Page 124 of Off-Limits as Puck

“Don’t make this about me. This is your life, your career, your future. Don’t let me be the reason you make the wrong choice.”

“What if you’re the reason I make the right choice?”

“Reed—”

“What if choosing stability over possibility is the wrong choice? What if playing it safe isn’t actually safe at all?”

She’s quiet for so long I think the call dropped.

“Are you there?”

“I’m here. Just... thinking.” Her voice sounds small, distant. “I have news too.”

“What is it?”

“I got a job offer. Yesterday. Seattle Icehawks. Mental performance coordinator. It’s... it’s everything I thought I wanted before Chicago happened.”

Seattle. Professional sports. The career she lost because of me, offered back to her on the other coast.

“That’s incredible, Chelsea. When do you start?”

“I haven’t accepted yet.”

“Why not?”

“Because it feels like running away again. Different city, different team, but same pattern of choosing work over everything else.” She pauses. “And because it would put me even further from you.”

“Chelsea, this is what you’re meant to do. High-level sports psychology, working with elite athletes, building the career you trained for. You have to take it.”

“Do I? Or do I have to stop letting other people’s definitions of success dictate my choices?”

“This isn’t other people’s definition. This is your dream job.”

“My dream job was the one that got me into this mess in the first place.”

I lean back in my chair, processing the weight of what she’s saying. Both of us being offered exactly what we thought we wanted, and both of us questioning whether it is enough.

“When do you have to decide?”

“Two weeks. They want me to start after the new year.”

“And the Phoenix stuff? Your clients?”

“I’d transition them to other therapists. It’s doable, just... it means starting over again. New city, new team, new everything.”

“New possibilities.”

“New complications.”

“Chelsea,” I say carefully, “what do you want? Not what’s practical or safe or what makes sense on paper. What do you actually want?”

“I want to stop being afraid of wanting things. I want to build something meaningful that doesn’t require me to choose between professional success and personal happiness. I want...” She trails off.

“What?”

“I want to stop having this conversation in different time zones.”

“So let’s fix that.”

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