Page 62 of Breakaway Goals
The clock hit six.
He took one breath and then another and then slid out of bed. Gathered his clothes. Didn’t look at the Hayes-shaped lump in the bed. Wasn’t sure he’d really be able to say goodbye if he waited around to do it.
Shut the door as quietly behind him as he could.
Ran into Blackburn in the hallway, who looked at him oddly, but accepted the bad excuse he gave for being on a different floor. Went back to his room, took a shower, packed his shit and then an hour later he was downstairs at breakfast. Pretending like nothing was wrong.
He couldn’t say he’d reassembled his armor, but at least he didn’t react when Hayes walked in. Their eyes met and Morgan looked away. His chest ached, and his throat tightened. Hewantedto be different. But they’d only ever been who they were and no amount of desire was ever going to change that fundamental fact.
Hayes probably knew it, better than he did, even, and he wasn’t the one ghosting Morgan.
But Morgan was ghosting him.
Before this, Morgan would have proudly proclaimed he’d handle anything the world threw at him. Any amount of pain and suffering; he could handle it. But walking up to Hayes andacting like he was just another player and this was just another goodbye, it was taking him out.
It was shitty.Hewas shitty. He should tell Hayes the truth. But he wasn’t sure he could choke out the words.
This was the only way.
Even when Hayes shot him a confused look, and Danny said, in a particularly pointed way, “Guess you aren’t eating with Hayes this morning,” he stayed strong.
He’d been strong his whole life, and it seemed that practiced strength was training for this very situation, because it was taking every single bit of it to pull it off.
Even when he left early, catching a ride to the airport, and Hayes texted him, wondering where he’d gone, he didn’t turn around. No matter how much he wanted to.
This was the path he’d chosen. The path he’d always chosen, its ruts and grooves so natural to him it was almost like the path had chosenhiminstead.
He just had to stay on it, and it would take care of him. Morgan had to believe that, because otherwise, he didn’t know what the fuck all this had been for.
Hayes knew something was wrong the moment he woke up alone.
Knew it was wrong, even more wrong, during breakfast when Morgan deliberately avoided him.
When he disappeared early, and Coach Thompson mentioned offhandedly when he asked that he’d gone to the airport early to catch his flight, Hayes knew it was more than wrong.
Not just wrong; the situation had catastrophically imploded.
Where’d you go?he sent Morgan. Aware he was being needy. Telling himself anyway that he was being totally normal, even if it was a lie.
But as he paced in his room, minutes ticking by without an answer, it was harder and harder not to face reality.You should have talked to him sooner.But what good would that have done? In that alternate vision of the future, Morgan would have been forced to tell him to his face that he wasn’t interested in keeping whatever this was going, and that would have sucked even harder.
His throat felt tight when he called Zach twenty minutes later.
“I fucked up,” was all he said.
Zach made a sad clicking noise. “What do you mean?” he asked, even though he had to know. Maybe not how exactly Hayes had fucked up, but he knew the end result. He’d known it when he’d warned Hayes a week ago. Told him he was playing with fire and he was going to get burned.
Hayes was scorched earth now, pain spreading through him in a nauseating wave of disbelief. Was Morgan really going to pretend they hadn’t been anything to each other? Just a hookup? They’d both known it wasn’t like that.
And yes, maybe it was essentially impossible to keep up a relationship when they played on opposite sides of the country, but if they both wanted this—if they both wanted each other, the way Hayesknewthey did, deep down in a place where the truth shone like a fucking beacon—they could make it work. Anything had to be better than doingthis.
“It’s over,” Hayes said dully.
Because in the end, he’d been right. It didn’t really matter what had happened, what Hayes had or hadn’t done, what Morgan had or hadn’t done, only that the end result was that Hayes was alone and Morgan-less.
“Oh, Monty,” Zach said sympathetically. “What did he say?”
Hayes swallowed. “Nothing. Just . . .nothing.”
