Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 121764 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121764 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
I nodded, over and over, letting his words sink in.
“We need you,” he finished, removing his hand. “So, either be here, or get out of the way so someone who wants to be can take your place.”
He left me on that note, and the quiet of the training room suffocated me the moment I was alone.
My head was spinning — from the shit game I’d played, from the boundary I’d set with my parents that I never thought I’d have the balls to, and now, from every word my goalie had left me with.
Everything inside me wanted to reach for my phone, to text or call Grace and tell her about it all. I knew she’d be proud of me for standing up to my father. I knew she was the only reason I had the strength to do it.
But Daddy P was right.
I was holding on to a dream, a fantasy, a life that Grace already knew we couldn’t live. And it was fucking killing me. It was murdering my game, my teammates’ trust in me, my spirit.
She was already letting go and moving on.
And it didn’t matter how badly it fucking hurt.
It was time for me to do the same.
Thoroughly Ruined
Grace
I’d always heard people say you change a lot in your twenties, and to be honest, I thought it was a crock of shit.
I had been the same person ever since I could remember. I embodied everything that a Leo was. I lived for the fun of it all. If someone asked me to write my bio for The Bachelorette, I knew exactly what I would say.
Grace Tanev: sunny, adventure-seeking, big-hearted and always down for a good time.
I wasn’t going to change. I didn’t want to change. Because at the end of the day, no matter what happened to me, I had the uncanny ability to look at the bright side. I could always dig my way out of any hole. I was resilient. I was untouchable.
But as a freshly twenty-three-year-old, sipping coffee on the porch of a one-bedroom cabin in New Hampshire all by myself… I finally understood what they meant.
Two months.
It had been two months since I’d felt my heart ripped out of my chest when Jaxson left me in that airport.
I didn’t know what hurt more that day — the silent drive to an end we both knew was coming, watching him break down in that lounge, hearing him confess that he loved me, or staring at his back when he finally had no choice but to walk away.
It was death by a hand I’d dealt myself.
But just because I knew it was coming didn’t make the kill any more merciful.
Now, I felt like a hamster on a wheel, chasing the high I used to feel from traveling to a new destination but never able to reach that high. I had now officially spent more time away from Jaxson than I had with him, and yet he still consumed my every thought.
I couldn’t rent a car or hitch a ride without wishing it was him in the driver’s seat. I couldn’t sleep a single night in a tent or a cabin or a hotel room without longing to curl up with him under the covers. I couldn’t paddle board or dance or sit by a fire or hike a mountain or do anything without imagining what Jaxson would do if he were there with me.
I was thoroughly ruined.
Every experience in my life felt dull without him, like an old film photo or a VHS tape from the 90s. Life was happening. I was moving forward. But nothing was as sharp, as colorful, or as clear as it had been with him by my side.
Now, I was watching the yellow, orange, and red leaves slowly fall, one by one, as I ticked another day off the calendar and sat fully in my sadness. That was a new development for me, too — a way I had changed.
I wasn’t running from the pain.
It had been nearly two weeks since the last time Jaxson and I spoke.
I missed his voice like I missed the innocence of childhood. I longed to call him, to text him, to run to him. Two weeks without any contact had me thirsting for him like I’d been walking a week in the desert without a sip of water.
It was for the best. I knew that, deep in my gut. It was why I fought every urge I had to send him a photo of where I was, why I didn’t text or call him even though I was desperate to hear his voice.
The old me would have been fine by now. Two months? That might as well have been a lifetime. I would have left him in my rearview mirror. I would have already been dying over someone else, crushing so hard I felt butterflies every time I saw them. I would have traded in that pain so fast it would make a head spin, reaching instead for the next person who had the ability to make me feel good.