“What about what I need?” I gently ask. “Zee, you broke up with me. You couldn’t expect me to sit around and wait, hoping you’d change your mind.”
“I was just trying to protect you,” he softly admits, defeat evident in his voice.
“I know. I figured that out, but it doesn’t hurt any less, knowing you’d let me go so easily.”
“I didn’t want you to have to deal with the ugly parts of being in my life.” His voice breaks. “I was trying to protect you.”
“You can’t protect everyone from everything. You should’ve trusted that I could stand up for myself. You taught me to stand up for myself.”
Silence lingers between us. “Do you want to be in Seattle?” he finally asks. “You don’t even like flying all that much. What about the shelter? What about Ryan?”
“I just want to feel better.”
“I miss you so much. I can’t even function properly.” He sucks in a sharp breath. “How do you sound so okay?”
“I’m not. I’m nowhere near being okay, but what am I supposed to do? Wait around, hoping you’ll want me one day?”
“I’ve always wanted you, Stevie.”
“Then why’d you let me go?”
I can hear him swallow down his emotions through the phone. “It felt like everything was crashing down on us, you know? I was so messed up the day everything came out. I had no control over what people were saying about you. I was trying to fix something, anything. I didn’t want you to lose your job.”
“I didn’t care about my job!”
“Well, I did!” He calms his voice. “Vee, for the first time in my life, this season, the road felt like home because you were with me, and selfishly, I wasn’t ready to lose that. I needed to know you’d be there with me.”
My throat is thick, keeping me from responding. My eyes are burning from tears I’ve refused to shed for days, but also, I’m angry that he would make that decision for me.
“And I was afraid that you were going to leave altogether.” His voice is soft, almost inaudible. “Everything was so good, too good, and the last time I felt that comfortable relying on someone to stay in my life, she left me.”
Everything hurts. His voice hurts. The emptiness hurts.
I never would’ve left him. If Zanders asked me to be in his life forever, I would’ve said yes in a heartbeat, but I don’t necessarily blame him for reacting how he did. In his most formative years, the woman who was supposed to stay and love him didn’t, but I’m not her.
Regardless of my understanding, I have to look out for myself. He left me when all I wanted was to be allowed to love him and maybe have him love me in return.
“Did you really invite her over yesterday?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you okay?”
He takes a deep breath, filling his lungs. “Yeah. I think I am. I cut ties with her. I should’ve done it a long time ago, but I wasn’t ready until now.”
A pause lingers between us. “I’m proud of you, Zee.”
“Yeah?”
“Of course, I am.”
“I was going to tell you about my mom and everything else today. I just needed to talk to you.”
“Well, you’re talking to me now.”
“Can I come to you? Maybe I can get on a plane between games one and two. Maybe I can skip the press conferences and media stuff.” His tone is frantic, words rushing together.
“You know you can’t do that. No one would allow you to do that.”
“I can’t lose you, Stevie.”
The buzz from the air-conditioning unit fills the room with its white noise, helping to drown out the silence.
“You left me,” my voice cracks. “I never would’ve left you.”
“Please, I’m begging you, don’t leave me now.”
“Zee, look at it from my point of view. You spent months building me up, being proud of me, making me proud of myself, then the second anyone found out about me, you ran. Do you know how terrible that makes me feel? I just wanted you to choose me, choose us regardless of what people had to say.”
He stays silent on the other end.
“Do you know what it feels like to watch someone walk out the door after you begged them to stay?”
Once again, he doesn’t answer.
The memories of my words flash through my mind. Why’d you let me fall in love with you? It was humiliating the first time he walked out after I said it, but what’s another round of embarrassment?
“It was simple. I wanted you to love me.”
His silence is deafening, telling me everything I need to know, causing my heart to shatter all over again.
“I wanted you to let me love you, but you can’t, can you? I don’t think you know how to trust someone else to love you unconditionally.”
“Vee,” he finally speaks. “I just...”
The quiet line lingers between us for far too long.
“I don’t know how to do that.”
My eyes close from the pain vibrating through my entire body, confirming what I already knew. As much as I love him, how could we live a life together where he doesn’t believe that I do?
“Good luck tomorrow night.”
“Stevie—”
I hang up before he can say anything else.
50
ZANDERS
Three days of torture. Three days of unanswered calls and texts. Three days of wondering how I fucked up the best thing to ever happen to me. Three days of asking myself why I can’t trust her to love me the way she says she does. Three days of wishing I wasn’t so fucked up from my past that I could take what she’s offering because it’s everything I need.
But my most constant thought over the last three days has been, how the hell am I going to get Seattle to pick me up when I don’t even have an agent?
I don’t want to leave Chicago. I don’t want to leave Maddison and Logan or my niece and nephew. I’m only a two-hour drive from my dad’s house, and my sister is a quick flight away.
But I can’t lose Stevie. I might not understand my trust issues or my fear of love, but one thing I know for certain is I can’t lose her.
I’m beyond desperate right now, needing to see her, needing to talk to her, needing to heal myself. Needing to feel anything other than the giant aching hole in my chest that only she can fill, but I don’t know how to fix any of it.
Even at two in the morning, fans line the airport gate, eager to greet us after coming home with two road wins and only needing two more to win it all. Shouts and cheers echo from the enthusiastic crowd, all wearing their red, black, and white waiting to get a glimpse of us stepping off the airplane in Chicago.
But I don’t care. Sure, I’m grateful for their support, and I’m stoked that we’re dominating this series so far, but the only reason I’ve been playing as well as I have been is because I need to pull off a miracle and somehow be able to choose where I land next season.
“Zee, hold up!” Maddison shouts while doing his captain duties, waving to the crowd, thanking them for coming out. “I drove you.”
“Well, hurry up. I need to go.”
I throw my suitcase in the bed of his truck before jumping in.
“You’re not going over there right now. It’s two in the morning.”
“Yes, I am. I need to see her. If she wants to move across the country, then okay. Fine. But I need her to say it to my face.”