“You shouldn’t be here,” she whispered.
I huffed a humorless laugh. “It’s my wedding day. Pretty sure I’m supposed to be here.”
Her eyes flickered, softening just for a second before she pulled back into steel. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”
Something in me cracked, all the years of pretending, of keeping Sierra in the spotlight and Sarah in the shadows. It split open right there, raw and ugly.
“Tell me you don’t feel it, and I’ll walk away. I’ll pretend I never saw you standing here. But if you do—” My throat worked around the words. “If you do, I’ll call it all off. Right here. Right now.”
Her breath hitched, but she shook her head, stepping back like distance was armor. “Don’t do this.”
“Sarah—”
“You’ve already made your choice.” Her voice broke, just barely, but it was enough to gut me. “Don’t make me say it for you.”
I searched her face for even a flicker of hesitation, something to hold on to, but all I found was resolve. Fragile, shaking, but firm enough to stop me in my tracks.
The door behind her opened, Emma’s voice spilling into the hall, laughter chasing it. Sarah turned quickly, slipping away before Emma could see the wreckage in her eyes.
And just like that, she was gone. Again.
The memory fades, but the ache doesn’t. It never does. She’s walked away from me more times than I can count, always for the right reasons, always because she saw the truth I couldn’t.
And yet here I am, years later, still carrying that day like it just happened.
When I finally sit at my desk, an hour has passed and the game film blurs on my screen, players darting across the field in jerky movements I can’t focus on. My pen stills against the page, ink bleeding into the margin until the line thickens into a black blotch. I tell myself it’s fatigue, that I just need a break. But I know better.
Because once the memories start, they don’t stop. And the one I can never shove down, the one that always claws its way back first.
We were taking some time apart and out of nowhere, Sierra texted me late, asking me to come over. Not the usual kind of late-night message, not the casual tone she normally used. By the time I got there, she was standing in the doorway of her apartment, wringing her hands like she was holding something fragile she didn’t want to break. I’d never seen her like that. Nervous. Almost afraid.
She didn’t waste time. Just blurted it out, like ripping off a bandage.
“I’m pregnant.”
Two words. That was it. The entire axis of my life tilted in that moment, the ground shifting under my feet so fast I couldn’t tell if I was falling or just standing still. My chest had gone tight, not with joy, not right away, but with a kind of stunned disbelief that made every thought scatter.
I’d managed a weak, “Are you sure?” and she nodded, eyes glassy.
“I took three tests.”
I remember the silence that followed, thick and suffocating. The way her lip trembled until she bit down on it hard, like she was bracing for me to run. Maybe part of her expected it. Maybe part of me wanted to.
Instead, I stepped forward and said all the right things.We’ll figure it out, you’re not alone, I’m here.Words that sounded solid, steady, like the man she needed me to be. But underneath, I was already cracking. Because all I could think about, selfish or not, was that saying yes to Sierra meant losing Sarah. Like every choice I made was pushing her further out of reach until there was no way back
I told myself it was time to stop living like a man split in two. That this was my chance to commit, to do the right thing. A baby meant responsibility. A baby meant permanence. And if I’dlearned anything growing up, it was that you didn’t walk away when someone was counting on you.
But even as I wrapped my arms around Sierra, whispering that we’d get through it together, the truth lodged itself in my chest like a splinter: if timing had been different—if she hadn’t come to me that night, trembling and terrified—would I have chosen another path? Would I have finally chosen Sarah?
That question has followed me ever since.
Because Sierra wasn’t wrong to need me. And I wasn’t wrong to stay. But every promise I made from that moment on came with a shadow. One I’ve never managed to outrun.
I press my palms into my eyes now, trying to shove the memory back where it belongs. The office hums around me, the steady tick of the clock on the wall measuring out a life I’m not sure was ever really mine to choose.
…………
The house is quiet except for the hum of the dishwasher, the steady churn of water behind the stainless-steel door. I should be watching and evaluating game film or reviewing practice schedules, but instead I’m sitting at the kitchen table, staring at a page of notes I haven’t touched in twenty minutes. Every line swims, my pen stalled halfway through a play I don’t even remember writing.
