Invisible to My first love, IRRESISTIBLE to the Hockey Captain

Chapter 4: Too Late

"Please," Damian said, stopping in front of me, hands braced on his knees like he'd run the whole way from wherever he'd last given up trying to catch me. "Just give me five minutes. That's all I'm asking."

I didn't answer right away. I just stood there behind the counter, apron still tied, coffee going cold in front of me, watching him try to catch his breath like the effort of running here somehow entitled him to something.

"You have thirty seconds," I said finally. "And you can use them out there." I nodded toward the door, not willing to let this conversation happen inside the one place that still felt untouched by all of it.

He followed me outside without arguing, which told me how desperate he actually was, since Damian rarely did anything without a comment first.

"I made a mistake," he said, the second we were out of earshot of the register. "A huge one. Lila means nothing, Marlowe, I swear to you, it was stupid, it was one time, it—"

"One time," I repeated. "Is that actually true, or is that just the version that sounds better."

He hesitated. That hesitation told me everything the words hadn't.

"Okay," he said, quieter now. "Maybe not one time. But it's not what you think, it's not, we're not together, it was just—"

"Convenient," I said, the word landing exactly the way Lila had used it, and watching it land on him instead felt strange, almost satisfying in a way I didn't love about myself. "That's actually the word she used. Did you know that? Some women are unforgettable, some are just convenient."

"Marlowe, please come home. We can figure this out, I'll fix it with Lila, you don't have to move out over this."

"I'm not moving out over this," I said. "I already moved out. Past tense."

"Please." His voice cracked slightly on the word, and for one small, traitorous second I felt the old pull toward him, ten years of habit trying to drag me back into comforting him even now, even after everything. I made myself stand still against it.

"Can I ask you something," I said instead. "And I actually want an honest answer, not whatever version makes this easier for you."

"Anything."

"Why didn't you ever choose me? In ten years. Not once. I was there for every single breakup, every bad grade, every birthday, every three a.m. phone call when you couldn't sleep, and you never once looked at me like I was an option. So why now? Why does it suddenly matter that I'm gone, when it never mattered while I was standing right in front of you?"

He opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.

Nothing came out.

I watched him search for an answer, watched thirty seconds stretch into a full minute of him standing there with absolutely nothing to say, and something in me finally, quietly, let go of the last thread I'd been holding onto for ten years.

"That's what I thought," I said, and my voice didn't even shake saying it, which surprised me more than anything else that had happened in the last twenty four hours.

"Marlowe, that's not fair, I just, I need time to think about how to—"

"You had ten years," I said. "I'm not giving you ten more minutes."

I turned and walked away, and this time he didn't chase me. Maybe he finally understood there wasn't a version of chasing that would work anymore. Maybe he was just too stunned to move. I didn't look back to check which one it was.

I walked until I found a bench outside the library, the same kind of anonymous public bench I'd been treating like a waiting room for my entire life these past two days, and sat down hard, my legs finally giving out under the weight of everything.

I pulled the card out of my apron pocket, turning it over in my fingers, staring at the neat handwriting like it might tell me what to do if I looked at it long enough.

No conditions, he'd said. Just space, and you clearly need some.

I thought about calling my mom and immediately talked myself out of it, picturing exactly how that conversation would go, her worry turning into pressure, pressure turning into come home, just for a little while, and a little while turning into never going back. I thought about every friend I had and realized, with the same hollow feeling from two nights ago, that ten years loving one person quietly hadn't left much room to build anyone else to call.

There was Kane's number. Sitting there in my hand, plain and simple, no strings attached, at least according to him.

I typed the number into my phone before I could talk myself out of it, my thumb hovering over the call button for longer than felt reasonable for a decision this small.

Then I pressed it.

He picked up on the second ring.

"I... need your help," I said, and hated how small my voice sounded saying it, hated needing anything from anyone after promising myself years ago I'd never be someone who needed rescuing.

"Where are you," he said, no hesitation in it at all, like the question had been ready and waiting the second I called.

I told him. He said give me twenty minutes, and hung up before I could change my mind or thank him or take it all back.

I sat on that bench clutching my backpack, watching the campus go by like an ordinary afternoon for everyone who wasn't me, and less than an hour later, a black SUV pulled up to the curb in front of the library, sleek and out of place among the bicycles and beat up sedans that usually lined that street.

The driver's door opened, and it was Kane himself stepping out, not some hired driver the way I'd half expected from the size of the car. He came around to my side before I could even stand up properly, took one look at my backpack, and reached for it like it was the most natural thing in the world.