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A warm tear drips down my face as my shaking hand squeezes his uninjured one. “You’re right. You are okay this time. But what about next time?” I plead. Because you can only avoid death so many times when you’re dancing with the devil like he is.

“Chances are next time will be even better.” He shrugs; his nonchalance causes my worry to morph into anger. How does he not see it? “ This isn’t the first time I’ve been hurt, sweetheart. I’ll bounce back and be fine.”

I shake my head, not understanding any of this. “You have had an incredible career. Why not walk away while you can still walk at all?” My watery eyes stay glued onto him, my voice sounding hoarse from the onslaught of emotion running through my body.

“Because I still have a lot more to prove.” My hand lets go of his and runs through my hair. I find myself completely exasperated with the man sitting in front of me.

“This again?” I shake my head as I drop my hands to my side. “Mav, everyone already thinks of you as a legend. What more could you possibly need?”

“The world title. It’s the one thing my dad never had.”

“And what happens when you get that? What is so important about a stupid title?”

“You wouldn’t understand.” He looks away like he is angry with me, and I find myself even more hurt than I was when I walked in here. How dare he be mad at me for giving a shit about him?

“You’re right. I don’t understand. I don’t understand why you’re willing to kill yourself to prove people who have no business having an opinion wrong.” My hands ball into tight little fists, so tight that I can feel my fingernails cutting into the skin of my palm.

“It isn’t just about me. People count on me, Ava.” He gestures his hands out to beyond the tent, to his team.

“For a paycheck, Mav, that’s all. You’re their cash cow. Of course they want you to keep going.” Everything boils up in me to the point where I feel like I’m going to burst. There is too much worry, hurt, and anger in my body, and I don’t know what to do with it.

“You don’t know what you are saying. ”

My words come out in a yell, a desperate plea for him to hear me and actually understand the meaning of my words.

“No, you don’t know, you don’t know what it’s like to watch everyone you love die right in front of you.

I can’t do that again. I can’t watch you kill yourself.

” I throw my hands up in front of me, feeling more defeated than I have in my entire life.

He cocks his head back, trying to process my words. “What are you saying?”

I take a deep breath and close my eyes, trying to ground myself. “I’m saying, it’s us or the rodeo. It can’t be both. I can’t do this, Maverick. I can’t lose someone else I love.”

“You’re not going to lose me.” His voice trembles as he brings his hands to his chest.

I shake my head, realizing he isn’t going to see it my way. Not now, not ever. “I bet your dad told you the same thing. How did that work out? You can’t make me promises you can’t keep.”

My words cut him, and his whole body shifts back like they weren’t just words but were an actual hit. “That’s a low blow.”

I shrug. “You’re mad because it’s true. I can’t watch this anymore, Maverick. I can’t sit on the sidelines, praying to God you get to come home to me every single time you go to ride. Please, Mav. Please don’t make me.”

“I’m not done yet, Ava.” His voice sounds final.

I nod my head, looking around the room, my heart broken into a million little slivers. A tear escapes the side of my eye because I know what’s going to happen.

He isn’t going to choose me.

He’s going to choose the damn rodeo because he loves it more .

“Well, you made it clear what you love most. If you’re not ready to be done, then I guess we are.” I take a shaky breath before saying goodbye to the love of my life. “Good luck.” I take two steps back physically and emotionally, preparing myself for the heartbreak I know is going to hit me.

He moves to stand as I turn on my heels. “Ava, wait.”

I hold my hand up to stop him. “No, Mav. You made your choice. You didn’t even hesitate to make it, actually.

You chose the rodeo so damn fast.” I snap my fingers.

“Like I was never really a considerable option. That right there tells me all I need to know. I may love you, Maverick Ryder, but you , you love rodeo and your ego. There wasn’t enough love left over for me. ”

His whole body deflates at the finality in my tone. “You know I love you.”

“That’s the first time you’ve said it this entire conversation. You may think you love me, Maverick, but I am beginning to wonder if you even know what love really is. My stuff will be out of the house by the time you get home.”

“But the courts,” he says, trying to grasp on to anything to slow this down. But there is no slowing this down. This was doomed to crash and burn the second we said ‘I do’ in Vegas because happiness just isn’t something that happens to me.

“What they don’t know won’t hurt them.”

“Ava,” he pleads one final time.

I don’t stop this time. I keep walking.

Because if I don’t, I might back down, and I don’t think my heart can take another loss.