I stop two feet in front of her.
"Hey," I say.
"Hey."
We both have places to be. I’m not going to drag this out. If she’s only giving me a minute of her time, I’m going to use it wisely.
"You want to tell me what's going on?" I blurt out.
"Declan." She says my name on a sigh.
"No." I keep my voice down because we're in the middle of campus, and I have enough sense not to make this a spectacle. "I came home to an empty room and two days of no response. You owe me more thanhey."
She looks around like she’s nervous someone will see us talking. "I know. I'm sorry I didn't call."
"Are you going to tell me why you didn't?"
"Because I knew if I heard your voice, I'd explain it badly." She looks at me, her eyes reflecting the same pain I’ve been carrying around since I got home. "And I didn't want to explain it badly."
"So explain it well. Right now. I've got time."
Her eyes glisten, whether it’s tears or the cold, I can’t say, but she looks sad. "Okay." She takes a breath. "Take the Seattle placement, Declan."
I stare at her.
"Ashton told Crew, and Crew told Keira, and Keira told me." Her voice is even. Almost careful. "You were incredible at camp. The kind of incredible that gets you a contract, not just a callback." She pauses. "You deserve this. You've worked your whole life for it. Go. Follow the dream. It’s the NHL."
"And us?”
"There is no version of long distance that works for us." She says it like it's physics. Like she's done all the research and come to a conclusion. "I know us, Declan. I know how much I'd miss you. I know how hard I'd try to hold things together from thousands of miles away. And I know that at some point, one of us would stop being able to pretend it was enough." She looks down at her coffee. "I'd rather do it cleanly."
"You'd rather dump my ass than give me a chance." I stop. Start again. "That's your solution. Just end it. No conversation. No explanation. Zero chance."
"Wearehaving a conversation."
"After moving out while I was gone."
She doesn't flinch. "I know how it looks."
"It looks like you made a decision for both of us and didn't bother asking the other person."
"Because the other person would have talked me out of it." She looks up at me then, and for just a second, I see the regret. She’s not indifferent. She’s hurting and trying to shield herself. "I need to do this, Declan. I need to. So I couldn't give you the chance to tell me not to."
"So you just—" I gesture, a useless motion that conveys nothing. "You're allowed to make this call alone. That's how that works."
"You would have stayed."
"Maybe I want to stay."
"For me?" Her voice is quiet. "You'd stay in Massachusetts for me when Seattle is offering you everything you've trained for? And then what? You coach high school hockey for thirty years, wondering what would have happened if you'd just gone when they asked? You and I know how the sports world works. This is your last chance. You’re aging out."
"You don't know that."
"I know you." She holds my gaze. "And I know me. And I know I couldn't live with being the reason."
I want to argue with her. I have the argument right there. I have a version of this conversation where I say the right things, and her face changes, and we find our way back to the same side of this.
I practiced it.
