Page 70 of Breakaway Goals

This whole thing was infuriating and humiliating enough as it was.

Morgan pulled himself up to his full height.

“I’m not trying to throw you ascrap,” Morgan said, and he had the fucking nerve to sound offended. “I came to apologize.”

It had been a shitty apology. Hayes wanted to tell him that. He’d only even bothered because he’d ghosted and nobody on the fucking planet, not even Hayes, who’d been freaking obsessed with Morgan, was going to get on their knees without one. Not necessarily because he really meant it.

“Yeah, you tried,” Hayes said bluntly, crossing his arms over his chest. Wishing he’d never opened the door. Let Morgan stand outside androt.

“Idid.” Morgan sounded almost desperate now, which should’ve felt better than it did, kind of like the hat trick he’d scored tonight. “I really feel bad about the way we left things—”

“The wayyouleft things,” Hayes corrected.

“Why are you being so pissy? What happened to the Hayes who apologized every other sentence?”

“You killed him off,” Hayes retorted. “He’s dead.”

“Oh come on,” Morgan said.

“No, you don’t get to show up here and decide that you want me when it was clear you didn’t.” Righteous anger was bubbling inside him now. Morgan had hurt him, had hurt him over and over, the last six weeks, every moment of silence a knife to the gut, and now he just wanted to say he was sorry and that made it all okay? Fuck no.

“I was . . .fuck, baby, you know this is a lot for me. I’m . . .”

“Didn’t seem a lot to you when we were doing it.” Hayes was not going to listen. If he listened, he might be tempted to believe Morgan. Maybe he really had freaked out; maybe fear really had gotten the better of him.

“It was easy, you were there—”

But Hayes didn’t want to hear it. “No. I was there that morning too. I was right fucking there, Morgan, and you justleft. I was there at breakfast, when you wouldn’t even look at me. I wasthere, the whole goddamn time, and you just walked away like it was nothing.” He hated how his voice broke at the end. “Like I was nothing.”

Morgan froze. “No, no,no, baby, you’re not nothing, you’re . . .” But he didn’t finish the sentence. Like hecouldn’t.

And maybe Hayes might’ve listened, might’vereallylistened, if he had. But he didn’t.

He left it unsaid. Again.

“I know I’m not nothing,” Hayes said in a hard voice. “I proved it tonight. And I’ll prove it to you over and over again. I’m never going to stop.Never.”

Morgan looked broken. Like Hayes had broken him. And that felt fair. Because he’d broken Hayes first.

“Baby—”

“Don’t you fucking call me that. Not ever again,” Hayes spit out. Anger was easier than bitter disappointment. Than realizing the man he’d thought Morgan was had never really existed. Had only been a figment of his imagination.

Morgan looked at him, really looked at him, and there was that warmth, again, but this time it was mixed with devastation. Even worse: it was a devastation Hayes recognized.

And maybe,maybe, there was still that Morgan inside him, the one that Hayes’ heart had brushed up against and justknown, but what was the point if Morgan fought against it so hard? If they spent eight to ten months apart every year? Hayes would never even have a chance to find that Morgan again, if he really did exist.

“So that’s it, then?” Morgan asked quietly.

“That’s it,” Hayes said. He dug his fingernails into his palm so he wouldn’t reach for Morgan at the last moment, as he turned away, towards the door.

“Alright,” Morgan said, and a moment later, the door shut behind him.

Later, so much later, years and years later, Hayes couldn’t help but wonder what would’ve happened if he’d actually let himself reach out for him.

If he hadn’t been so full of bitter indignation and humiliation at being ignored.

If they hadn’t played for teams on the opposite coasts.