Page 129 of Changing the Playbook
“Or did she just decide her needs were worth your dreams?”
I don’t answer. Can’t answer. I’ve been dodging that question for three days.
“You matter too,” Andy says finally. “Your dreams matter. And anyone who loves you would never ask you to choose between them and oxygen.”
She kisses my forehead and starts making up the couch. I should help, or do something else besides marinate in truths I don’t want to taste, but that would take a lot of energy.
So instead, I close my eyes and imagine the game in a few days. Lacing up skates that feel like shackles. Arena lights spotlighting everything I’m giving up. Playing a game that used to be my religion and is now just torture.
The couch dips as Andy settles in, and I force myself to stand. To shower. To pretend I’m still human. But as hot water sluices over me, washing away three days of self-pity, Andy’s question echoes off the tile:
What’s going to save you this time?
Nothing. Absolutely fucking nothing.
I’m going to fade into this hollow version of myself until there’s nothing left but what Sophie needs. A boyfriend-shaped projection who shows up and slowly forgets he ever wanted anything else.
Maybe that’s enough.
Maybe that’s love.
Maybe that’s just the lie I’ll keep telling myself.
thirty-six
SOPHIE
Mike hasn’t touchedhis risotto in ten minutes.
I watch him push mushrooms around his plate with mechanical precision—fork to plate, plate to mouth, mouth to fork. Someone programmed him to simulate eating while his actual self floated somewhere far away, probably ice-level, where I’d banished him from.
“This is really good,” he says, because of course he does.
Everything I make is good now. Every suggestion brilliant. Every opinion unassailable. The compliment tastes worse than the risotto, which has gone cold and gluey on my tongue.
I stab at my own portion. “You hate mushrooms.”
“No, I—” For half a heartbeat, the real Mike surfaces—the one who once spent twenty minutes explaining why fungi were nature’s greatest betrayal, gesturing wildly while I laughed until my stomach cramped. Then he vanishes, replaced by hollow compliance that knots my gut. “They’re growing on me.”
They’re not. Nothing is growing anymore. Not his tastes, not our conversations, not the future we’re supposedly building. Everything withers under the weight of my demands.
“What do you want to do tonight?” I say, despite already knowing the answer.
“Whatever you want.”
I set down my fork with exaggerated care, fighting the urge to flip the entire table. “Mike. What doyouwant?”
He looks at me then, and the naked hurt flickering behind his eyes crushes my ribs. “I want what makes you happy, Soph. That’s what we agreed on.”
That’s what I forced on you.
The thought arrives sharp and deserved.
“Right.” I push back from the table, chair legs shrieking against hardwood. “I need to help Hazel with her homework.”
“I could come?—”
“No.” Too harsh. I soften, but the falseness remains. “You don’t have to. Stay here and relax.”
