But I don’t. I feel the opposite of relief, a rush of panic so sharp it splits my head open.
I say, “You should go.”
He freezes. “What?”
I swallow, feel the cold set in my bones. “You should. Go. With him. Or whoever. You don’t have to—” I shake my head, frustrated at the way the words twist in my mouth. “We’re not?—”
He cuts in, voice flat. “Serious?”
“Yeah,” I say, even though it feels like tearing a muscle off the bone. “You should see what else is out there.”
He looks at me like I’ve just hit him, clean and hard across the face. He stares for a second, a long, angry second, then laughs, but there’s nothing funny in it.
“Is that what you want?” he says.
It’s not, but I nod anyway.
“Okay,” he says, and the word is a coffin lid slamming shut.
He turns and walks. I don’t move, don’t chase, don’t call out after him, even as the sound of his steps gets smaller, smaller, gone.
When I can’t hear him anymore, I double over, palms on my knees, and suck in air that feels like swallowing knives.
Eventually I stumble back inside, into the locker room, the real one, the one with the ugly fluorescent lights and the chemical stink and the rows of empty stalls.
I sit on the bench, helmet still in my lap, hands shaking.
I press my forehead to the cool metal of my locker and close my eyes.
There’s a hollow behind my ribs, a perfect Ash-sized void, and it echoes worse than any tunnel in the world.
I stay there, breathing, until the cold in my chest is the only thing keeping me upright.
I don’t know how long I sit, but when I finally stand, the world is the same, only quieter.
I walk home alone, no messages, no noise, nothing but my own heartbeat to remind me I’m still here.
And I know, absolutely, completely, that I just made the worst play of my life.
VINCENT
The bathroom mirror in this place has a vertical crack running dead center, splitting my face into two identical but slightly misaligned losers.
I splash water on my face, twice, then three times, like the third rinse might reset the last twenty-four hours. It doesn’t.
I towel off with something that used to be a hand towel but is now a scientific sample in mildew research, then stare at my reflection for a full minute, long enough that the real me starts to dissolve and the only thing left is the composite image, the good-for-nothing, the benchwarmer, the guy who couldn’t hold onto the only thing that ever made him feel necessary.
I pop a pimple on my cheek.
It doesn’t bleed, which is a miracle.
The patchy stubble situation is not improving, no matter how many podcasts swear that biotin is the answer.
Tonight’s the night. The date with Vincent.
Not a date, I remind myself. Just two sad grownups hanging out and pretending they aren't each other's rebound.
Besides, we were never official.
