Page 124 of Uniquely in Love

I shook my head. “You don’t have to. I just… Fuck, El.” This was the worst possible timing. “I have to go. I need to get to practice and then I have to catch a flight.” If I was late to practice, I risked not getting to play the next game at all.

Her eyes filled with tears. “Please don’t leave right now. I was going to tell you when I got the call that they were done repairing it, but you had a game that night, and I didn’t want to be a distraction.”

“Dammit, Ellie!” I smoothed a hand over my face. “And what is this? How long have you known?”

She bit her lip. “A week?”

“Aweek?” She’d known about her apartment for a week and hadn’t told me? “I can’t do this right now.”

“Please, Owen.” Ellie grabbed my wrist. “Don’t leave. Don’t walk out on me.”

“Like you did?”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “That’s not fair.”

Fuck. I knew it wasn’t fair. But I couldn’t help it.

I grabbed my duffel bag off the floor, followed by the suitcase I’d packed last night. “We’ll talk later. I just…” I leaned in, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “I don’t want to fight.”

Tears streamed down her face, and I knew this was the worst possible thing I could do to us. But what else could I say?

I love you.

I want you to stay.

I want you.

But I didn’t. Instead, I left.

This time, in the middle of the day. No note need.

Maybe in the end, this would be the thing that destroyed us.

And it felt like my world was falling apart.

Boarding the team plane,I popped my earphones in, not wanting to talk to my teammates. Even Brooks and Maverick had questioned why I was in such a bad mood earlier, but I didn’t know what to say.

How do you explain to your friends that your girlfriend—the one you wanted to marry, that you’d been looking at rings for—had been keeping a secret from you like that? That she had been considering leaving me?

I wasn’t enough for her.

Maybe I’d never been.

My job made it so I was gone for half the season, and I was sure it couldn’t be easy. But didn’t she love me? Didn’t she love Zamboni?

Why weren’t we enough?

Why wasn’tIenough?

THIRTY-EIGHT

Ellie

Icouldn’t stop crying, and Zamboni was licking my face. She whined, and I knew she was trying to make me feel better, but what could she do? She couldn’t fix this. She couldn’t bring Owen back.

It was my fault that I’d pushed him away.

I should have told him sooner. I’d been waiting for his family to leave, and then I’d just been so happy in our little bubble that it had completely slipped my mind. I didn’t even think about my landlord texting me to ask for an update.

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