16. Chapter 16

The light from my phone screen jabbed me in the eyes like two tiny swords. I'd fallen asleep on the sofa, in my pants, in a sea of litter, in the dark, with the South Africa-Tonga game playing on Hunter's multiplex-sized bachelor telly. The rugby match had finished, and the TV had switched itself onto standby mode. I didn't even know who'd won.

My phone, having finished its mini attention-seeking tantrum, stopped vibrating and dangled from its abused charging cable on the arm of the sofa. The screen went dark, pitching me into the blackness of the room once again.

I had the apartment to myself. All by myself.

No Hunter.

No Jamie.

Nobody but me.

Alone.

Always.

I reached forward and showered the rug with the evidence of my isolation. This time, Cadbury Chocolate Eclair wrappers. The ones Jamie had bought me from the British food store. And because I was a recovering athlete, and both Jamie and Katie would lose their collective shit if they saw me now, a few empty tupperware containers that once held plain chicken and boiled eggs and cavolo nero, also tumbled to the ground.

Bleary-eyed, I swiped a thumb up the screen of my phone. A text message. My heart collided with my windpipe, but sank back into my stomach just as quickly.

Olly:

Wales v Georgia, England v Samoa, Ireland v Scotland. All on Sat. Chris is putting the rugby on instead of your game. Sorry, mate. Can still watch on my iPad tho.

I dropped the phone, blew out a breath, and rolled onto my side. I used my stick, which I"d left propped up against the arm, to hook a blanket I'd rage-discarded earlier.

Over the past two days, I'd done nothing except train—which Coach had me doing the second he'd announced someone else would clear me—and watch the Rugby World Cup Catch-up streams. And though it wasn't the same as watching the games with my brothers, it was the closest thing I had to feeling like I was home. Like I had people around me that wanted me there.

And it was a sport I knew. Watching it reminded me of how much I loved it. Loved playing. Loved spectating. Being outdoors instead of in a frozen hangar. The mud, the rain, the guys. Split skin, and padless bodies, and aching muscles, and Deep Heat, and Guinness in the bar after, and pie and mash at Chris's. The laughter, and the backslapping, and the post-game high.

That was what I missed. The feeling of being a piece of something bigger. Being a number in a jersey. A sum of a part that together made a mathematical impossibility.

Stronger as a team.

And I'd gotten a little of that back over the past two days training with the lads. Being back on my skates was wonderful, amazing, freeing, like back to how things should be. Back to how I should be. But I still felt as though it could—no, would—be whipped away from me any second.

I felt like I was still on those sidelines, balancing on the edge of being part of the team once again and waiting for the whistle to signal the end of my career.

I didn't text Olly back. What would I even say? Don't bother, I won't be playing, my boyfriend-not-boyfriend won't let me?

At some point during my couch campout, I realised it wasn't that he told me I couldn't play.

It was that he told me I couldn't play.

After everything. Everything we talked about at the lake. After I'd confessed all my fears to him.

Jamie knew how I felt about being passed around. Traded like a shiny pokemon card. And I knew that was the nature of the sport. Of any sport at pro level. And maybe that was why people just expected me to be cool with it. But I wasn't sure I could continue with transfer after transfer.

New home. New allegiance. New team. New teammates. New friends.

Fuck your old friends. Fuck relationships. Fuck the idea of having a boyfriend.

Fuck falling in love.

Who needed human contact in the age of Instagram? Wasn't liking someone's TikTok the same as having friends? Chuck them a bunch of ROFL emojis, that was just as meaningful. Right?

I'd even gone so far as looking at flights to the UK. Maybe I could play for one of the hockey teams there. Ice hockey was nowhere near as mainstream in Britain, and the pay was a fraction of what I'd get here. But who honestly needed millions of dollars when you were lying in a pool of your own filth, anyhow?

Maybe I could go back into rugby. Not playing, because I'd never possessed the same level of talent or passion as Olly and Harry, but there must be something for me to do that didn't involve being alone, in an over-air-conditioned apartment in my underwear, covered in shit, whining and moping like a jilted teenager.

I couldn't leave the game, though. Couldn't leave hockey, even if I wanted to. The past few days, training at all times of the day, leaving the rink after the darkness had settled, had shown me that much. Practicing again with the lads was incredible. Turner had told them not to go easy on me, to throw everything they had at me. And they did. And for a few magical hours, I forgot about all the things wrong in my life. My shoulder, my homesickness, the probability of being traded again, Jamie.

But as soon as my ass hit that bench in the Bobcats' locker room, Jamie was there. In the forefront of my thoughts.

And I couldn't …

I needed to …

I just wanted …

"Urgh!" I screamed. Kicked the fucking blanket off again.

I had no idea what I wanted or needed. Only that Jamie was there, and part of both somehow.

My phone buzzed again, and I seized it from the arm so forcefully, I yanked it off its charger. A text message. My pulse spiked.

From Jamie.

From Jamie!

Jamie had texted me. My heart resumed its earlier attempt to escape through my ribcage. With shaking hands, I unlocked the screen and opened the chat.

Kitty:

I'm here.

I blinked back the tears building in the corners of my eyes.

I'm here.

He'd replied to a message I'd sent him two days ago, before this shitstorm had even begun.

I'm here.

Did he have any idea what power those words wielded? How much I needed to hear them? How much I wanted to hear them? And how much they made me want to hurl my phone out of Hunter's panoramic windows?

I didn't try to stop the tears as they raced down my cheeks. Or the breath as it ripped through my lungs. Or the torment in my chest as it threatened to overwhelm me.

The first game of the regular season was tomorrow. And I still had no idea whether I was playing. Whether I'd been cleared to play. Or if Jamie would get his wish, and I'd sit at the sidelines and watch my dreams slip between my fingers.

I'd arrived at Bobcats' HQ at eight A.M., after a shit night's sleep in my too empty bed, and had tried to speak with Coach Turner five times since he got there an hour ago at eleven. But every time I visited his office, he was on the phone, his brow furrowed, his voice elevated, what little hair he had left sticking out skyward. He acknowledged me with a scowly nod and waved me away to return later. The last two times I popped my head in, he didn't bother with the nod.

So I took myself to the weights room to work off some frustrations. Still with my fucking shoulder strapped because I could just hear Jamie's nagging ringing in my ears. The gym was empty, save for Rowan, who was lying on the bench, decidedly not doing any exercise, and clearly brooding over something. I had a tiny inkling of what, or who, that might be.

He paused his soul-searching when he saw me and pushed himself to a seated position. "You playing tomorrow?"

I shrugged and sat on the bench next to him. "Been here since eight, and I still don't know."

"What did Dr Ruthless say about it?" Rowan aimed a flick at my shoulder brace just peeking out from the sleeve of my T-shirt.

"He said …" I puffed out my cheeks, ran a hand through my hair. "He said it was mostly healed. That he recommends I sit the first few games. He was gonna sign me off, then I was a baby about it, and he changed his mind."

"He won't sign off?"

It was all my fault. If only I'd kept my mouth shut, promised him I wouldn't skate, he'd have signed that bloody form. But I would've been lying to him by making that promise. And the thought of betraying him stung worse than not playing.

Yet, I'd already betrayed him. Had I not? When I went over his head and asked Coach to get someone else to clear me. It might not even be too late to change my mind. Turner would've said something by now if I'd been signed off, surely. He'd have given me a thumbs up when I peered into his office, instead of the harried scowl I got.

Rowan nodded, as though he was picturing those exact words as Jamie was saying them. "He's just being extra cautious. He's like that with everyone. Scared we'll end up like him."

"He played pro too?" I didn't know why I asked. I knew the answer already. Not that I knew much beyond the fact Jamie played defence and was a pest and was amazing. He never seemed to want to talk about it.

"Fucking dominated. He was gonna be huge. Offers coming at him from every angle, on and off the ice." Rowan softly elbowed me in the bicep. "He was like you."

Like me. Right. "Why'd he quit?" It was the question that everyone had danced around. The one Jamie would ignore, or change the subject, or say, "Another time".

"Fuck, you really don't know? You never Googled him?"

I felt the blush inching up my cheeks. All this time I had the answer at my fingertips. I never once thought to type Jamie Sullivan Boston Bears into my phone's search engine. I'd spent all those hours creeping around his TopTier profile. Staring at the photo of him in the sun with a sandwich and his shirt straining against all those muscles. And there were only so many times I could read if Jamie were a vegetable, he'd be a squash, gently roasting in the oven until he was soft enough to fall apart in my mouth. I could've so easily typed his name into the little white bar, but it never occurred to me to do so.

"It was a knee injury," Rowan said before I had the chance to whip out my phone and search for it. "ACL, MCL. Multiple surgeries. That shit. And he kept playing on it, and it kept getting worse, until one day he just couldn't. Play anymore."

"Fuck," I offered eloquently.

"You're not him though," Rowan said. "Different injury, completely different situation."

I stared at him for a few seconds while my brain caught up with his words. Of course it was a different situation, and we were different people, and what happened with Jamie was unlikely to happen with me. But that wasn't what I'd been thinking about, what had rendered me speechless.

Jamie had had the career of his dreams. And he was good at it. Which I knew because Rowan had told me, but I also knew instinctively that Jamie was good, because it was Jamie. He was good at everything. The best, and not one modicum less. That's who he was. And …

He'd presumably known at the time that skating on a torn ACL could ruin his career, but he did it anyway. Jamie went against advice?

I just couldn't wrap my reasoning around it. It sounded so unlike the Jamie I loved.

"If he would've rested it, his injury, would he still be playing today?" I asked, quietly, as though the answer to my question might be different depending on the volume of my voice.

"They don't usually let sixty-year-olds play pro hockey."

I managed a laugh.

"But realistically? Yeah. I think that's why he has no chill, why he's such a hard ass with us. Because he doesn't want any of us going the same way. But you've got to look at the bigger picture. Sul had a torn ACL and a bunch of other shit. You have an almost fully healed rotator cuff. Not the same thing."

Perhaps that was why Jamie had never mentioned his injury before. Because he wanted me to remain unbiased. But then … he hadn't ever given me the option of choice.

Because he knew I would have likely chosen to skate and risked damaging it further.

He didn't trust me enough to make the decision. He took away my choice like I was a child having a tantrum.

Because you were a child having a tantrum, a tiny voice inside my head said.

What was right here? I had no idea anymore.

"You know, the same thing happened to me a few years ago?" Rowan said. His eyebrows knotted together, and he looked every bit the dark, brooding bad boy I met at my first practice. I sat up straighter and turned to him. "Achilles tendon. Five months off skates. Luckily, like you, my recovery was mostly during off season. Then regular season rolled around and Sul was all, "I highly recommend a few more weeks of R and R, but it's not a do or die type deal, so it's your call".

It's your call.

He'd really given Rowan the choice, and not me. Why? Because Rowan was so much more mature than I was? I glanced at his scabbed knuckles. Nope, definitely not the reason.

"What did you decide, then? Did you skate or sit for a few games?"

"Fuck, yeah, I played. It was against the Cavs, and I'm not a guy that follows orders well. I would've been shit in the military."

So, Rowan had skated on a, presumably, almost fully healed ankle injury and lived to tell the tale. Was still skating however many years later.

Jamie had given Rowan the choice, but not me.

Given Rowan the choice.

But not me.

Why didn't he trust me?

"Hey guys," Aaron said, poking his head through the gym doors. "Bowie, Coach is looking for you." He gave me the thumbs up gesture I'd been so eager for. "You got this. They're clearing you now."

I took the stairs up to the second floor, along the short corridor to the offices, and I couldn't stop my brain from whirring. My thoughts tumbled over each other, churning about, nerves rising in my stomach. That ‘Smell Ice Can Ya?' feeling bubbling up in my gut.

They're clearing you now.

Sul had a torn ACL.

Completely different situation.

I'm not going to watch you throw yourself away on a silly injury …

But as I reached Coach Turner's office, I stopped short.

Hisvoice floated down the corridor, and my heart leapt into my throat.

I'm here.

Get it together, Bowie, I told myself. Don't you dare start crying in the hall.

I crept closer, like my body was on automatic pilot. Like Jamie was the opposite magnetic force pulling me in, and all I had to do was lean into his attraction. I held my breath, tried to steady my hammering heartbeat, and leant against the door frame.

Jamie had his back to me, sitting in a chair pulled up to the enormous desk. Coach handed him a folder, and Jamie took something—a pen—from his pocket and clicked it into action.

"My diagnosis stands," he said, the deep timbre of his voice simultaneously fizzing up all my nerves and soothing them. "He has a torn rotator cuff. It's pretty well healed, but at a critical point where it could be re-injured, require surgery, that kind of shit." He had no idea I could hear everything.

"So …" Turner folded his hands together atop the desk. His eyebrows relaxed from their mega-scowl as he clocked me in the doorway. He said nothing. "You think he should play or what?

"My strong recommendation is that he sit for the next few games." Jamie sighed. Paused. "But it's not my call to make."

"I see."

"I will sign off on his release." Another pause, and I got the distinct impression he was staring Turner down. "On the condition that it's not your decision, either. You can't pressure him one way or the other. It's his choice. Not mine, not yours."

Coach watched Jamie for a few beats. I could almost see the resignation building in his features. "Fine. You have a deal. Bowman decides for himself."

Jamie pulled the papers closer, heaved out yet another tremendous sigh, and scribbled his name on them.

That was it. I was cleared to play in tomorrow's game.

Why wasn't I feeling happier?

"Just the man I've been looking for," Coach said, as though only then spotting me there. "Congratulations, you've got the go ahead."

Jamie spun around in his seat, getting to his feet half a second later. He assessed me for a few moments, his expression unreadable. No hint of emotion. He said nothing, and I didn't break the silence.

"Excuse me," he said eventually, shouldering past me out of the door.

I wanted to cry. I wanted to fall to the ground, and hug my knees, and sob until someone—Jamie—carried me home and wrapped me in a blanket and fed me sweeties. But I forced my features to mirror his passive, emotionless mask. I closed my fingers around his bicep, and he came to a stop, spinning to face me in the hall.

"Bowman," he said. The formality of my name stung. Like tape ripped from skin, hairs be damned.

"Why?" was all I could muster. "Why did you change your mind?"

For a beat, Jamie's face softened. He blew out a breath and scrubbed a hand through his hair. There were bags under his eyes. His shirt looked like it had only been pressed once instead of its usual seven or eight times. His five o'clock shadow was more like a five-day shadow.

Had he shaved recently? Or slept? Was this hurting him as much as it was me?

I'm here.

Gently, Jamie lifted my hand from his arm and let it drop to my side. He might as well have taken a blade to my skin. "Because I was letting my biases make my decisions. You're an adult. You know your body, your capabilities, more than anyone. It should be your call if you skate. I … I understand how important this is for you. For everyone, really." He paused again. His gaze brushed over my lips and my stomach swooped. "I trust you."

I didn't say anything. Didn't know what to say.

After a few more moments of silence, a tiny, almost imperceptible smile curved the corner of Jamie's mouth. I realised that if I were anyone else, or this had been three months ago, I wouldn't have even known it was a smile.

But it was there, and it was only for me.

Jamie leaned a little closer. Lowered his voice to a whisper. "I can't believe I've finally done it." I raised a brow. "I've finally rendered Archie Bowman, rising British hockey superstar, speechless."

I pursed my lips together to stop all my thoughts tumbling out. I'm sorry. I forgive you. I love you. Please take me home and fuck me on your ottoman again.

When I still said nothing, Jamie brushed down his shirt and turned to leave.

"Wait," I called out, and he spun around once more. "Thank you."

He nodded.

"Are you coming to watch the game tomorrow?"

My heart was hammering so loudly in my chest I barely heard his answer above it.

"Wouldn't miss it, little winger."

The locker room was empty when I made my way there after talking with Coach. Thank fuck. I needed to be by myself. Ironic really, when I'd spent the last few months wishing I were anything but. Yet, I needed to think.

Now that the decision to play tomorrow's opening game was in my hands, it felt impossible to choose.

Hockey was life, and skating this game meant everything. But there was a reason Jamie didn't want me risking it. Even if he was, perhaps, being a little overzealous.

I headed straight to my cubby, collapsed on the bench, and took out my phone.

In the Google search bar, I typed James Sullivan, Boston Bears, Hockey. My near empty stomach churning over itself.

I didn't even reach the bottom of the first results page before I shut the thing off.

Boston born hockey star hospitalized with recurring knee injury

Doctors warn Bears' defenseman, Jamie Sullivan, may never skate again after final game ends in catastrophe

Fears the Boston Bears will lose the champs with Jamie Sullivan still out on IR

Disaster as Bears' Sullivan still not recovered after third surgery to knee

The headlines were all the same. Some came with pictures, some with YouTube videos. Only about Jamie's injury and his fallout from hockey. Nothing about his actual career, or him.

I got it now. He didn't want me to risk everything the same way he did.

I had assumed he'd quit the sport. Had reached his limit. How wrong I was. Jamie had played to the end. He'd received the injury. Got the diagnosis. Played anyway. Kept playing. Still kept pushing it. Time and time again until his body screamed enough.

And he hadn't listened.

That was how much the sport meant to him. He'd destroyed everything for it. Had the doctors told him to rest? Had the doctors warned him the risk of damage was high? Permanent? If they did, it meant Jamie hadn"t listened to them. Who knew? Maybe he even went over their heads in his desperation to play just one more game.

It'd be too painful for him to watch it all happen again. With me.

No wonder he hadn't skated in a decade. No wonder he hid his scars. No wonder he snapped at me and shut down.

He cared about me. Loved me even. He didn't want me to go through the same thing as him.

But Rowan was right. We were different people in very different situations.

And he had to see that. He had to stop living in his past. Had to understand that what happened to him wouldn't possibly happen to me.

Because of him. Because he'd made it so.

He'd made me strengthen and condition. Got me stretching, lifting, swimming. He'd massaged me, encouraged me, talked me through the tough parts, and showed me how much he cared.

If Jamie'd had his own Dr Sullivan to tell him not to skate, would he be as strict as he was now? If Jamie'd had someone to care for him the way he cared for me, would he have even become a PT?

I let my head fall back against the shiplap wall. People said to think with your head and not your heart, but what was I supposed to do when my head was doing jack shit, literally none of the real thinking, and my heart was pulling me in two separate directions?

Listen to Jamie and rest my shoulder for two or three games? Or more. Miss the opening game of the regular season. Give the world another few weeks to forget about me. Make it a bit more difficult to prove myself when I finally got back in. Because I would get back in. That much, I was sure of.

Or play.

Do what Turner wanted, what the team wanted, what the public wanted. What I wanted. Show them they needed me, that I belonged. Rowan would have skated—did skate—and he was fine.

I needed to be objective. Assess the facts. Make a decision based on logic.

Permanent injury from one game was unlikely.

But every time I closed my eyes, Jamie was there.

Swimming at the lake, rolling his eyes, stripping off his T-shirt, revealing his sexy bad boy tattoos.

Squished against me at the trolley museum, his breaths coming out quick and hard, mixing with mine.

His thumb rubbing over my pinky while he sequestered the shots from me so that I didn't have to drink, and in the process, getting totally wankered himself.

Cooking him breakfast the next day.

Skating with him.

Fucking him in his kitchen.

You're impossible.

You have no idea how long I've been thinking about these lips.

You've got talent like nothing this team's ever seen before.

I want you, Bowie. I want you so fucking much it hurts. I don't stop thinking about you. About the way you always seem to find the one single most inappropriate thing to say, that nobody in their right mind would ever dream to say, and you fucking say it. Every time. Just to wind me up.

They're not gonna let you go over a preseason shoulder injury.

I bet you could ride the bench the whole season and still have a starting spot next year.

I'm not going to sign your release to play any games if you can't be rational about this.

I'm here.

I let out a frustrated scream and opened my eyes. At once, thankful and heartbroken, I was still alone.

I crossed the locker room to the showers, slammed on the water and peeled my clothes from my body, tossing them over to a nearby bench. I didn't even have a towel. Didn't think it through. I just needed one thing.

To stand under the near scalding water as it crashed down around me. The temperature too hot to feel pain and the splashing too loud for others to hear my cries.

I slept like shit again. At Rowan's apartment because I didn't want to be alone, and I thought being around my teammate might help psych me up for the game tomorrow. It didn't.

Rowan insisted we watched footage from old games, to analyse our opponents' weaknesses. Claimed he did it before every game, despite spending the entire evening staring down at his phone.

He ordered us ‘dirty' burgers from the place at the end of his block. Two for him. When I shot him a questioning eyebrow raise, his reply was, "Once I ate two Beat's Burgers before a home game and we won five-one, so now it's just a thing I have to do." And then, as an afterthought, he added, "Katie does not need to know about this."

So we watched hockey, while my burger went cold, and we avoided any form of boy talk. Rowan danced around the subject of Jamie, even though it was screamingly obvious I wanted to chat about nothing else. And I didn't bring up Gus L?vgren, my former teammate. I got the feeling Rowan was both grateful for this and disappointed by it.

The next morning, Rowan drove us, in his fucking Lambo, to the arena for team talks and a pregame skate. I tried to keep my thoughts on the ice, on my hands, on keeping loose. Not on Jamie fucking Sullivan.

But it was impossible. I spent the whole day floating from point A to point B. Being shunted around by Rowan, or Aaron, or Turner. I had to get my head in the game. I needed to focus. This was the opening game of the season. A home game. It was a big fucking deal.

My gear was hanging in the Bobcats' locker room when we arrived. Sandwiched between Aaron and Zac's. A sea of blue and gold. The orange and gold cartoon vinyl bobcat snarled up from the floor at us.

I took my place on the bench and Aaron gave the team a garden-variety, albeit impassioned, We've Got This pep talk. I caught only snatches. "Keep your heads up … Don't let them play the body … Keep it clean." Aaron looked at Rowan and added, "Ish."

Rowan smirked.

"You okay?" Aaron asked me after his speech had finished. We began stripping down. "It's okay to be nervous. But you'll get out there and it'll be like you never stopped skating."

"I'm not nervous," I said, because it was the truth. I wasn't nervous. Rarely suffered pregame nerves. This was … something else.

"This about the doc, then?"

I peeled my shirt off to avoid answering the question. The truth was, I hadn't stopped thinking about him. Seeing him when I closed my eyes. Hearing his voice on a constant loop in my mind.

I heard him then.

That deep, gravelled baritone. A voice with the power to both soothe and arouse at the same time. I closed my eyes again and leant into the sound. Realised I probably wasn't imagining it anymore.

"He's here now, isn't he?" I asked Aaron in a whisper. I wouldn't turn to look at Jamie. I didn't know if I could bear to see his beautiful face.

Aaron nodded. "He's just come to check on us, tape us if needed."

I swallowed, and tried not to listen to Jamie making his way through the locker room, visiting every player but me. I padded up, pulled on my jersey, fiddled with my helmet's chin strap, while I waited for Jamie to get around to me. Or skip me entirely. I wasn't sure what would happen. Had I made things so weird between us, it would affect our professional relationship, too?

"Bowman," Jamie eventually said. His voice was soft, a caress, despite the formality of my full surname.

I lifted my head and there he was. Not looking as tired as he did the day before. At least one of us got some sleep. He'd shaved and donned a charcoal suit that fit him so well it looked as though it'd been sewn onto his body. I stood to greet him.

"Want me to tape your shoulder?" he said. His face was passive, professional, his forearms crossed over his chest like he was protecting himself from the cold.

I wanted to scream, and weep, and wrap my arms and legs around him like a koala bear and never let go. "Rowan taped it already," I said, trying to mirror his emotionless manner. I'd had Rowan strap my shoulder up earlier because I didn't think I could keep my shit together if Jamie touched me.

"Want me to check it?" he said, his voice going uncharacteristically squeaky at the end.

I shook my head.

"I see," Jamie said.

I see. I see! What did it fucking mean? I wanted to shout at him. Pummel that chest of his. Pull his arms around me like a weighted blanket and sink into him.

"Well, if you don't need me for anything else, I'll go sit." He paused, obviously waiting for me to say something. Probably something ludicrously inappropriate that would have him asking the lord for strength.

When I didn't say anything, his shoulders dropped, and he huffed out a small, resigned sigh. "This doesn't have to be the end, Bowie. If you don't want it to be. Of us, I mean. I … I understand what you did. Hell, I'd have done the same. Did worse, actually. Much worse. And, fuck, I'm so—"

"Okay, boys!" yelled Turner. "We ready for warm-up?" He turned to us. "All set, Sullivan?"

Jamie nodded, but didn't take his eyes off me. After a beat, two beats, he gave me a half smile, turned on his heel, and walked out of the locker room.

I sat back on the bench and pretended to listen to Turner.

All along, it had felt that choosing to play today was choosing between skating and my relationship with Jamie. That it was one or the other. Black or white. Do or die.

But now … Jamie had dropped a little ray of hope into my lap.

This doesn't have to be the end. Of us, I mean.

He still wanted … something with me. Maybe not as intense as before, and maybe it would take a little longer to get everything back to what we had. But it was there, burning brightly in my hands. A ball of fucking sunshiny optimism.

I wouldn't have to compromise. Give one of them up.

I could have both.

I knew exactly what to do.