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“You’re crying, though. I always make you cry.

” His jaw tightens, and he tips his head from one side to the other, as though he can’t believe we’re having this conversation.

A gust of wind whips through the stadium, carrying the sharp smell of pine from the trees beyond center field.

“Everything I’ve ever said to you and felt for you was real. ”

“I know.” I nod. Jaxon may not always tell me everything, but he’s never lied.

Not about us. “I don’t know what to do anymore.

I know you have a lot going on in your life.

We both do. Between sports and school…” I pause, watching his teammates’ breath create little clouds in the cold air as they warm up.

“And a long, serious relationship only adds to the pressure. I don’t want to add more stress for you. ”

“You don’t.”

“I do, in some ways.” I motion between us, our UW purple and gold gear matching like some cruel joke. “This is stressing us both out.”

“I know, but I know you’re trying to deal with all the shit I keep putting you through.”

At least he knows what he’s doing to me.

I can see the concern in his eyes—he cares, I guess—but that doesn’t stop the hurting.

The sound of batting practice cuts through the morning air, each swing and crack twisting inside me like a reminder.

Every sharp sound is another piece of my world splintering apart.

I try to breathe, but all I feel is him slipping away.

“I want to be the person you’re excited to talk to at the end of the day,” I say, my voice shaky. My throat feels tight, and tears gather as I watch a V of geese drift across the sky, gliding toward Union Bay. “Not the one making things harder for you.”

I can feel his gaze even though I’m staring down at my hands. The silence stretches between us. Then, softly, he says, “Cam, you’ve always been that for me.”

“I don’t have you in the ways I want, though.

” The tears drop from the creases of my eyes faster than before, and I taste the salt of my sadness on my lips.

Behind us, I hear the distinctive sound of cleats on concrete as more players file into the batting cage, out of view from where we’re sitting. “So how is that fair to me?”

“It’s not.”

He looks down at his phone when it lights up in his hand. My heart catches in my throat when I think it’s a message from her. I’m surprised when he tilts his phone toward me and I see it’s a text from Jameson, his best friend and teammate.

Jaxon shoves his phone inside his hoodie. “I’m late for BP.”

I nod. “All right.”

We both stand at the same time, the metal bleachers creaking beneath us. His eyes move from the field to mine, and I watch another group of his teammates jog past, their cleats clicking against the concrete walkway. Purple and gold everywhere I look—even our heartbreak comes in school colors.

I want to hug him and beg for reassurance that someday this won’t hurt so bad. Someday there might be an us again.

Suddenly, he grabs me by my shoulders and pulls me to his chest, as if he too can’t take the distance any longer.

His arms wrap tight around my waist and he holds me firmly against him.

I breathe in his familiar scent—a mix of leather baseball gloves and the cedar-scented detergent his mom always sends from home.

His lips press to the side of my head. “Don’t hate me.” The concern in his words is easy to hear, as if he’s picked up on what I was thinking. He pulls back and stares at me, the “W” on his cap catching the weak morning light.

I break eye contact because I know what I’m about to say. The ache in my chest is nearly unbearable. “I haven’t yet.”

Is it the truth? Maybe. I guess in some ways, yes. I hate him for not being able to make up his mind. I’ve been unintentionally holding onto him for a year now when all I want to do is let go and let this happen. Maybe it won’t hurt as much if I stop.

I can’t, though. I’ve tried and it always ends in me coming right back to him.

I know his reasons, but it doesn’t make it any easier.

Jaxon wants time to figure out his life and not have the pressure of a serious relationship in college.

I get that. I understand where he’s coming from.

We’re both Division 1 athletes, and the pressure to perform at this level is only getting heavier.

That left me waiting. For what, I didn’t know. Maybe for him to decide if he wanted to be with me.

And while I understand his reasons, it broke my heart because I still want to be with him.

You might be wondering how this happened. How’d we get into a situationship, anyway?

Well, my dumb ass suggested it.

Jaxon and I broke up two days before the biggest game of my life, the College World Series playoffs.

We’ve been “together” in some way since we broke up in May, but now we’re back to the “let’s try dating other people” conversation.

It feels like we’re running the bases, only we never reach home.

It’s base after base of hurt, betrayal, and feelings we can’t make go away.

I tell myself I know what I’m doing. Sometimes, though—okay, most of the time—it’s a lie. If you’ve ever been in love, you know this feeling. You know how hard it is to let go when all you want to do is hold on tighter.

Some might wonder if I’ve dated since we broke up.

Nope.

I keep hoping he’ll change his mind and want us again. I’m sure he loves me; he just needs to get his shit together.

“It’s not that I don’t love you, Cam,” Jaxon says, standing next to the end seat on the row we’d been sitting in. The morning light finally breaks through the clouds, casting long shadows across the infield dirt. “I think I always will. But I think we both need to experience life outside of us.”

“Are you ready for that?” I ask, my eyes on the baseball field—a place where, two years ago, I knew I loved the one next to me.

Back when we were high school recruits touring campus, before scholarships and expectations complicated everything.

“Are you ready for me to move on and not be there for you?”

“I don’t think I’m ever going to be ready for that.” His voice is quiet, nearly lost under the crack of batting practice echoing from the cages. He glances at me, and then away. “But we need to try.”

I don’t say anything else. I don’t understand why he thinks we need to try. If you love someone, and enjoy being with them, why do you need to experience other people?

Jaxon turns toward the field, his hands shoved in his hoodie pocket. He stares out at the baseball field and I wonder what he’s thinking about. The grounds crew has finished their morning routine, leaving perfect chalk lines on the freshly dragged dirt.

For so long, baseball has been Jaxon’s escape.

When his dad almost died in a fire, it was baseball that got him through it.

When his friends partied, Jaxon was at practice.

When his friends went on vacations during the summer, Jaxon was at tournaments, in front of college scouts trying to make a name for himself.

For what, though? To get to UW and wonder if the sport would ever give back what he put into it?

Something happens when you play at the collegiate level. The pressure to perform increases, and you’re left wondering if you love it the same way you did when you were younger—when it was just you and your glove and the sound of the ball hitting leather.

And maybe that’s the case with being in a long relationship. Maybe that’s what Jaxon’s experiencing. A pause. A moment to understand what life without it would be like.

I’m not entirely sure I understand Jaxon’s reasons for our breakup, or him wanting to see other people, but it’s now, while his sadness is clearly on display, that he too is hurting.

I crave the way it used to be with him. When I didn’t fall in love because I found a guy.

When I fell in love with what I found in him.

When it was uncomplicated. Easy. It wasn’t anxious or impatient like it is now.

In baseball, if the catcher drops the third strike, the batter gets a shot—a wild scramble, a chance to run for first. Love’s like that too.

Sometimes, after you think it’s over, there’s still a chance to run—to prove something, to change the outcome.

It’s messy, unpredictable, and never as final as it feels in the moment.