she said, feeling the fear, too.
“One day, we might look back on our lives and wish we’d made smarter, safer decisions. Because you know what? It might not work out,” said Drew.
“But I’d rather be able to say I tried.” She nodded.
She knew that they were both thinking the same thing. The truth hung between them. Unspoken but deeply felt.
“So why are we wasting time?” Drew asked, sitting back in his chair and really looking at her.
She was going to ask him what he meant, but it became crystal clear as soon as she saw his eyes. Theywerewasting time. Drew and Ari seemed to go against the odds in every other aspect of their lives, so why did their relationship feel like a bigger risk?
“Because we know too much about each other,” she said, gripping on to flimsy reasons.
“Some people spend months trying to get to know someone as well as we do,” he said.
“Exactly, it’s not supposed to be like that. In a normal relationship, you’d start to spot the potential problems over weeks, months, or years.”
“Isn’t it better that we already know, then?” he asked.
“No.”
“Why?”
She thought about it for a moment.
“It’s like buying a used car.”
“And amIthe used car in this situation?” he asked, amused.
“We both are.” She smiled, knowing how unromantic she sounded. “If you buy a new car, you expect it to be perfect, so you get disappointed when a problem comes up on the road. But if you buy an old car, you expect it to have issues. So, when the radio breaks, the engine fails, or the wheels fall off, you’re just grateful it lasted longer than you thought it would,” she said.
“I never thought a girl would liken me to a faulty old car on the fourth date,” he laughed. It was a ridiculous metaphor.
“I don’t mean it in a bad way. I mean that I’m not talking to you and looking for reasons why it won’t work out like I would on a regular date. We both already know why it might not work out. So, I guess my worry is, what if…” She paused midsentence, opened her mouth, then closed it. She couldn’t bring herself to say what she was silently thinking out loud.
“But what if it does work out?” he said.
