The door slammed open so hard I thought something cracked.
I turned around, still tugging my shirt halfway over my head, heart already in my throat. “Riles?”
She stood in the doorway like a storm—phone clenched in her fist, eyes blazing, hands shaking.
“Is this true?!” she demanded, voice cracked and raw. “Have you been faking your injury just to get close to me?!”
The shirt was still tangled on one arm, but the rest of me locked in place. “What?”
“Don’t play dumb, Lucas!” she snapped, voice rising. “Did you lie? Are you even hurt? Or was this just some sick way to trap me into caring again?”
The question hit harder than any tackle I’d ever taken. I yanked the shirt down and stepped toward her, heart pounding. “Riley, seriously? You think I’d fake a career-threatening injury—for what? To manipulate you into coming back?”
She didn’t answer. She was already pacing, her breath sharp, her body wound tight like she was seconds from exploding. Her eyes darted around my room like she was searching for more evidence. More betrayal.
And then she stopped.
The nightstand.
Her gaze landed on the old photo. Us. High school. Arms wrapped around each other. Smiling like the future wasn’t something that could ever hurt us.
She stared at it. “Why do you still have that?”
I followed her eyes. Rubbed the back of my neck. “It’s… motivation.”
She scoffed, a bitter, humorless sound. “Motivation for what? Guilt? Nostalgia? Or is it just a souvenir of the girl you left behind?”
“Riles…”
“Would you, though?” she whispered, louder now. “Would you have just called me?”
I tried to speak, but she was already spiraling forward, voice cracking.
“I waited, Lucas. I waited. Days turned into weeks. Weeks into months. And then years. I watched you—on interviews, magazine covers, highlights—while my life fell apart! And you never said a damn thing. Not once. I had to find out you were okay through a screen. You smiled for strangers while I was breaking behind mine!”
Her words hit me like glass shattering in my chest. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t fix any of it.
“I didn’t mean to—” I tried, but she cut me off again.
“Why would you pretend any of this still mattered to you when it was so easy for you to forget me?”
“I didn’t forget you,” I said, stepping forward. “I never forgot you.”
She laughed, dry and hollow, gesturing at the photo. “Sure. That’s why you disappeared. No call. No text. Nothing.”
“I did try,” I said, desperation bleeding into every word. “I sent you that dumb apology basket, remember? Books. Tea. Your favorite chips. I didn’t know what else to do.”
Her eyes narrowed. “An apology basket? That’s what I was worth to you?”
“I didn’t know what I was doing, Riles!” I snapped, louder now. “I was nineteen. I was drowning in Madrid and expectations and injuries and missing you. I thought I was protecting you. I thought if I let go, you’d finally chase your dreams without having to carry me like dead weight.”
She didn’t speak right away.
Just stared at me with eyes full of years I’d never seen.
“It wasn’t easier, Lucas,” she whispered, voice breaking. “It wasn’t easier at all.”
The silence that followed gutted me. I saw it in her expression—that every word I never said still haunted her. And worse? She thought I didn’t care.
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly. “I was stupid. I was scared. But I never stopped thinking about you. I never stopped regretting it.”
She wiped her cheek with the back of her hand, shaking her head.
“You don’t get to regret it now just because you finally looked back,” she said, voice sharp and soft at the same time. “You left me. You chose to leave me.”
And standing there, surrounded by my trophies and empty victories, I realized something:
That choice was the biggest loss of my life.