Page 10 of On the Breakaway

“I’m not calling him, and I’m definitely not relaying messages. You both are grown adults and can talk to each other.”

She pauses again, heavier this time, and I can picture her expression through the phone, the slight frown and disappointment she won’t say outright but will absolutely make me feel.

“You should consider yourself lucky. You’ve got that hockey player, Damon.”

My skin goes cold.

“I told you I’m not seeing him anymore.”

“Avery. You deserve a nice man like him. You should really try to fix it.”

As if I’m the one who broke it.

I huff out a quiet laugh, staring out at the gray stretch of pavement in front of me.

My knuckles turn white on the steering wheel because it’s been months, and his name still manages to make my stomach turn, as if I haven’t cut that part of my life out and buried it.

“He was a nice boy,” she adds, softer now, almost coaxing. “I always liked him.”

A nice boy.

He did seem that way.

He was the captain of the New York Yeti, well-liked, and the kind of guy who remembered to call my mom on her birthday. He asked my dad questions about things he didn’t actually care about just to make a good impression. Damon was the kind of guy who held doors open and said all the right things while making it seem easy.

For a while, it was easy.

At first, it was small things, the kind that felt more like concern than anything else. He’d get quiet when I would go out without him. He’d ask a few too many questions about who I was with and when I’d be home, but it didn’t feel like a problem.

Then he asked me to share my location because it would be easier if he ever needed to pick me up. I remember rolling my eyes and agreeing because I didn’t have anything to hide, and it felt stupid to make it into something bigger than it was.

Except it didn’t stay small.

It turned into calls when I was somewhere he didn’t recognize, his voice tight on the other end of the line while I stood outside of bars or restaurants explaining myself as if I’d done something wrong. He said I owed him that.

I didn’t notice when it stopped feeling normal.

Not until I went to leave one night and couldn’t find my keys anywhere. I tore his entire place apart while he watched from the couch, calm and unbothered, until he finally told me I didn’t need to go out.

My shoulders straighten, the memory hitting harder than I expect.

He’d never laid a hand on me, but his control over my life ran deeper than I should’ve been willing to allow.

Since then, I’ve pretended to resume my previous antics. Not even my friends realize that I haven’t been able to sleep with a man since the breakup. Making out in a bar is one thing, but trusting someone enough to go home with them is another story entirely.

It pisses me off that he’s still controlling that part of my life, even in his absence.

My throat works, and I force myself out of my head before I spiral further.

“He was fine,” I say finally, forcing my voice to stay even, because there’s no version of this conversation where she understands any of it. “But I’m not getting back together with him.”

She sighs again. “I just want you to be happy.”

“I am happy.” I turn the car off, reaching for my bag because if I sit here any longer, I’m going to crawl out of my skin. “I just don’t need a relationship to get there.”

There’s a pause, and just as I think she might argue, she hums quietly instead.

“Alright,” she says. “Call me later?”