That would have required me to say, out loud to another human being, that I wanted something for myself.
I sank onto the kitchen floor again. The tiles were cold.
I understood, sitting there, that this was the moment. This was the hinge. Everything I'd built, the peace, the life I'd organized around a love I couldn't name, was breaking.
It was breaking because the person at the center of it was walking away, and I had told him to go.
I had told him to go.
Whatever you decide, we're good.
I had told the person I loved to leave because telling him to stay would have required me to say why.
It would have meant asking for something, and I had never in my life asked anyone for anything. Asking meant wanting, andwanting meant risk. It was the one thing I didn't know if I could handle.
The kitchen floor was cold. Abbott was somewhere in this city, making plans to be somewhere else—making plans to be a starter for a team that wasn't mine.
He was making plans to leave the space I'd built for him—on my shelf, in my car, in my life—and fill it with something else.
Unless—
The word arrived like a shot off the crossbar.
Unless.
Unless I did something impossible. Unless I—who never asked for anything—asked for the one thing that mattered.
I didn't know if I could.
I was the one who opened doors for other people. I didn't know how to walk through one myself.
But Abbott was leaving. And I couldn't let him go without a fight.
17
Abbott
I accepted the trade on Thursday.
Marty handled the paperwork. I sat in my apartment and signed the documents digitally. I felt a flatness as I watched them upload. The decision should have felt like a beginning. Instead it felt like a door closing.
Two years. Three and a half million. Starter guaranteed. It was what I'd wanted for a decade.
My apartment was quiet.
Jamie's book was still on the second shelf. I hadn't moved it.
I texted him.
Me: Can you come over?
Three dots.
Jamie: When?
Me: Now. If you can.
Jamie: On my way.
