Endgame: Chapter 20 (Patreon)

Endgame: Chapter 20

I heard Zulema knock the first time, and the second, and by the third knock and a concerned call of my name, it was impossible to ignore her. I slid off my bed and trudged over to the door, opening it to her standing there in her workout clothes.

She looked me up and down, appearing confused about my state. “Practice started twenty minutes ago, dude, you never miss. I know you’re bummed about Morgan leaving, but…” She stopped and scanned me again. “What’s wrong?”

I left the door open, turned, trudged back to my bed, and sat on the edge. “I think we broke up.”

She’d had her back to me to close the door behind her, but she whirled around and slammed it the rest of the way. “What? Did you just say that you broke up?” She rushed over and dropped down next to me. “What the hell, Audrey? What happened?”

“I got scared,” I whispered, worried that if I spoke any louder my voice would crack. But it didn’t help, and tears flooded my eyes. “I told her I didn’t know if I could do it. And I didn’t mean for us to break up, but I couldn’t get a handle on what was happening and now she’s gone.”

“Wait, so… did you break up with her? Or did she break up with you?”

“I don’t know,” I whimpered, and wiped hard at my cheeks. “She thought I was breaking up with her, and then said that she didn’t want to have to convince me to be with her.”

“Jesus, okay.” She scooted closer and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “Well, look,” her hand rubbed my arm as she squeezed me to her, “if you didn’t mean it, maybe you can call her and fix it.”

“But I did mean it,” I cried. “I don’t know if I can do it.”

“It’s just long distance,” she said softly, “people do it all the time.”

“I don’t. I’ve never done it before, and a year is a long time. Do you know how much I’ve changed in the last year?” My head fell and I stared down at my blurry lap. “I don’t know how to act in a relationship when I’m this far away from the person I-” I stopped short, taking in several shallow, rapid breaths as I tried to hold back a sob.

“It’s okay,” she whispered, cradling my head and guiding it onto her shoulder. “I know it’s scary, but you should say it.”

I held my breath for a few long seconds to keep from breaking down, and eventually managed to inhale deeply and shakily so I could say, “I love her, ZuZu.”

“Yeah, you do. And I think she loves you too.”

“But I don’t know what to do.”

She sighed and sat there, hugging me to her for a minute while we both thought about it. “I know I’m always trying to get you out of your head,” she said, “but that’s where you need to be right now.”

I sniffled some more as I lifted my head off her shoulder, wiping my eyes to look at her. “What?”

“I think the only thing worse than what’s already happened would be if you called her and still weren’t sure.” She gave a sympathetic smile and took one of my hands. “So, I think you should take some time to figure out what you really want to do about this.” Her hand patted mine. “Don’t give up yet, okay? You have time.”

I nodded, took in a deep breath, and sat up a little straighter, hoping that having somewhat of a plan along with the changes to my physical demeanor would help my emotional state catch up. Then I blinked away the remaining tears and dried my cheeks. “Thanks.”

She smiled and nudged me affectionately with her shoulder, then stood. “Alright, I need to get back to the field. You’re still captain, though… and we have another week of practice. You should be there on Monday.”

I stood with her, inhaling to try and clear the rest of the emotion. “I’ll be there right now, just let me change.”

“You don’t need today?” she asked. “I can give Coach an excuse.”

“No.” I struggled to pull some workout clothes from my drawers and undress at the same time with alternating hands. “I’ll have plenty of time to get lost in my own head this weekend. The least I could do is get some energy out.”

I finished changing and followed Zulema out of the dorms, and we jogged together back to the soccer field. Practice was a good distraction, and I only noticed my mind was wandering during the idle moments because of the occasional pangs in my chest. But Zulema was right – I was still captain – and I needed to keep myself as present as possible for the last few practices before campus closed for the holidays. It kind of made me wish we had practice over the weekend too, because, without it, there was nothing to break up the length of time I had to spiral into overthinking. I couldn’t even decide if I was glad that Monica had left Thursday night after her last final. At least if my roommate was still at school, I wouldn’t be free to just sit on my bed and stare at my wall without feeling weird about it.

Which is what I did. All day Saturday. Alternating between lying in bed to stare at the ceiling and sitting up to watch the wall, all while I did nothing but think, think, think. And it was miserable. And it didn’t get me anywhere, because as soon as I started thinking that maybe I had it figured out, and I should just call Morgan, I started wondering if I’d messed up too badly. If I’d broken her heart or her trust and now she’d be the one who was afraid to be in a long distance relationship. 

Eventually I couldn’t take just sitting there with my own thoughts anymore, so I looked up lecture videos on my laptop about relationships, and then got distracted with a cat video in the recommended list because I thought I should reward myself with thirty seconds of serotonin after being so miserable. Then, before I knew it, I’d been sitting there for an hour watching animals be cute. And it felt great, until I remembered what I’d been trying to distract myself from.

I shut my laptop and reached for my phone. I opened my text messages and clicked on Morgan’s name, but quickly exited before I could even type one letter. My thumb found the photos instead, and I scrolled through each picture we’d taken together, until I reached the ones from our first date. My eyes filled with tears as I flipped back and forth between them. I already missed her smile. And her affection. And her voice. And if we hadn’t broken up, I could just call her and ease the ache, but I couldn’t because I was stupid and let my fear get the best of me.

I dropped my hand and phone into my lap and leaned my head back against the wall, telling myself that crying for the millionth time in one day wasn’t going to fix anything. I was in the middle of getting that under control when a knock sounded on my door. Thinking it was ZuZu coming to check on me, I didn’t bother taking a moment to make it look like I hadn’t just been crying. When I swung the door open and it was Steph, I wished I had.

Her eyes left the floor and met mine, and then they narrowed with concern. “Are you okay?”

“It’s really not a good time, Steph.”

“Did something happen with Morgan?” she asked. I started to close the door on her. “Wait,” she begged, “I won’t ask about her, I’m sorry, just wait.” I waited. “Can I come in?”

I stared at her to make it look like I was considering, but really, my mind was already desperate to check out. She furrowed her eyebrows in plea, though, and I sighed, stepped aside, and opened the door wider.

She came in and I closed the door behind her, asking, “What do you want?”

“I’m leaving tonight for winter break,” she said, “and I don’t know if I’ll have any classes with you, or see you, next semester.”

“Okay?”

She watched me for a few moments before taking in a deep breath. “We don’t have to be friends, and I know I could’ve been better to you when we were together, and I’m sorry. But… there’s something you said that’s been bugging me, and I don’t want to not see you next semester and graduate and never talk to you again without a chance to set it right.”

I dropped my head back and sighed to the ceiling. “Is this about you calling me boring? Can’t we just forget about it?”

“No,” she said, “because you brought it up six months after we broke up like you haven’t forgotten it.” She looked at me, and I shrugged as if to say, ‘and?’ “I didn’t call you boring.”

“Oh my god,” I groaned. “You did. You said you were bored.”

“Yeah, because I was depressed, Audrey. I was bored with everything.”

That stopped my rising annoyance in its tracks as I just stood there, trying to process. She’d never seemed depressed. She always wanted to go out and have a good time. Hang out with friends, party, drink, like she was having the time of her… Oh. Like she wanted distractions.

“Steph, I…” I felt stupid. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

She shrugged gently. “It’s not like I said anything the right way when I broke up with you. I just… I was at my worst, and I was having such a hard time separating my emotions that I couldn’t even begin to describe them to you.”

“I know the feeling,” I murmured. “How come you never said anything?”

“I thought you wouldn’t understand,” she said. “Or you’d want to help too much when it was something I needed to figure out. Plus, you always have your shit together, and your answer to everything was to just try harder.”

“Steph,” I said, holding my arms out with amusement, “I’m a fucking disaster.”

She barked out a laugh that was full of relief and held-back emotion. “You are, aren’t you?”

We both laughed as I nodded, and since I could see that she needed it, I extended my held-out arms. She came forward and gave me a hug, and I said, “Thanks for clearing the air. I actually was holding onto it.”

“I know,” she said, letting me go and taking a step back. “So, let me just say it outright, so there’s no more miscommunication: You’re not boring, I never thought you were boring. You’re pretty awesome, actually, we just weren’t right for each other.”

“Are you breaking up with me? Again?”

“You’ll get over it,” she teased, and we both smiled at each other. “I feel better about all of this, too. Thanks for letting me say it.” I gave a small nod of acknowledgment, but the distraction of the conversation was starting to wear off, and she saw that on my face. “I hope whatever’s going on with you and Morgan turns out okay.”

I sighed as my shoulders sank. “She had to go back to Oregon,” I explained. “She was okay with long distance, but…” I met Steph’s eyes, and she gave me a knowing and sympathetic smile that prompted me to finish, “I got scared.”

She hummed, and was quiet while she considered that. Then she asked, “Can I be brutally honest with you? You know, since we’re not friends.” I nodded. “You can be a bit of a control freak.”

“Why aren’t we friends, again?” I asked sarcastically.

She chuckled. “Seriously, though. What were you scared of? Her breaking up with you?” I nodded again. “So… you took control of a situation that felt out of your control by breaking up with her first?”

“No, that’s not-” But I stopped, and took a few moments to really think about that before whispering, “What the fuck…”

“And it doesn’t feel any better, does it?” she asked rhetorically. All I could do was stare at her in surprise. “You want my advice?”

“Actually… yeah.”

“There are some things you’ll be able to control,” she said, “and some things you won’t. You can’t control how she’s going to feel about you, not even when she’s here. That’s just facts. But what you can control is whether or not you give your all to a relationship that you clearly care about.” She paused, and her gaze fell briefly. “That’s something I always regretted with you, you know? Not being able to walk away and say that I did everything I could.”

But I shook my head and offered a comforting smile. “You were depressed. I was in the dark. I think we both did the best we could at the time.”

“Are you doing your best now?”

I looked down at my feet, unable to keep fresh tears from rising in my eyes. “I thought I was. But now I don’t know.” I met her eyes again and wiped at mine. “Thank you, Steph.” She nodded. “No, really. Thank you.”

She smiled and reached out to touch my shoulder. “I’m rooting for you. You guys seemed good together.”

“Thanks,” I said sincerely, and when she headed for me and the door, I opened it for her. “I hope I’ll see you around next semester.”

“Me too,” she smiled. “Have a good Christmas.”

“You too.”

I closed the door behind her with a renewed sense of determination. But as much as I wanted to talk to Morgan, Zulema had also been right. I needed to figure myself out before I made this situation any worse. And, thanks to Steph, I had a place to start instead of going back to staring at the walls for inspiration.

Ironically enough, I wanted to try getting control of my issues with control. Thank god for the internet…