Page 81 of Puck to the Heart
“No, I don’t. Enlighten me.” No that sounded too harsh. “Help me understand.”
“All I wanted was to find a place where I could have a good job and show all the kids who are dreaming of their future what could be. All the kids who don’t have support from their families or schools. And I can’t meet the one fucking goal I set when I moved across the fucking country. None of my plans worked out.Nothinghas gone to plan, and I don’t know what the future looks like going forward.”
“You can’t figure it out in Portland?”
“I… don’t know.” This wasn’t the woman who’d fought me over a dinner date. This woman looked defeated, unlike any other facet of her I’d seen.
“What about us, then?” Every piece of myself I shared with her, all the old wounds she’d soothed turned on their heads and came roaring back to life, especially when she glanced away, unwilling to meet my eyes. “If you’re not going totry, I can’t do this.”
“What?” The corners of her mouth turned down. “Yousaid I wasn’t trying, not me.”
“You didn’t have to say anything. You’ve already given up.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Sure, it is. You either want me or you don’t.” It’s what this all boiled down to, wasn’t it? I wasn’t worth the effort.
“It’s notjustabout us, though. I have to be here with my dad for now. When…ifI go back, what else would I have to go back to?”
If she’d stabbed me, it might have hurt less. “You’d have me, but I’m not enough, am I?” I spat the bitter words, hating their taste in my mouth.
“Ash.”
“No, I’m not enough. You’re right. Why would I be?” I shoved myself up without meaning to. The chair scraped back, and Olivia flinched at the sound. “You know, Coach told me when I wanted to try for captain I couldn’t have any distractions.” I threw money on the table. Meeting Olivia’s eyes for what was probably the last time, I snarled, “But that’s all this has been. A distraction. So maybe itisbest if you stay, because I’m leaving.”
Being back in my hometown,seeing familiar sights I missed while living across the country had little effect, much less than I expected. Occasionally, little hits of warm nostalgia washed over me, mostly in the areas surrounding campus, but everything else felt…numb.
Cold.
Miserable.
But I chalked it up to having to leave again and having nothing waiting back in Portland.
What if Ididn’tgo back? Ash and I were…
No, I couldn’t think about Ash, not and stay afloat. But Icouldsearch for a job and an apartment, find an anchor to keep from devoting all my attention to my increasingly irritated father while ignoring the void in my chest. So, the hunt began. Reaching out to old contacts, spending hours scrolling job forums, tweaking my resume.
It probably wasn’t professional to add how I essentially carried Brad’s dead weight for the majority of the past year, was it? How did one say that in professional speak?
Maybe “Facilitated project completion allowing collaborators the ability to focus on other tasks.” or “Modulated work output to accommodate for fluctuations in coworker engagement.”? Ugh.
But the slow-creeping ache of what I always thought of as homesickness caught up with me when I least expected it. A hundred little moments sprinkled throughout my days had me reaching for my phone, unconsciously wanting to share them with Ash. Until I remembered.
Sometimes, I thought of messaging Dante, but I never did, not knowing if he’d show my messages to Ash. If he did, it might hurt Ash to hear from me, even tangentially.
And hurting him further was the last thing I wanted. Bad enough I’d been the one to give in, to unlock the door and let us race headfirst into each other’s lives. Try as I might, though, I couldn’t bring myself to regret it. Regrethim. No matter how much I wished I could, no matter the pain it caused. If I never met Alex, if I never moved across the country, if I never took the job with Hurst Labs.
If, if, if.
Let the throbbing, yawning hollow serve as a reminder of what could have been and what I shouldn’t have pursued.
Let my career and my father be my focus, the way it should have been all along.
So, I searched. And searched. Days stretched to a week, and the cheap hotel where I shared a single bedroom with two twin beds and a dingy bathroom with Dad began to close in like a slowly constricting trash compactor, ready to squeeze the life from me in tiny, claustrophobic increments.
On Dad’s millionth episode of FBI’s Most Wanted with the volume at seven thousand, I snatched up my computer bag and purse, mumbling incoherently about leaving.
The path my feet found was a familiar one, and I followed it without paying attention, my body knowing the way after hundreds of hours spent there.
