Brooks’s mouth is moving but I don’t understand the words.
“I think we’ve gotten complacent.” His tone is pleading. His eyes beg me to understand. To agree. To nod and smile and absolve him from the guilt he’s feeling.
But I’m in shock.
“Complacent,” I test the word out. “Brooks, we’ve been together for a decade.”
He sighs. “Come on, Raia. We were fourteen when we got together. Did those years even count?”
I shuffle back half a step as if he pushed me.
“That’s not what I mean,” he backpedals, but it’s too late.
“They meant something to me, Brooks.” I try to keep my voice even.
Behind him, the soccer field beckons. The girls on my team glance over, a range of annoyed, curious, and worried expressions on their faces.
“Of course, they did. For me, too. But, Rai, we never experienced anything else,” Brooks continues.
“Anyone else. Is that what you meant to say?” I shoot back.
His expression twists. Pain flashes through his eyes.
A day ago, hell, five minutes ago, I’d wrap my arms around him. I’d console him and coax him into confiding his thoughts, his vulnerable feelings, to me.
Now, I want to shove him away. Hurt him as badly as he’s destroying me.
I force myself to stand straight. I lift my chin and meet his eyes.
But inside, I’m dying. Coldness sweeps my veins. Icy tentacles stretch from my stomach up into my chest, twisting around my heart. Nausea swims in my head and noises are muffled in my ears.
Brooks shakes the foundation my entire life is built on. His words force me to confront how flimsy that foundation is because I feel like I’m about to collapse like a house of cards.
All it takes is his ending our relationship.
Brooks Spence has been my boyfriend since my freshman year of high school. My first year of boarding school. He’s been my constant, my pillar, my goddamn rock, through high school and university. Soccer team drama and high-pressure nationally televised games. Changing my major and navigating new social circles.
No matter what, I had him. I thought we were unshakeable.
Raia and Brooks. Brooks and Raia. Braia.
Now, nothing.
“How could you tell me this now?” I accuse, tears burning the corners of my eyes. I don’t blink. Don’t let them fall.
He has the decency to look remorseful. “I just, I couldn’t wait any longer.”
“I’m about to play the biggest game of my career,” I remind him, gesturing toward the field. Toward my team who is now huddled together, gawking at me.
“Every game is the biggest game of your career,” he says gently.
What? I straighten, pushing my shoulders back and arching my neck.
“Do you want me to apologize for that? I’m an athlete, Brooks.”
An athlete who takes the game seriously and prioritizes my team over boozy brunches and late-night bonfires. Is he still mad that I left his birthday party early last month?
I turn away, rake my hands over my hair, blow out an exhale.
I apologized for that. Made it up to him by cooking dinner and buying an Armani blazer I couldn’t really afford.
“Rai, after this summer, you’re going to play in Europe,” Brooks reminds me. “Don’t you want a fresh start? Don’t you want to go over there, focus on your team, on your game, and not have…this—” He pauses to gesture between us. “Holding you back.”
I roll my lips together and narrow my eyes. Even though, logically, I understand his point, right now, my emotions are front and center. “I never thought of ‘this’ as a fucking job that tied me down, Brooks. Me and you…we were forever.”
“Callaway!” Coach calls, blowing her whistle to get my attention.
Relief crosses Brooks’s face and that’s the final nail in the coffin. Or my heart.
“They need you,” he tells me, sounding thankful.
“Yeah. And I needed you,” I spit back.
“Raia, we’ll still be friends,” Brooks assures me.
I glare at him. Unless I’m planning to lose my entire friend group, the one Brooks and I have been a part of for ten years, the one that also includes my cousin and best friend, Anna, then yeah, we’ll still be fucking friends. “Yay,” I deadpan.
He squeezes my shoulder. “Good luck today. I’m rooting for you.”
“Fuck off, Brooks.” I shoulder check him as I walk toward the soccer field.
My stomach, previously slick with nerves for today’s game, is now tied in knots at the blow Brooks delivered.
“You okay?” Coach asks as I jog toward the team.
“Fine,” I clip out.
Anna catches my eyes and I note the worry in hers.
I shake my head slightly to let her know I’m cool.
I’m fine. I’m locked in. I got this.
But as I run through the warm-up, my mind is on Brooks.
The first time he kissed me at Anna’s family’s cabin in the Great Smoky Mountains.
The first time we had sex our junior year of high school.
The time he lied for me when Anna and I snuck out and nearly got expelled from boarding school.
Last year, when I brought up marriage.
My head is all over the damn place. Oscillating between the sweetness of our memories and the bitterness of our breakup.
Shit. Brooks and I broke up.
“Raia! You sure you’re okay?” Anna asks as we move toward the center of the field for kick-off.
“I’ll tell you later,” I mumble.
She wraps an arm around my shoulders, and I lean on her for a full second. Anna and I have been best friends, inseparable, from the month we were born. Our moms, sisters, carried us together and gave birth to us in the same hospital, only three weeks apart.
She’s been as much of a constant in my life as Brooks. Even more so.
“Come on. We got a game to win.” Anna squeezes my shoulder.
“Yeah,” I agree.
We lose the coin toss and I wonder if that’s a sign of things to come.
It is.
Because two minutes into the game, a forward and I collide head on. Pain rips through my shoulder and burns a path that cuts through my chest. My breath stops and I go down.
Hard.
“Fuck,” I swear, as a wave of dizziness washes over me.
In my peripheral vision, I note Anna’s horrified expression. I find Brooks on the sidelines and wince at the shock that twists his face. I close my eyes and roll over as vomit crawls up my throat.
“Hey, hey, you okay?” The referee is at my side, followed by Coach and the trainer.
“Callaway,” Coach says. “Stay still.”
“I’m fine,” I protest, trying to push to my feet. “Let me walk it off.”
Coach Williams gives me a hard, searching look. She nods and the trainer and Anna help me to my feet. Slowly, I walk toward the sidelines as clapping and cheers ring out from the crowd.
“You all right?” the player I collided with asks.
I nod. “Yeah. You?”
“All good, baby,” she replies, jogging back onto the field.
As I turn to watch her, agony blazes through my side and I wince.
“You need X-rays,” Coach says.
Absentmindedly, I nod. I know I need X-rays. I know I’m done for the summer.
And, perhaps most painfully, I know Europe is no longer an option. Not this summer anyway.
I just lost my team, my dream, and my constant.
In one afternoon, my life took a massive detour from the carefully laid plans I’ve been plotting and executing for years.
Everything I thought I knew is over.
I’m now on my own.