Second Chance: A Military Football Romance

Her message said she'd be here in ten. I had put my pajamas on when I got home and wasn't going to bother changing. God, I was getting tired of myself. I didn't know how she stayed my friend. I texted her back, asking her to bring wine. Why not? If I was doing this, I might as well commit.

She was knocking at the door a little while later. All my school stuff was on the table, so we just sat on the couch. If everything else had suffered these past couple weeks, my academics had flourished. Diving into schoolwork is a great way to try get over heartbreak. Does wonders for your GPA. Meanwhile, I had been late on rent and had been picking at the same leftover pizza in the fridge for the last three days.

Dinner was lo

mein and soup dumplings. Tiff sat across the couch from me, watching me pick at the noodles with my chopsticks.

"I'm worried about you," she said.

"Don't be."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"No."

"It's scary how similar the two of you are," she said. She didn't say the two of who – she didn't have to. I knew already.

"Must get annoying after a while," I said uselessly.

"I think he would have liked you to be there, despite everything."

"Been there?"

"At the airport. He left a few hours ago." I sat silently, looking into my plate of half-eaten food. Fuck it, he was gone now, I could say it.

"Did he say anything? About me? Tell you to..." I trailed off, shaking my head.

"Tell me to what?" she asked me gently. I felt my eyes fill and looked down, hating that I felt this way even more, because it was my fault this time.

"I wish I could have been there," I said quietly, dabbing my eyes.

"Why didn't you contact him?"

"Because you don't ask someone to stay after telling them never to talk to you again."

"What?" she asked, shocked.

"He never told me about the team wanting to sign him. When I found out, after you told me, I couldn't let it happen. He was ready to potentially give up his whole life for me. I couldn't let him do that, Tiff. I couldn't be the reason he passed this up."

"Veronica," she started, "you asked him not to talk to you? I know he would have at least wanted to hear from you before he left."

"I felt like if I left that door open, he would give himself a reason to stay, somehow," I admitted. “I didn't want him to have any hope that it could go differently."

"Vee. Do you realize what happened here?"

"What?" I sniffed.

"You just did the same thing that he did. You broke up with him so he had a chance to do something that makes him happy. Last year, he left you because he wanted to give you a chance at the same thing."

"He should have talked to me about it. I would have waited. Why did he think that I wouldn't? Both times he had a big decision to make and he never talked to me."

"You didn't talk to him, either, Vee. You decided that he'd go when you could have asked to talk about it instead," she said.

"He didn't even tell me that he'd been talking to anyone."

"You were doing the same thing, protecting each other, when I think maybe you should have taken the risks."

I was crying now. Tiff didn't try to stop me or comfort me. She let me get it out. Was his really the same thing? Was I punishing myself so he wouldn't have to? Just like he was doing for me? It had made sense in my head...so it must have for him to when he did it. Everything I went through last year, I was putting him through now. I felt wretched, like there had been a better way both times and both times, we hadn't made the choice to take it.