Kicking Reality

“Well, it’s my home.”

“It is your home,” he answers coldly.

“It’s your home too. Always has been.”

He won’t make eye contact with me, staring at the goal with a hard look on his face. I want to tell him I miss him. That I love him and somehow need us to work out. But I’m terrified that he will break me; a revenge attack for how I broke him by telling him to leave me the fuck alone and never talk to me again.

“I was wrong,” I admit. “We were both wrong.”

“I did what I had to do.”

“Honestly Logan, you don’t make it easy to forgive you!” The anger comes out of nowhere, perhaps from the fear and the unknown. I hated that I wanted him so much.

“Why?” He turns around and faces me, eyes blazing and full of pain. “Because I fucking love you and you couldn’t see that. You were happy to continue tormenting me with your fictional relationship.”

“But I told you—”

“Yeah . . . yeah . . . heard it a million times over. You’re contractually obliged to star in the show. I guess I am the fool in thinking the smallest part of you felt the same.”

“You don’t think I feel the same? You don’t think I love you?” I grab my cell and dial the number of the head of the network—Jeffrey Marsh. It goes straight to his secretary so I place her on speaker phone.

“Mr. Marsh is no longer with the company.”

“Huh?”

“He was exited today.”

“Well then tell me who I need to speak to regarding my contract?”

“I’m not sure, Miss Chase.”

I hang up and call Cliff.

“Cliff, I’m done with the show. I don’t care what it costs me to get out of it, I’m willing to pay whatever even if that means every last dollar I have.”

“Are you out of your mind, Chase?” he yells into the receiver.

“I’ve never been more sane.”

I hang up the call, and would deal with the ramifications later.

“No more excuses. That’s it. Now what?”

“God, Emmy. It’s more than that.”

“Then what is it?” I drag in frustration, throwing my hands in the air.

“There is no turning back with us. We’re either all in now or nothing. We can’t ever go back to the way we were . . . friends or whatever you call it.”

“I know that,” I tell him. “You’re part of my family. You always have been. And now I know why. This was in the cards all along, we just needed to play the game in order to realize what we’d be willing to give up. We both lost, but we both can win.”

This is it. All or nothing. My heart is pounding so hard, ready to combust from the pressure of waiting for him to decide. If he tells me he’s not in, I don’t know what’ll I do. I’ve never wanted anything as much as I want him right now and that frightens me.

His head is bowed, eyes closed with his mouth tight. I watch him anxiously, the way his hands slowly open and unleash the tight fists he had been holding. The base of his jaw lifts until his eyes mirror mine, the desperation matching my own. He moves his body in front of me, raising his hand to touch my cheek and the second it does, the spark between us stills our anxious hearts.

“I meant what I said,” he murmurs with the air escaping his lips. “No turning back. All or nothing. Marriage, babies . . . that whole growing-old-together thing.”

He gets down on one knee, and runs his fingertip from my stomach, down my thigh until it stops at the scar on my knee.