“I don’t want to do small talk.”
“Okay.”
“I don’t want to hear about the road trip. I don’t want to talk about practice. I don’t want to pretend Aspen is the issue.”
My throat tightened.
She studied me across the table. “Something’s wrong, Jace.”
I nodded once. My mouth hadn’t caught up.
“Is it me?”
“No.”
“Don’t answer fast because you think fast sounds less cruel.”
I pressed my shoe flat to the floor. My foot had started bouncing hard enough to vibrate the table leg. “It’s not you in the way you’re asking.”
Her expression changed, not a lot, but enough.
“That’s what you do now.”
“I know.”
“Half answers,” she said quietly. “Enough honesty to make yourself feel like you’re not lying. Not enough honesty to actually tell me anything.”
The guilt came hot and immediate.
I looked down at the napkin in my lap. My thumb had twisted one corner into a tight little rope. I let go of it and made myself look at her again because she deserved that much. She deserved more than that, but I was already late on every debt here.
“I’ve been unfair to you.”
A short laugh left her. Hurt, not surprised. “Yeah.”
“I should’ve said something sooner.”
“Yeah, you should’ve.”
“I kept thinking after the next game, or after the next trip, or once my head wasn’t such a mess, I’d know how to handle it.” My fingers curled against my thighs. “And then I just kept not handling it.”
Vanessa searched my face like she was looking for the version of me she’d started dating. The easier one. The one who showed up grinning with flowers because he’d been late and could still make that charming instead of exhausting.
“Are you in love with someone else?”
The restaurant sharpened around me.
A fork tapped a plate somewhere behind her. A laugh broke from the bar. Ice shifted in a glass. Music I hadn’t noticed a second ago suddenly pressed against the inside of my skull.
I had rehearsed things. In the shower. In my car. While tying my shoes and forgetting I had already tied one of them. I had practiced saying we weren’t working and you deserve better and I don’t know how to be what you need.
I hadn’t practiced the truth arriving with no padding around it.
Vanessa saw the answer before I gave it.
Her face closed in a way I wished I could unsee. No scene. No dramatic gasp. No throwing water. Just a quiet, terrible understanding settling over her features.
“Oh,” she said.
