Page 96 of Breaking the Ice

When he got out, he didn’t think he could talk about it, still, because even the thought of discussing it made his throat close over with despair and sadness and panic, but he did find his phone and type out a text.

Tried it your way,he sent to Hayes,and I don’t want to talk about it, but it’s over.

It’s over,Zach thought.It’s really over.

He’d never entirely understood why Hayes had cut Morgan off hard and fast. Why he’d refused to accept even the scraps of time they could’ve stolen together, because Zach had always assumed that having something of someone you loved was better than having nothing.

But no, Zach got it now. Something wasworsethan nothing.

The scraps only made him ache for more, to haveeverything, and he couldn’t keep going with that bottomless pit of desire opening up inside him all the time. Even if it took the rest of his life to fill it, he had to start now, one shovelful at a fucking time.

There were six weeks left of the regular season and then playoffs, if they made it that far. It was unfair to the team to bail on them now, but the idea of spending the next two months with Gavin like nothing was wrong, like nothing had changed between them, made him physically sick.

Zach had put his teams first his whole life, right up until he’d walked away from the NHL, and that had felt so much like the right decision, at the time and every single day after, he’d sworn to himself he wouldn’t ever go there again.

He wouldn’t carve himself out and leave nothing behind just to satisfy some impossible need that other people had for him.

It was shitty, but he was going to have to walk away.

The email to Sidney was shockingly easy. A handful of polite garbage sentences and there was his resignation, staring back at him from the screen. He could cc Gavin, but then Gavin might take it as a passive aggressive threat to change his mind or Zach was gone.

But Zach loved Gavin and he didn’t want someone who had no love left to give.

In another year he’d be done with his Master’s, and then he could leave this town behind. Really start fresh.

Hayes texted back.What happened? Are you really not going to tell me?Then a second text, coming in nearly on the heels of the first.Are you okay?

Zach flopped back on the couch. This adulting shit was the worst. He wanted to crawl in bed with a bottle of vodka and never leave.

I kissed him. He kissed back, then said no. I’m quitting.

It was the most clinical straightforward analysis of the situation Zach could provide. And somehow it sucked even more than any dramatics he could’ve texted Hayes. Seeing it all there, in black and white, cut him like a knife.

For a long second, he stared at Hayes’ second question, not sure how to answer. Of course he wasn’t fucking okay. Hayes should know better than to even ask.

Finally, he typed out, a letter at a time, slow and deliberate, giving himself a chance to change his mind, but it only felt more right the longer he looked at it:No, but I will be.

He watched as Hayes’ typing bubbles appeared and then disappeared half a dozen times.

Yeah, you will be,he finally said.

Of course, that might just be Zach’s own stupid optimism reflected back at him, because it wasn’t like Hayes had ever really gotten there. But he still might, and if anyone deserved it, it was him.

But it wasn’t just him. Theybothdeserved it.

Zach reminded himself of that one more time and sent the email.

He went to the student gym instead of the staff one, enjoying the feeling of anonymity, of just being another student here, regretting the decisions he’d made the night before. Sweated out all his sadness, and it sort of worked.

Showered, and then hit the library.

He’d turned do not disturb on his phone, and didn’t bother looking at either his inbox or his texts. Though he couldn’t imagine anyone sending him anything he might want to hear. Even if Gavin changed his mind, even if Gavin begged him to come back, Zach knew this was what he needed to do.

Hayes had told him once that he didn’t have to put up with any of Gavin’s baggage—that it wasn’thisbaggage—and even though part of Zach still wanted to help him carry it, he wasn’t going to sacrifice his own peace of mind to do it.

Gavin was never going to accept wanting him. He’d never be easy if they got together, and Zach decided he deservedbetter.

It felt like the righteous decision, thebestdecision, all the way up until he was done at the library and he headed back to his empty apartment.