Page 62 of One More Round

“Morning.”

I have the urge to tell him that I love him, but I don’t want to sound needy. Not now, not after what I’ve done. Instead of giving into my wants, I turn my attention to how hungry I am. My stomach rumbles loud enough for both of us to hear.

His smile returns, but there is sadness in his eyes. “You hungry? Wanna go get some pancakes?”

My tummy rumbles again in reply. I fight back a giggle and agree.

He looks at me for one long, fleeting moment, like he is committing the way I look right now—in his arms with rumpled sleepy sex hair—to memory. Then he pulls me in and gives me a hug. I take in a deep breath, basking in the warm, spicy smell of Simon. My Simon. Before I can focus on the way it feels in his arms, he lets go and gets out of my bed. He starts to dress, and I watch him.

While ordinarily chatty in the morning, he remains quiet. Another rumble from my stomach breaks the silence.

“You gonna get up so we can get that thing some fuel?” he asks pulling on his shoes.

“Yeah,” I mumble and crawl out of bed.

Fifteen minutes later we are in his car on our way to IHOP.

We don’t talk much on the drive there. While we eat breakfast, we are able to make more conversation. I ask questions about The Race and upcoming tournaments and he responds in one- or two-word answers.

Clearly, Simon is not mentally here with me at this sticky table eating our mediocre pancakes, flimsy bacon, and spongy eggs. At least the coffee is hot. I know we will need to talk about our future sooner rather than later because this tension is almost torturous. The only thing keeping my head above water is the fact that he holds my hand. He’s held it—gripped it really—since we left my apartment.

He pays the bill and before I know it we are in front of my apartment building. He parks the car and I unbuckle my seatbelt. He doesn’t move, just stares out the front window with his hands in his lap.

“Si, you coming?” I ask.

“No.” His voice breaks, then he clears his throat. Panic starts to rise in my blood. He continues, “We need to call it, Gia.”

I can feel the burn of tears hot in my throat. My eyes start to blur as I fight it off and try to sound confident.

“What do you mean, call it?”

He looks at me, finally, and says, “This. Us. You and I are done.”

I hear my startled gasp and feel a tear spill over and trail down my cheek. He is still facing me, but he isn’t really looking at me. Like he isn’t really seeing me but giving me the illusion that I’m getting his attention as he returns the favor and breaks my heart.

“No,” I whimper. “We don’t have to be done yet.”

He looks past me and out the window. “But we are.”

“You said we had time. That we didn’t have to figure things out right now. Let’s take the time I have left in town to really come up with a plan, a way to make this work. I want us to stay together,” I say with more force than I feel I have in me. I can tell he isn’t going to make this easy. I’m going to have to fight him on it. I’m afraid that I might not win.

“You are leaving in a couple of weeks. You aren’t staying and I’m not going. I can’t go on like this isn’t going to fucking hurt like hell when it comes time to say goodbye. Again,” he spits with annoyance.

I start to argue and he fixes his gaze on me. I push on, “We could do the long-distance thing. I mean, you guys are always traveling. I could fly out to meet you when you have tournaments. You come to California a lot, right? You get time off too. I’m sure you bank up the miles with all the travel, so we could make it work.”

“No, Gia. I don’t want to do long distance.” He shakes his head.

“I mean, it would be hard at first. We’d text, call, email, FaceTime. We could do it,” I plead. My voice feels so small. “If we really wanted to make it work, we could.”

He looks at me, his face a mixture of misery and inflexibility. “I didn’t have a choice to walk away the first time. And I let you break my heart. But this time … this time I’m choosing to walk away now and go deal with the million fucking pieces you broke it into by not being honest with me from the start. I refuse to let it keep breaking by sticking around.”

All I can manage is a small, “Please, Simon. Don’t do this.” I reach up and wipe the tears away, so I can see him better. He looks at me—really looks at me for the first time since we crawled out of bed, and his face softens. He reaches over and grabs my head in his hands, using his thumbs to wipe tears away.

“I love you so much, G. This is going to nearly kill me. But this, you and me, we’re obviously not meant to be.”

I shake my head because I can’t verbalize my disagreement. He leans in and kisses my temple. Letting out a shaky breath, he rests his forehead against mine for a moment, then lets go and sits back into his seat. I want to stay and fight, but I need to get out of this car. I can feel my anxiety rising and I don’t want him to see me like that, yet again. I fumble with the latch on the door but turn back to him.

“Please, Simon,” I cry. But he isn’t looking at me anymore. I take this as my cue to leave. Once I’m out of the car I don’t look back.

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