“You think I don’t regret you anyway?” It comes out without my thinking about it.
I take a breath, closing my eyes and trying to find my center. The air shifts around me. Being alone with this man is breaking down every wall I constructed.
“I don’t regret my decision.” Logan’s breath ghosts over my cheek. My body, traitorous as it is, sways into him. “I love you, Audrey. Letting you go was one of the hardest things I ever did. But I couldn’t keep you.”
“You couldn’t keep me? What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Opening my eyes, I see Logan staring down at me.
“I couldn’t be the reason you stayed behind. I did what needed to be done. I let you go so you could chase after your dreams. I broke my own damn heart so you would go to Switzerland. I don’t regret it—”
“So you’ve said.” I cut him off, a wateriness to my voice that wasn’t there before.
“I don’t regret it, Audrey, because I saw how well you did there. I watched every competition. Your times got better. You were competing in new races. I knew it was the best thing I could’ve done for you.”
“What you didn’t see,”—I straighten, getting right into his face—“was that I spent most nights crying. That I was lonely as hell because no one wanted to hang out with the sad girl who cried all the time. I was heartbroken, Logan. I couldn’t figure out why the person I loved most in the world would’ve left me like that.” My voice breaks. “I thought there was someone else.”
“God no. There could never have been anyone else. Not with how much I loved you. It nearly broke me, leaving you. If I saw you again, I knew I couldn’t go through with it.”
“Logan, I…”
“Why didn’t you tell me about it? Maybe if you had told me about it, we wouldn’t be standing here right now. Maybe things would’ve been different. But you kept it from me. Why?”
I try to swallow around the lump in my throat. I played out what happened between us so often in my head, I could recite it like my favorite movie.
How did I go from being in love and on top of the world to rock bottom the next day in a foreign country?
I never did tell Logan about Switzerland. Because it meant moving there for training. Not being in the US.
Logan’s schedule wouldn’t allow him to come visit anytime between August and January. Longer if they made the playoffs. Throw in offseason training and camp? We barely would’ve seen each other.
Would we have made it through to the other side?
We’ll never know.
Snow starts falling from the sky. It’s like a sign from the universe that the two of us need to take a minute and breathe.
Logan’s warm hand cups my cheek. I draw in a deep breath. It’s the first time in years that he’s touched me like this.
Familiar.
Intimate.
Loving.
“I will never regret it, Audrey, because I saw you achieve everything you’ve ever wanted. You were up there living out your dream. Even if it wasn’t with me by your side, I was so fucking proud of you.”
A lone tear slips through, stinging my cheeks. Logan swipes it away with his thumb.
“I never stopped loving you, Audrey. Call me a masochist, but I always watched your races. I was always cheering you on. I could never let you go. You were my everything.”
With a quick kiss to my cheek, Logan is gone. Taking his warmth with him.
Snow falls around me as I watch him leave.
The man that loved me so much, he broke his own heart so I could chase my dream. The man that I’ve spent the better part of the last few years trying to get over.
Key word—trying.
Because no matter what I did, or who I tried to date, it always came back to him.
