“No—”
“My point exactly. And then in one last ditch effort, they’ll tell me to go read, Eat, Pray, Love and use my frequent flyers miles on some spiritual journey through India because that will finally cure me.”
“You really think that’s how therapy is going to go?”
“I can talk and complain all I want to someone, but it’s not going to change everything I’ve given up for this sport. Until recently, I had no love life. I barely have a social life. I’m not getting those years back. Therapy isn’t a DeLorean that will take me back in time so I can use college to do something outside of floating in a pool.”
“Are you kidding me? Quinn, listen to yourself. You think sitting around and waiting for inspiration is going to solve your problems more than therapy? You know therapy is the shortcut to rewiring everything you’ve been told to do as an athlete. If you don’t want to live in a fantasy land anymore, you need to lose this ‘no pain no gain’ mentality because it’s complete bullshit. This is not some injury that will fix itself.”
“If it’s not a serious injury, no one cares. They expect you to suck it up and work through the pain.”
“Mental health isn’t a serious injury? It’s a pretty big one, especially for the sport that you say is ninety percent mental.”
“Can’t we just enjoy this meal without talking about this?”
“Because you’re too good for therapy? You think constantly pushing things under the rug is really that healthy? You can get away with that in swimming, but you can’t get away with that in the real world. Look at where it’s gotten you. You’re a shell of yourself.”
I set my spoon on my plate. The clatter hung in between us, adding to the tension. Her eyebrows were firmly set, and her beautiful eyes drilled me for an answer.
“Swimming has wired your brain to process things in an unhealthy way,” she said. I clenched my jaw while focusing on my gnocchi. “Therapy will undo all of that. It will help you think healthy, and that will change your inner monologue that tells you you’re just a swimmer and there’s no future for you, because none of that is true.” She squared her shoulders and dipped her head as if trying to get my attention. “I want this to work more than anything, Quinn. I started from scratch to be with you. That alone should tell you how much I love you and how much I want to make this work. But if you’re not going to try to work on yourself, how am I supposed to believe that you’ll do the same thing for us? If you don’t fix yourself, you’re putting us at risk, and it will go downhill with you. Given everything I’ve given up for this, that really hurts me.”
The stinging hit my eyes at the same time a toxic warmth rushed through me. Was it hurt? Guilt? Anger? They were too similar to differentiate. I was taken aback. It was like her words stapled me to my seat. I never remembered her being so forward with her feelings. She hadn’t been like that for the majority of our friendship because then I would have known about her feelings for me long before senior year. I had no idea what to do with her words. My worry about not making her happy just blew up at our kitchen table, and the fear of her leaving stung my eyes. I tried so hard to keep her from hurting, and it didn’t even work.
“I never meant to hurt you,” I said and swiped at my leaking eyes.
“I want you to get help. I told you last night that I’ll do it with you. We’ll both do it.”
“But…that’s not going to—”
She pointed at me. “Don’t you dare say it’s not going to help. Jesus, Quinn, stop denying that it’ll help without even giving it a chance!”
She pushed her seat back, and the chair screeched along the hardwood floor. She put her hands on top of her head and paced around the island. My tears fell into my hands as I dug my fingernails into my palms over and over again.
“I don’t…” She paused, opening and closing her mouth as if she wanted to say something at the same time she wanted to stop it. “I don’t know how we can keep going on like this if you won’t talk to me.”
“I do talk to you, Ken!” The words grated against my throat. My voice was hoarse, my throat was raw and scratchy from holding back tears, but they all came out at once.
“You don’t. You bottle things up. Every time we talk, it’s like I have to claw my way through whatever wall you have. Why is there a wall in between us? What did I do?”
“N…nothing!” I coughed a sob and buried my face in my hands.
“That’s a lie, and you know it. You really need to prioritize things. I’ve tried everything in the book to help you, and you keep shutting me down. I’m running out of ideas. I didn’t move out here to watch you waste away in this condo.”
I wiped the moisture on my face. Her words were pressing on an open wound. “Waste away?”
“You’re not you!” She threw her hands in the air. “This isn’t you. God. You know what? I can’t do this anymore. I need to breathe and take some time.” She stormed past me to the spiral staircase. Each step had a pound to it that I wasn’t sure if she was making on purpose or not.
“You’re running away? Are you ever gonna grow out of that?” I yelled up to her.
She leaned over the railing, and despite a floor separating us, her glare packed a punch. “Excuse me? Grow out of what?”
I swallowed. The anger was in control, and Rational Me was on a smoking break. “Running away,” I said. “That’s what you do when things get tough. You did it when you kissed me the first time, you did it in high school when you came back, when we dated, you always fucking run away.”
“Are you seriously bringing up high school right now? Are you ever going to let go of the fucking past? Or do I need to worry that anytime we fight, the things I regret most in my life will be used against me as if I’ve forgotten about them? Is that why there’s a wall up? Are you still pissed about high school?”
“I’m pissed because you’re running away like you’ve always fucking done. We fight, and what do you do? You bolt.”
“Oh, okay, we’re going there?” She stomped down the staircase, and that finger marched its way over to me until it poked me in my chest. “If you think you’re dating the same person you did when we were seventeen, you’re in for a rude awakening because I’ve learned not to tolerate shit from people. Learned that in my last relationship when all I did was get shat on and blamed for everything, and I refuse to be blamed for things that aren’t my fault. If you want to be like my ex-girlfriend, I’ll gladly leave like I did with her.”
She pounded back upstairs and left me with guilt so heavy, I was unable to move. All I wanted to do was to protect her, and instead, I’d pushed her away.
I snapped out of my shock when she came back down with a bag slung over her shoulder. My heart dropped to my stomach, and the tears flooded my eyes like at a broken dam.
“What are you doing?” I said in a panic, and my scratchy throat throbbed again.
“Not staying here with you.”
“Kennedy, I’m sorry—”
“You know what, maybe this was a mistake.”