"How's Ron?" I asked carefully.
"Veronica?"
I rolled my eyes. Tiff, acting fake surprised at what I was asking her. I knew what she was doing. "Yeah. Veronica. How is she?"
"You've been gone for a week. Why are you interested now?" she asked. I sighed, looking down. How much of this did I tell her? I didn't want to get into it, but at the same time, I couldn't talk to Ron myself to see how she was. I knew that the two of them were still talking and if she had come up when I talked about her, then I had when she did.
"I care about her. I never got to tell her goodbye before leaving."
"I know. I told her you would have liked for her to be there."
"And, what did she say?" I asked. She paused.
"She told me everything."
"What?"
"Did she tell you why she wanted to end things?"
"Yeah. Some stuff about her old life, the one she had made for herself while I was gone. She wanted that back. I know she didn't wait for me that year I was gone, but after weeks of reconnecting, she suddenly changed her mind. It came out of nowhere."
"We were talking... I think it was the day before she broke up with you. I let it slip that you were talking to a team. I didn't know that you hadn't told her already. She decided she didn't want to be the reason that you stayed. She broke up with you, instead of letting you choose."
"I wanted to choose her. I did choose her. Why wouldn't she want that?"
"Because she loves you," she said like it was the most obvious answer in the world. "She knows that you've always wanted to play. She's seen the hard work you've put in for years and years and she understood that in your case, maybe this shot with this team would be the only one of its kind to come around."
"I didn't want it if it meant giving her up."
"She was willing to let you go if it meant you got what you've always wanted."
I didn't have anything to say to that. All I had seen was what she had shown me. Her anger when she told me to get out of her life. Her telling me never to talk to her again. She had pushed me away so violently, right to this place. It had been her plan all along. I was here now. I was going to play, but I had lost her. The way I didn't see my future without her, she didn't see my future without this.
"I can't believe she did that."
"Are you sure? Because it seems like a pattern with you two at this point." I shook my head. It did. It was so fucking dysfunctional. How did we each manage to make each other so miserable while just trying to be happy? I couldn't believe it. This was why the fuck I loved her. She could do things like this. I hated that she pushed me away, but now I could see why she did it. I had done it to her, too.
"Yeah. How many more breakups do you think we'll last?" I asked jokingly.
"How about none? Just makeup already and stop doing it. Do you know how hard it is being in the middle of you two?"
"So sorry that's been difficult for you," I said sarcastically.
"I'm serious. I wasn't telling you this so that you would do anything. I just didn't know whether she would ever let you know herself. As far as she's concerned, she doesn't want to be the reason you pass this up. Do what you need to do. Just understand why she did it."
I thanked Tiffany for telling me and we hung up.
Was it wrong to feel like I knew it? I fucking knew it. I fucking knew there was a reason I still loved her. It was because she still loved me. I knew there had to be a reason, something that made her think that us being apart was a good idea, something that wasn't her not wanting to be together anymore. The only reason we would be broken up would be something like this.
I had to do something. I wanted to call her and tell her that I knew and that it was okay. I loved her, and we didn't have to do this anymore. But that wasn't it. If she had done this in the first place, she'd push back if I tried to contact her now. I had to do something though. I looked down at my phone.
I hit Coach Hayes's number and waited.
Chapter Thirty Four
Veronica
You did this to yourself. It's almost over. This is the last week you have to do this, then you're free... For like three weeks before you have to do it all over again.