I’d never have her the way I wanted, and this was her way of delivering the blow.

Part of me understood. I knew the world she lived in, the expectations she so painstakingly tried to live up to.

But another part of me didn’t get it at all, the ability to resist what was happening between us, a connection so real it had formed the moment I’d taken her spit-soaked hand.

And that was the part I would have to find a way to live with.

I didn’t want to let her down professionally, but getting into that mindset was going to take some reflection and convincing.

“I think I’m done for today,” I admitted, using her words from that first night unintentionally and taking a step back.

“Nik—”

“I just need the day, Callie. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

Fighting the urge to say more, she nodded and backed away as I turned to go.

Coaches and gymnasts alike stared as I left, but I plastered a fake smile on my face and waved as I went.

I would never jeopardize anything for Callie based on a dredged up personal issue.

“Nik!” Frank called as I passed the office and forcing me to a stop. He was truly the last person I wanted to talk to in that moment.

“Yes, sir?” I forced out in a fake show of casualness.

“Leaving early?”

“Uh, yeah,” I admitted, lying my way through an explanation. “I have an appointment.”

He studied me closely, and I increased the wattage of my smile in answer.

“Callie can be tough—”

“No, sir,” I cut in.

He raised his eyebrows in disbelief.

My lungs puffed a huge gust of air, forcing it up my throat and out my mouth. I used it to breath life into my answer. “I mean, yes, she can be confrontational—”

He laughed.

I fought the narrowing of my eyes.

“But this isn’t about her, sir. Just an appointment. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

His eyes were curious, but he didn’t push. “Alright then. Have a good evening.”

“Thank you. You too.”

Air screamed freedom, and I couldn’t get out the door to breathe it in fast enough.

My chest felt sore, and I raised a hand to rub it as I walked quickly to my Street Glide. Normally I made sure to change into my jeans before I got on the bike, but I didn’t have it in me to go back in, so I just left it.

I felt more alone than I had in a while, the knowledge of each friend and relationship secondary to the loss of one thing when it came to Callie—

Hope.

It spread like an infection and tainted clean vision and dedication. It made me think about, and long for, other things outside of the one thing that encapsulated my entire life.

The fact was, I didn’t know how to be anything other than this, I didn’t know how to strive for something other than greatness, and the prospect of the consequences forced my hand with the cure.

Hurting Nik yesterday had physically hurt me, the figurative gaping hole in my chest lacking the ability to clot. It had taken everything in me not to go after him, to let it go—to convince myself that it was all for the best.

I hadn’t specifically tried to aggravate him, but I hadn’t been naive enough to think it wouldn’t happen either. Part of me thought I needed the scene, the whole argument to make a clean break and go back to what practice and experience told me was important. But it didn’t heal all of the longing and wonderment in me. If anything, it made me rage to understand its unavoidable pull even harder.

It still felt fresh to me today, and I knew he felt the same. His words weren’t bitter, but they were cutting, the struggle he was feeling apparently just as real as my own.

Mud clouded the pristine water of his eyes, and all the ease had vanished from his posture.

He moved with stilted agitation, and I couldn’t even blame him because I was doing the same thing.

The difference was, he and everyone else were judging me based on mine.

If he told me I was jerking to one skill from another in my bar routine instead of flowing one more time, I was going to punch him in the throat.

Granted, half of my frustration came from him and the other half came from the inability to complete this stupid, godforsaken skill.

“You’re releasing too late. There’s no way you’ll be able to grab the bar doing it like that. Look down the line of your body, when your toes point right there,” he pointed to the joint between the ceiling and the wall, “that’s when you let go.”

“I know,” I grated, smashing my lips together and checking the tightness of my grips on my wrists.

“If you know, do it.”

His anger fueled mine, riling us up into a torturous circle of aggression.

“Relax, alright?” I snapped. “This is a new fucking skill, and it’s taking me a little time to get used to it.”

His eyes glittered and shimmered, and the line of his jaw became noticeably more compact.

“If you’re this slow to take what you want, I don’t know how the hell you expect to take that goddamn podium.”

I shook my head at his absurdity, knowing that the guise of gymnastics talk was just that—an emotional ruse. “The two aren’t even remotely related.”

“How do you figure that?” he asked, slamming his hands to his hips and pretending not to know what I was talking about.

“Because when it comes to gymnastics, I know what it takes. I know that I’m safe.”

An outsider would have laughed at the absurdity of that statement. Gymnastics, as a sport, was anything but safe. But Nik knew exactly what I meant.

Because he was living the double meaning along with me, and he saw inside the window to my mind like no one else I’d ever encountered.

Gymnastics was known. It didn’t change. It was comfort.

That didn’t stop him from refuting my logic.

“I’ll make you a promise right here,” he swore, his words a conviction and a truth and a vow that he’d do anything to keep. “There are a lot of things you may never be with me, but you’ll always be fucking safe.”

I wanted so badly to give in, to cave to his line of thinking and believe that what he said wouldn’t only be a promise, but an irrefutable fact. But I knew better. Years of not getting my way reinforced that it would never change.

“Gymnastics is safe,” I told him in an effort to distance him. I needed him to back off from this argument, to let it go. Unless he did, I wouldn’t be able to. Not unless he was gone.

“Gymnastics is not supposed to be your entire life,” he insisted, his face imploring. “You’re allowed to have more than this.”

He poked and poked the bear inside me until it was cornered, and my only option left was to growl.

"Jesus Christ!” I threw my hands in the air. “What do you think you are, some kind of life coach?! You coach gymnastics," I spat, feeling the chords in my throat stand out with each rage filled syllable. "You're here to improve my gymnastics. That's it.”

If I'd been expecting an apology or concession, it was nothing but my fault. People were reliably predictable, and Nik wasn't any different. He never apologized or lived regret. He lived that moment, breathed that reasoning, and answered every irrational outburst of mine with a rational calm that blew my mind. I kept to myself, so it was easy to fool people into believing I was low key, but I had never been an even keel kind of person. I blew up and I did it hard, whether it lived completely in my mind or splattered all over everything just depended on who I was dealing with. Every moment with him was infinitely messy.

Those words had drawn what I considered to be a line in the sand. But Nik…he wasn’t afraid to cross it.

His chest blew back as if I’d struck him, but it wasn’t because he was contrite. It was because he was winding up for a punch that would be anything but physical, but would leave its mark all the same.