I hesitate. “I don’t know.”
Za’s eyes search my face. “So you’re not with her.” It’s not a question. “And she’s still not choosing.”
I swallow.
“She can’t give herself completely to me,” I admit quietly, staring at the pavement. “Not when she’s terrified of losing you.”
Za’s expression flickers.
“I’m not asking her to choose anymore,” she says after a moment.
“But you already did.”
“And she didn’t, so what’s the point?”
Silence settles between us again.
“You know what hurts?” Za asks softly.
“What?”
“That I wasn’t even given the chance to process before everything exploded.”
I nod. “I know.”
She looks into my eyes when she asks. “Do you really love her?”
“Yes. “ I confess with no hesitation.
She exhales slowly. “And she loves you?”
“Yeah, or so she says.”
Za looks back toward the house. “I don’t know if I can sit in a stadium and watch you two pretend like nothing happened,” she says.
“I wouldn’t ask you to. I just— Zee. I know we can’t get back to where we were before this. I know me and Frankie fucked up. I know we hurt you. I didn’t mean for it to happen like that. I honestly didn’t think you’d be that upset.”
Her head snaps toward me.
“But… why?”
There’s no yelling in it. That’s what makes it worse.
“Because I thought you wouldn’t care who Frankie sleeps with,” I admit. “I thought?—”
“No.” She cuts me off. “Not that. I meant…why Frankie?”
She searches my face like she’s trying to understand something that refuses to make sense.
“You could have anyone,” she continues, her voice thinning. “Literally anyone. Why the one person who means something to me?”
I let out a slow breath because there isn’t a version of this answer that doesn’t hurt.
“Because it’s Frankie,” I say simply. “She challenges me. She doesn’t let me coast on reputation. She sees through me when I’m being a dickhead. She knew me before any of this mattered. She reminds me who I was before the ego got involved. She’s stubborn. She’s impossible. She drives me mad. But she’s real with me in a way nobody else is.”
I swallow.
“And unfortunately, all the things I love… they manifested in the one woman I can’t fully have. Because she’s too scared of hurting you.”
