Page 73 of The Beautiful Collision
You’re not a failure.
You’re not alone.
You’re extraordinary, and I see you—the real you, not the performance.
Sophie touches my elbow gently. “Ready to go?”
“Yeah,” I say.
As she starts to walk, I take one last look at the empty bench where he sat in his shame. But I’m already planning. He’ll come home eventually, probably hours from now after he’s tortured himself enough. And when he does, I’ll be there. Not to fix him or save him, and not to tell him I love him.
Rather, I’llshowhim that being seen doesn’t always mean being judged, and that admitting you need help doesn’t always mean you’re letting someone else down. Sometimes it justmeans being loved, even if he’s not ready to say the words just yet.
twenty-six
MAINE
The locker roomdoor swings shut behind me with a dull thud that might as well be the sound of my career ending.
Nobody looks at me. That’s how I know it’s bad. Because when you fuck up a little, the guys chirp, give you shit, and try to lighten the mood to tell you they’ve got your back. But when you fuck up catastrophically, single-handedly tanking a game in front of thousands of people, they give you this.
The careful avoidance.
The studied interest in their gear.
The silence that screams louder than any amount of yelling could.
The air reeks of defeat. It’s in the sour smell of sweat-soaked gear, the metallic tang of blood from my split lip, and the acrid stench of failure that seems to be pouring off me in waves. My legs barely hold me as I make it to my stall, dropping onto the bench like my bones have turned to water.
I bury my face in my hands, pressing the heels of my palms into my eyes hard enough to see stars. But even that can’t erase the image burned into my brain—Maya watching me fail, watching me get benched, watching me finally buckle under the pressure.
It’s like being at my funeral, except I’m still alive.
“Dude…” Rook’s voice cuts through the silence as he pulls off his chest protector. “She got you wrapped around her little finger, or what?”
The words are meant to be a joke, a classic Rook attempt to break the tension with crude humor. But they land like an accusation because they’re so fucking true it hurts. Maya doesn’t just have me wrapped around her finger, she’s got me completely dismantled, rewired, and turned inside-out.
The guy who sat on that bench tonight wasn’t the Maine Hamilton who’s been playing hockey since he could walk. That was someone else entirely. Someone who couldn’t focus because all he could think about was how much he cares about the woman in the stands and the lie he’s living.
The lie that will devastate her if she finds out.
And make him broke in the process.
Mike’s hand lands on my shoulder, heavy and meant to be comforting. “Don’t sweat it too much, man,” he says. “It happens.”
I just shrug.
“Besides,” Mike continues, and I can hear him trying to force lightness into his tone, “you’ve still got time to win the cash.”
The bet.
The fucking bet.
He thinks I’m off my game because I’m broke and worried about losing.
And, well, he’s nottotallywrong.
Bile rises in my throat, hot and acidic. They think I’m playing some stupid game of conquest, but have no idea that last night I held her while she trembled against me, that we made love—not fucked, not hooked up, but made actual love—with her eyes locked on mine like I was something precious.
