Page 162 of Wait for Him

I guess that’s not fair. He’s never really been mine and I told him to move on.

By the time I realize I'm not paying attention to my surroundings, I'm flat on my back with my partner Amy's shoulder grinding into my jaw. She's already secured side control.

“Rose?” she asks, easing off just enough to look at me. “You with me?”

I blink up at the fluorescent lights from my back. “Yeah.”

It's automatic. The answer comes before I've even processed the question, because admitting my head hasn't been inside this room once since warm-ups feels more embarrassing than getting smashed by someone I should be giving a hard time.

“Frame,” Coach calls from somewhere across the mat.

Right. Frame.

I slide my forearm against Amy's neck, but it's lazy, almost absentminded. She swims right over it, catches my elbow drifting away from my ribs, and before I know it she's climbing into mount with an expression hovering somewhere between triumph and confusion.

“Well,” she says with a grin, “this is new.”

“Enjoy it while it lasts.”

Except it's going to last, because I bridge late, she settles right back down, and everything I try after that is half a beat behind. My timing is off. My reactions are shit. Even my instincts seem to be taking the scenic route tonight, and when the timer finally sounds, I'm more relieved than frustrated.

That, more than anything, bothers me.

I push to my feet and head for my water bottle, trying to convince myself I just need a reset. Bad rounds happen. Bad nights happen. They just don't usually happen to me, and certainly not because a man who isn't mine anymore is marrying a woman who looks like she was grown in a lab specifically to make me feel inadequate.

Fucking fabulous.

Coach intercepts me before I make it halfway across the mat.

“You sick?”

“No.”

“Tired?”

I shake my head.

He studies me for another moment, long enough that I know he's replaying every shitty decision I've made since I walked through the door.

“Then where are you?”

Well.

Physically, I'm standing barefoot on blue mats in a room that's ninety degrees with thirty people trying to strangle each other recreationally.

Mentally, I'm back in my apartment reading Jackson's engagement announcement with tears running down my face.

“I don't know,” I admit quietly.

Coach nods once. “Either figure it out before the next round or go home. I don't mind people having bad days, Rose. I mind people getting hurt because they're somewhere else.”

“I know.”

“And your somewhere else looks expensive.”

Despite myself, I smile. “You have no fucking idea.”

“There she is.” He points toward the mats. “Now go roll.”