Page 54 of The One That Got Away

After my conversation with Sammie, I supposed I just wanted to loosen up and have fun.

‘Morning,’ Max croaked, slowly sitting upright and rubbing his eyes. ‘Shit.’ He stretched his hand over his shoulder and winced. ‘My back.’

‘I’m not surprised. Why did you sleep on the floor?’

‘It wasn’t right to be on the bed. I only planned to crash for a few hours to check you were okay, but I must’ve been more tired than I thought.’

‘Did we…?’

‘No way,’ he said quickly.

‘No need to sound so relieved!’ I snapped.

‘It’s not because I’m relieved. It’s because you were really drunk.’

‘I didn’t do anything embarrassing, did I?’ I held my breath, waiting for his response.

‘You were…’ he paused. ‘Happy. Friendly. Don’t worry about it.’

‘Oh, God.’ I squeezed my eyes shut. I was going to ask for more details, but now I wasn’t sure that I wanted to know.

‘Listen, Stella. Another reason I stayed was because I need totalk to you about what happened between us. It’s been the elephant in the room and if it’s okay with you, I’d like to try and explain.’

I didn’t have the energy to protest. And he was right. I’d avoided it. Tried to pretend it didn’t matter, but it did. It was time to rip the plaster off.

‘Okay.’ I sat up reluctantly. Max’s eyes widened. I think he was surprised that I hadn’t brushed him off.

‘So.’ He stood up, put the kettle on and pulled out two mugs. ‘As you know, when I got the call to join Manchester Athletic, I was so happy. It’d always been my dream.’

‘Yeah.’ I nodded. At that point, we’d been dating for two years and I thought we were madly in love. I knew I was.

Every weekend, whatever the time and come rain or shine, I’d stand on the pitch sidelines cheering him on.

Max was amazingly talented and I knew it was only a matter of time before he got signed and went pro.

When the call came, everything happened so quickly. He had to move to Manchester. He told me nothing would change, so there was never any question in my mind that we’d stay together.

I’d go to see him every other weekend and he came down when he could. It was difficult, but that was what you did for love, right?

‘And it wasn’t just me, my family and friends who were excited. The whole town went crazy. There was a big buzz around a local guy going to play for a Premier League team.’

That was an understatement. Max was splashed all over the local papers. They even featured him on the London evening TV news. Suddenly my boyfriend was famous. But to me, he was still my Max.

‘But with the buzz came pressure,’ he continued. ‘From my dad not to mess up and my coach who obviously expected me toperform. I was barely twenty, living away from home for the first time, I’d just been given a dream opportunity and I really wanted to prove my worth, you know?’

‘Yeah,’ I nodded.

‘And of course, I wanted to continue our relationship, that’s why we did the long-distance thing for the first couple of months. But it was hard.’

‘That’s why I offered to move there. To support you.’

‘But that meant you’d drop out of uni.’

‘I wanted to be close to you.’

‘But you’d always wanted to go to that uni. I didn’t want you to sacrifice your dream for me. We were so young. And I needed to focus. I couldn’t blow my big chance.’

‘So you dumped me,’ I scowled. ‘On national TV.’

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