I step forward, saying a big fuck you to the distance between us, the part of my brain that warns me to give her space. I take her hands in mine, clutching them between us. “You are the only thing I’ve ever been sure of.” I sweep my thumbs over her knuckles. “It’s a shit excuse, but I just didn’t think about it. I wasn’t logging on, so it wasn’t on my mind.”
Her eyes move between mine as she tugs at her lower lip with her teeth. “The websites are calling you ‘hockey’s most eligible bachelor,’ and ‘the NHL’s serial dater.’ You’ve dated a lot of women in public, but not me. You dated me in private, Adam. Why didn’t you want people to know about me?”
I shake my head, and when she tries to pull away, I yank her closer. “No. No, that’s not it. That’s never been it. This isn’t about you, Rosie. This is about me, and I won’t have you thinking I was trying to hide you, that I was embarrassed in any way, because that’s simply not fucking true.”
“But it feels that way, you get that, don’t you? Everything I’ve read about you this afternoon tells me I’m different.”
“You are different. You are absolutely everything they weren’t for me, in the best and most surprising way. I’ll apologize for a lot of things, because I know I’ve fucked up. God, I’ve fucked up. But I won’t apologize for wanting to keep you to myself, for wanting to wrap you up and keep you tucked away from this world.”
“From your world, Adam. This is your world. And I don’t know it, not at all. And finding that out now makes me feel like I don’t know you .” She steps back, looking up at the ceiling, fighting so damn hard to keep more tears from falling. “God, how dense am I? I’m dating one of the most famous goalies in the NHL, and I have no clue. I feel like such a fool.”
“Fuck, Rosie. I’m a goddamn mess, and I’m so disappointed in myself. I didn’t mean to hurt you, I swear. And I hate more than anything that I’ve made you feel like a fool. I fucking panicked. I told you my name the day we met, and you didn’t react. When you asked me what I did, I realized you had no idea who I was, and I just…I couldn’t. For some reason, the words wouldn’t come.”
I know what I’ve done. Fuck, I know exactly what I’ve done. In lying to her, I’ve perpetuated her deepest fears. She’s spent her whole life wanting someone to choose her, and she’s been let down time and time again. And now, I’m no different.
“I know it feels like you weren’t important enough for me to be truthful with you. I know you’re feeling like I didn’t choose you.”
“It feels a whole lot like you chose us, just only for the summer. You got to play house for a couple months and now you get to go back to being a famous hockey player. You didn’t just hide your job from me, Adam. You put us in a bubble and hid us away from the rest of your life.”
“I did. I saw an opportunity and I ran with it. You didn’t know about the hockey, and I liked it. I didn’t have to wonder which version of me you liked.”
Something in her eyes softens, but then, they’ve always been soft. Kind and gentle, even right now, when I’ve broken her heart.
“I need you to understand that this isn’t about the hockey, Adam. I get that somewhere along the way, as a professional athlete, you’ve been made to feel like that’s all you are. And I can tell you with absolute certainty that’s not true. You are a beautiful human being with so much more to offer. But in letting those worries consume you the way you did, you didn’t just lie to me. You kept whole pieces of yourself from me because you didn’t want to trust me with them. And all I’ve done is trust you. I’ve given you everything. My heaviest, earth-shattering truths.” Her voice drops, and her eyes move to Connor over her shoulder, watching us from his spot on the floor where he plays with Archie and Marco. “And my entire heart. I trusted you with my son, Adam, and you lied to us. You’ve made me feel convenient, temporary, when I thought this might be…” Every one of her insecurities shines in her devastated eyes. “I thought this might be permanent. You promised you wouldn’t hurt me, but this? This hurts.”
Her shoulders slump, and she seems to shrink before my eyes. “I don’t know how to trust you right now. And if I can’t trust you, I don’t know how we can be together.”
Panic bubbles, and the world around me slows to a crawl. “You’re breaking up with me?”
Tear-filled eyes lift to mine. “I…I don’t know. Honestly, Adam, I don’t. When you came into my life, you grounded me. You pulled me to my center, and for the first time since my parents died, I felt like I was finally on level ground. I felt safe, and I felt loved. Now I feel like I’ve lost my footing all over again. I don’t know which way is up, and I hate it. I fucking hate it.”
I swallow down the lump in my throat. “You’re my family, Rosie. You and Connor.”
“Families are built on honesty. Hard truths and scary vulnerabilities. You don’t hide who you are.”
“I don’t want to go back to before. To without you. I don’t want to forget what it feels like, being a family with you.” Something breaks inside me, if anything was still whole. It crawls up my throat, clawing its way out, shattering my next plea as a tear drips from my eye. “Please, Rosie. I can’t let you go. I won’t.”
Rosie steps forward, cupping my cheeks. Her thumbs brush beneath my eyes, coming away wet, stealing my heartbreak and making it hers too. She takes my hands in hers, slender fingers lacing through mine. They’re so small, so warm, so fucking perfect, and I’m terrified it’ll be the last time I hold them.
“I need a minute, Adam. I need some space to breathe, to wrap my head around this and figure out what it means for us, if we can get past it. Can you give me that? Some time? Some patience?”
I look down at our twined hands, the way they fit together. “I’d give you anything you want.” Even if it’s the last thing I want to do right now.
“All I’ve ever wanted is you, Adam. Even the parts you’re scared to share.” She takes my face in her hands, her touch tender and compassionate, just like the way she looks at me. “We have to get comfy with the uncomfy parts of ourselves before we can really know who we are and love that person, before we can let someone else know and love us. I want to know you, but I want you to know you more. Then you can share that person with me. Okay?”
Hope sparks in my chest, a frantic pounding that hurts the way hope can sometimes. “It’s not good-bye? Not forever?”
Her mouth quirks with a sad smile. “I don’t like good-byes.”
I bury my trembling fingers in her hair and bring her forehead to rest against mine. “Promise me. Promise me, Rosie.”
Her eyes flutter closed, lashes lying against her rosy skin as tears cascade down her cheeks. “I don’t think my forever exists without you somewhere inside it.”
In this moment, those words are enough. Enough to breathe life back into me, even if for only a short moment, while we stand here holding each other, her chest rising and falling in time with mine, so close, I can’t tell if that’s her heart or mine beating so fast.