Page 75 of The Beautiful Collision
What I can’t keep doing.
The decision crystallizes in my mind with the clarity of ice forming on water. I have to end this. Not the bet—I can’t afford to lose that money, literally cannot afford it—but whatever’s real between Maya and me. I have to kill it before it grows any bigger, before I hurt her any worse than I already will.
She deserves someone who isn’t lying to her. Someone who isn’t broke, exhausted, and shackled to family obligations thatwill never end. Someone who can accept her heart emoji without feeling like he’s swallowing glass, and send one back to her without it being a toxic mirage.
My phone weighs a thousand pounds as I shove it deep into my bag, her message still glowing on the screen, still unanswered. I stand, my body moving on autopilot. My legs feel disconnected from my brain, carrying me toward the exit when every cell in my body wants to run home to Maya.
To confess everything.
To beg for forgiveness I don’t deserve.
But instead I fall into step with Rook and Mike, choosing the cold comfort of beer and bullshit over the warm reality of the woman who’s waiting for me. The woman who watched me fail spectacularly and still sent me a heart, who told me I had her heart last night and got nothing but silence in return.
I’m poison, and the kindest thing I can do is stop letting her drink me in.
twenty-seven
MAYA
The coffee makergurgles its final sputters, filling the apartment with the rich scent of Maine’s favorite dark roast. I’ve been perfecting the ratio for weeks now—three scoops, not two and a half—and the mug I set out for him is the oversized Devils one with the chip on the handle that he refuses to throw away.
My stomach flutters with something between anxiety and anticipation. The game was a catastrophe, but I’m not worried about his performance. I just want to wrap him in hugs and do whatever it takes to make him feel better after…that… to show him that it’s OK to not be OK and that I care about him.
That I love him, even if he can’t say the words.
I check my phone again. Nothing. My message from earlier still sits there, delivered but unread. Or maybe read and ignored. The little heart emoji I added feels juvenile now, too exposed, like I’ve shown too much of my hand. But after everything, surely we’re past the point of playing it cool.
Before I can get to the bottom of the emoji-vs-no debate, the sound of keys in the lock makes my pulse spike. I smooth down my hair, then immediately mess it up again because I don’t want to look like I’ve been waiting for him, even though I have been.
The door opens, and a stranger walks in.
That’s the only way to describe it. The Maine who enters our apartment isn’t the man who held me last night, who kissed me like I was something precious. This version is shuttered, closed off, his shoulders rigid with tension. His eyes skate over me without really seeing, like I’m just another piece of furniture.
“Hey,” he mutters, the word clipped and hollow.
“Hey.” I try to inject warmth into my voice. “You OK?”
He shrugs, already moving past me toward the kitchen. “Long game.”
That’s it. Two words. After everything we’ve shared, I get two words.
“I made coffee,” I offer, hating how small my voice sounds. “Your favorite.”
“Thanks,” he says. “I’ve already had a few beers at O’Neil’s.”
But he bypasses the coffee entirely. Hell, he doesn’t even look at the mug I set out. Instead, he opens the refrigerator and grabs a beer, the bottle hissing as he twists off the cap. Then, without even looking at me, he heads toward his room, that beer clutched in his hand like a lifeline.
I watch him disappear down the hallway, and my hands find the counter, gripping the edge hard enough that my knuckles go white. I’m being paranoid. He just had his ass handed to him in front of thousands of people. Of course he’s upset. Of course he needs space. Any reasonable person would understand that.
So why does this feel like something else entirely?
I busy myself cleaning the already-clean kitchen, wiping down counters that don’t need wiping, and rearranging dishes that are already perfectly arranged. All the while, I listen to the sounds from his room—the creak of his door opening, his footsteps in the hallway, the bathroom door clicking shut.
The shower runs for an eternity, and when the water shuts off, I tell myself he’ll come out. He’ll have processed whatever he needs to process, and we’ll talk. Maybe not about feelings—Godknows neither of us is good at that—but we’ll at least exist in the same space without this wall between us.
But he doesn’t come out.
I hear his bedroom door close—not a slam, just a soft, deliberate click.
