"That's great news. What's wrong with that? How long will he even be gone?"
"It'll last a week, but that’s not what I'm afraid of, Tiff."
"Then what?"
"We both know how good he is. That place will be crawling with scouts; it's practically a guarantee that he catches someone's eye. Fast forward to when he finds out they want to offer him a contract, but he and I are together." I paused.
"You can't think-"
"It happened once before. He was protecting me, remember? What if the team that wants him is based in California, and he for some reason feels like he would rather dump me again than just tell me that?"
"He learned his lesson the last time he did that, Vee."
"It hasn't been long enough for me to believe that's true," I admitted.
"Doesn’t he get any credit for trying to fix things?" she asked. I shot her a dirty look, eating more applesauce. "I'm just saying. He's back and trying to make up for what he did. I think that counts for something."
"That trust took almost three years to build and he broke it in one afternoon. Has it even been a month that we've been talking again? I can't afford to feel safe doing it with him again so soon."
"Have you told him how it felt?" she asked.
"Sort of, here and there."
"Then he knows he hurt you, and honestly, Vee, that's the last thing he wants to do again."
"How do you know?" The applesauce was all gone and now felt like it was bubbling in the bit of my stomach
"Because of everything he's been doing since he got here. He's done nothing but try to fix things. That looks and sounds like he's serious to me."
Once again, I was confused about whose side Tiffany was on. I wanted it to be mine. Did the fact that I didn't want him to dump me again because of some shitty reason mean she actually was on my side? I just couldn't have the faith in him that she had. It wasn't her fault that she had it; it was sort of expected. I envied her for it, but I knew better than her.
"I don't want to regret letting him back in," I grumbled, licking the already clean spoon that I had been eating my applesauce with. A laugh suddenly fought its way up out through my chest.
"What's funny?" Tiff asked.
"I never used to feel this way, isn't that weird? Since we met, Roman has always had football and the army – two things that could have taken him away at any second from me. I never felt insecure about it. I always knew that they were there and that in two seconds flat, outta nowhere, he might have to leave, but I was never scared."
"Not even a little?"
I thought back. It wasn't even the football that had been the problem, it had been the army. I had always thought that when the time came, we'd talk about football. We had been in the same graduating class, which meant that if he did have to travel for a team, I was in a position where I could go with him and that was a step we could see taking together.
We had met and built our relationship on campus grounds, but I never felt like that was what defined it. I never felt like graduation day would be the day we said goodbye and went our separate ways. Call me stupid for believing that what we had would be able to last and mean something in the real world. It had been that big, that serious, and that real…to me anyway.
The army on the other hand... That one had scared me. I knew that when and if the time came, then I'd have to watch him go. I hadn't had a real plan for what I would do, besides write him and try to talk to him as much as I could. All I had known was that it made me nervous and would be miserable, but I knew I would have found a way around that.
So many people had their loved ones deployed and for so many of those people, they managed to make the army and its demands part of their lives. I thought that I could do it, too, if it came down to me needing to. For Roman? I had been willing to do just about anything. I hadn’t cared about needing to make changes and adjustments because that was what being with him meant and I wanted to be with him more than I could even express.
Too bad I was wrong for believing that even if we weren't together physically, I could have relied on the fact that my love and support was being received and reciprocated from wherever he would be.
"I thought that I had no reason to worry. I could be scared of the danger, or the distance, or the loneliness, but I never had to be scared that we would stop being us once we were no longer in the same place," I said, shrugging.
"Could you wrangle up some of that trust right now?"
I could try. I didn't say it out loud.
"That needs to be earned."
"He can't try to earn anything back if you're not giving him a chance," she said. "I was with you when it happened last year, so I'm not insensitive to that. I just want you to remember this hasn't been a fun ride for him, either. He wanted to keep you last time, but made a mistake. Let him talk to you. Once you're both over what happened, then you can stop being so scared."