I’ve got the telly on – some quiz show with too much shouting and zero brain cells – but I’m not watching it. The volume’s high enough to cover the silence, but it still feels like I’m echoing.
I grab a slice of pizza from the box on the coffee table and lean back. It’s dry, and the cheese has set like rubber. I eat it anyway.
Four days since she was right next to me at the MacKenzie event. Four days of replaying every second, every micro-expression that crossed her face.
She looked good.
Although… She looked breakable underneath that shell. Untouchable. Every inch of her a line I used to be allowed to cross. That soft perfume she wears, the one that makes my IQ drop with every inhale. She tried not to look at me directly. But when our eyes met, I saw a flash of hurt before the walls slammed back up.
But she didn’t waver when we took that picture. Held herself steady beside me, shoulder to shoulder as though we hadn’t been naked in her bed a week ago, making promises with our bodies we weren’t brave enough to speak out loud.
I’d told myself I could handle this event. A bit of PR. Flash a smile. Sign a jersey. Pretend I’m not splitting at the seams inside.
Lie of the fucking year.
Today is Valentine’s Day, and she’s posted a photo of us on my socials. Her all glowing and gorgeous, me looking at her like she hung the bloody moon. And it makes me want to punch a wall, kiss her senseless, and throw up in the same breath.
I get up with a groan and drag myself to the kitchen, flicking on lights as I go. The refrigerator offers slim pickings: half a block of cheddar with suspicious blue spots and milk that’s a day from walking out on its own. There’s a beer in the back. I don’t take it.
Behind a half-empty takeaway container, I find a lone can of Irn Bru. I open it with one hand, and the sweet taste hits my tongue. When I shut the fridge, my dull reflection winks back in the steel.
Silly bastard.
Marseille would’ve been easier, I think as I make my way back to the couch. Sunshine, clean slate, fresh start, life-changing money, and security. Everything I never had growing up. Theo wanted me to take it.
And I nearly did.
But then I saw her at the signing. Putting on an act for the cameras, answering questions she hated, pretending we were still something. She’s got this way of carrying other people’s weight without ever letting them see her knees buckle.
I just stood there, being looked at like I was hers.
And I’m not.
But I know that If I’d gone to Marseille, I’d be rich and miserable. I’d be a quitter with a tan. I’m tired of packing up my damage and calling it reinvention, of leaving when things get hard.
I take my phone out of my pocket and unlock it. Charlie’s text from yesterday still sits there:
You better be serious about staying. I staked my name on you. Don’t make me regret it.
* * *
I won’t.
I said say no to Marseille because I couldn’t stomach the thought of being in another country while Theo MacMickin walked through life, shouldering it all, pretending she can do it all and we never mattered.
I know she doesn’t ask for anything, and she won’t ever say she needs me.
But I’ll be here for her anyway.
I’m staying for Theo, even if she doesn’t want me to. Even if the next few months of our ‘relationship’ are pure theatre. Performance. I’m desperate enough to take what I can get.
Pathetic doesn’t even begin to cover it.
It’s fucking ironic: from faking I loved her to faking I don’t.
I scrub a hand over my face. Skin sandpapered, brain splintered. I need to shave. Need to sleep.
The thing is, I simply can’t get on a plane to France knowing I’d be running away. From the team that gave me a chance. From Theo, who believed in me when I was nothing but a PR disaster with a porn tape. So yeah, I’m also staying because I need to prove something. To Charlie, to the team, to myself. That I can stick with something even when it gets tough.
