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“Nothing,” I shake my head. “It’s not like it matters to you. I haven’t seen you in months—”
“Don’t you fucking dare do that to me…. I’ve called and texted every day since the accident…it’s the playoffs…well it was…it’s not like the regular season, I can’t just jet set around between Chicago and Denver to check on you.”
But he is here now.
“We lost, we’re out…season is over.”
“Sorry.”
“I don’t know what you want from me, Nandy. I don’t know how to help you here.”
“Maybe I neither want nor need your help. I never asked for it. I never asked for anything from you, ever.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“Afraid? I’m not afraid of anything.” I’m afraid of everything. I’m afraid he meant it when he said he loves me. I’m afraid I love him back and I don’t know how to do that. “That I can’t do it. That I’ll suck. That I won’t be the same.”
“You probably won’t be the same, so what? Are you afraid you won’t be perfect…or that some New York Times critic will call your playing pedestrian?”
I snort. “I’ve never been pedestrian in my damn life.”
“Do you think those kids who watched you play, who got to play with you…do you think they care you are perfect? Newsflash, I guarantee they don’t, but they will care if you give up.
“Is that what you want them to see? You want them to see that one small setback finished you?”
“Small! This is not a small setback…this could be career ending.”
“Yes, it could be. It for sure will be if you let it!”
“You don’t know anything about a situation like this.”
“Really…don’t I? I sure as hell never quit, and I never thought that was who you were.”
“You don’t know a thing about me.”
“I know you’re scared of something…I also know you won’t talk to me anymore and I don’t understand why.”
“TJ, I’m tired, so tired of everything. And I don’t know what I want anymore. I’ve spent so long playing for everyone else and doing it their way….I don’t know my way anymore.”
He looks at me. “Well, that’s the most honest thing you’ve said since I walked in.”
“I don’t want to fight with you,” I add.
“Well, I do dammit…Fight with me, fight for yourself…fight for us.”
“There is no us!” The words hang in the air and then crash into TJ with a nearly audible thud.
“It was one night TJ. Sex…that’s it…nothing more…and that’s exactly what you wanted.”
“No…apparently that’s exactly what you wanted…everything for me changed long before the sex…the night you sat on the floor of that elevator and saved me…”
“I’m not that man anymore. I’m not the man you fell in love with.”
“You’re right. That man would never give up on himself.”
We stand in silence again before TJ finally steps into my space.
“Don’t do that,” he says. “Give up on us, fine, but please…please don’t give up on yourself, on your music.”
