“Sounds safe.”
“What are you saying? Why are you saying this?” He looks at me steadily. “You’re headed back to your competition career. You have a qualifier, a coach, a plan. What are you-”
“I don’t know.”
He blinks.
“I don’t know what I’m saying. I don’t know what’s possible and what’s-” I stop.
I’m aware of my eyes filling up before I can stop it. Because apparently this booth is where my composure finally decides enough is enough.
I press my lips together.
He’s watching me, half frustrated, half tender.
“Elida.”
“I’m fine.”
He exhales. “You can’t do this. You can’t sit there and say you want a clean slate and then tell me that Sweden has better teams in the same conversation.” He shakes his head. “What do you actually want? Forget what’s sensible or professional. What do you actually want?”
I don’t have an answer. Or I have too many answers, and none of them are ones I can say out loud with his eyes on me and my flight in a few days and everything still so raw and unresolved.
“I’m sorry.”
I slide out of the booth.
“Elida-”
“I’m sorry,” I say again. “I can’t.”
I go.
And he doesn’t follow.
MATEO
I let myself into my apartment with my head reeling.
What was that?
She’s leaving in a few days and she sits across from me and looks at me like that while telling me she wants a clean slate. And telling me Sweden has better teams.
I drop onto the sofa.
She’s leaving.
And she shouldn’t be making it harder than it already is. I’d made my peace with it - or I was making my peace with it, slowly. It’s not ok but it has to be. And that’s that.
A knock at the door.
I open it.
Elida is standing on the doorstep, slightly out of breath, cheeks pink from the cold. Her expression is terrified and certain at the same time.
“Come to Stockholm.”
I stare at her.
