Page 55 of Summer Breakdown (Training Seasons #2)

The door clicks closed as Jasmine lets her in, and it’s awkward. Jasmine doesn’t look at her, and Frankie is desperate for her to.

“I’m sorry,” Frankie blurts out after she’s taken her shoes off. It’s not enough. Jasmine finally looks at her, and Frankie’s knees buckle.

Jasmine frowns, chewing on her lip. “What for?”

“Everything,” Frankie says quickly. She’s terrified. Not of Jasmine, but of herself. Of being wrong. Of doing this wrong. Of wanting something she doesn’t know how to deserve. “I want to be better for you. I want to be better anyway, but it’s mainly for you.”

They look at each other for a moment. Frankie wants to look at Jasmine for the rest of her life. She can’t believe she fucked this up.

“You don’t have to do anything,” Jasmine replies.

“It can just be done.” Jasmine isn’t looking at her again.

In the past two weeks, she’s forgotten that Frankie knows every iteration of her face.

Frankie doesn’t think she’s doing it to test her.

To see if she’ll fight for her. But it’s what she deserves either way.

Still, Frankie’s face crumples. “I don’t want to be done. I—please. Please. I don’t want to walk out of here and never see you again.”

Jasmine shrugs, her fingers tight against her own waist. “We can be friends after a while. ”

Frankie’s chest constricts. Friends. She could be her friend. She could watch someone else make her happy. As long as she’s in her life, she could do that.

Frankie nods, desperate. “Okay. Okay, if you want. I can—I can do that.”

Jasmine chews on her lip. “I need to check on the kids… and then I can set up the guest room.”

“Okay,” Frankie replies. Jasmine is the only thing on her mind, but she’s missed the kids too.

She didn’t realise how much until she got here and saw Marcel’s hoodie and Lani’s crayons.

It was always strange to her, when parents missed their kids after a couple days on holiday. She gets it now. “How are they?”

“Okay.”

Frankie nods. “Can I say hi?”

Jasmine chews on her lip. “I don’t—it’s not a good idea.”

“Oh.” Frankie has felt her heart crush before.

Just now when Jasmine said about a guest room, as if Frankie didn’t live here.

Earlier this afternoon, when her therapist said she should wait a few days before she spoke to Jasmine.

Every second of every day since she broke up with her.

Frankie shuffles. She’s never felt uncomfortable here, but now, it feels like there are ants under her skin that she can’t quite itch.

“I—I’m not dangerous.”

Jasmine frowns. “What?”

“I don’t know what Ezra has told you because I am terrified to ask, but I want to tell you… if you want to know,” she replies. Jasmine shows nothing on her face. “I wouldn’t hurt them. I wouldn’t come here if I thought I would.”

“I know,” Jasmine says easily. Frankie frowns. “Frankie, you broke my heart.”

She feels like she’s been hit, even though she knew that. Jasmine told her that as she did it, and she did it anyway.

“I’m not saying no because I think you would ever be violent,” Jasmine says, but she’s not looking at her.

“Lani asks for you every dinnertime, and she asks me to call when it’s time for voices at night, and I cannot bring myself to tell her you broke up with me.

” Her voice breaks, and her cheeks are wet, and Frankie has no idea if she can even touch her now.

“I have been doing everything to convince myself you didn’t, but every day that fucking passes, you don’t talk to me. ”

Frankie crosses her fingers, but it won’t be enough. She did what she thought she should do, and she broke her heart. The only woman that has ever loved her how she wanted. How she needed her to.

“I know you were unavailable,” Jasmine says. “I do. I don’t know what it’s like, and I don’t know how—I don’t know anything. But you left, and you didn’t say bye to them, and I—I was never supposed to introduce you. It’s my own fault.”

“I didn’t want to break your heart.”

Jasmine shrugs. “Yeah, well.”

“I don’t—I don’t want to. Can you please check on them, and then can we talk after?”

Jasmine swallows, shuffling on the spot. She’s got her arms folded across her chest like Frankie doesn’t know she’s wearing her top.

“I can wait outside,” Frankie suggests. Desperation seeps through every pore, but she’d rather be called a loser than miss the rest of her life with Jasmine. “Please.”

Jasmine sighs, rubbing her eyes too harshly. “You don’t have to do that,” she says, then she leaves, and Frankie is left in the kitchen with more of her things than her own flat.

Frankie knew she’d hurt her. Jasmine never explicitly told her she’d kill her if she hurt her children, but Frankie read between the lines, and she hurt them all the same.

It doesn’t matter if she meant to. Her excuses and pain don’t matter to a four-year-old hoping she comes for dinner.

To her, and the teenager who pretends they’re not excited to see her at breakfast, she’s a letdown, like their father.

The burn at the back of her throat is a permanent fixture in her life.

Something she’ll have to deal with, like the surface-level anxiety and the bipolar.

Her doctor will give her a pill for it, she’s sure.

But Frankie isn’t coming back the same, and she has spent every moment of the past few days trying to figure out how to explain to Jasmine that she might be more insane than she thought.

That she hallucinated her for hours at a time.

That something cracked this time, and she’s terrified.

Jasmine shouldn’t think about being with her without knowing it’s worse than Frankie ever explained.

Frankie moves away, her fingers tapping in the need to fix something, do something.

She puts stray glasses in the dishwasher and makes a fresh tea.

The lemon mug that’s her favourite sits untouched, pushed to the back of the cupboard because she’s not been here to use it.

Jasmine’s orange mug sits at the back too.

“Hi,” Jasmine says, a while later.

Frankie spins. Jasmine’s back. She’s tired, her cheeks puffy and her eyes red. She’s starlight.

“Hey.”

Jasmine wrings her hands. “Do you want a tea or something?”

“I made it,” she replies. Nerves wrack her body. This isn’t her home anymore, as much as she needs it to be. Perhaps she’s not allowed to do what she wants.

“Oh.”

“Sorry.”

Jasmine blinks at the ground. Frankie has never felt so disconnected from her. Even the night they met, she never felt like a stranger. It never felt like she was uncomfortable in her presence.

“It’s okay,” Jasmine replies, tucking a curl behind her ear. “Let’s go to sleep.”

Frankie follows her out of the kitchen, switching the lights off with the edge of the teacup.

Muscle memory takes her towards her bedroom, but Jasmine turns earlier than that.

The spare room. Frankie knew that. Her heart darkens with the flick of the lamp.

She places the mugs on the windowsill because there is no coaster in here.

“I didn’t wash them that long ago,” Jasmine says, pulling the duvet back, “but I can get new sheets if you want.” Before Frankie has a moment to say anything, she’s talking again.

“The bathroom is across the hall, and you’re welcome to shower or whatever. I’ll get you some pyjamas.”

“Jasmine.”

But she’s gone, and Frankie swallows thickly while she waits for her to come back. When she does, there’s an entire pile in her arms.

“I don’t know if you’re cold,” she says quickly, “but there are blankets here, and the linen cupboard is at the end of the hall, so—“

“Jasmine.” Frankie knows where everything is. This was her home. Jasmine’s eyes aren’t focusing.

“So, if you—if you get cold, I can get you some.”

Frankie rests her hands against Jasmine’s arms. She’s shaking.

“Jasmine,” she repeats quietly, and she looks at her, her eyes wide. Jasmine’s waist is so soft under her fingertips. Oh, what Frankie would do to have met her at another point in her life. When she was twenty-four, she had eight uninterrupted months. She could have met her then.

“Sweetheart, stop.”

Jasmine’s gaze flickers over her face. “The books say you might be cold.”

Frankie pulls her close, her hand at the back of her head. “You need to sleep.”

Jasmine doesn’t hug her back, but she does lean against her. Frankie bends, lifting her to her waist, and Jasmine makes no move to stop her. It’s possible she’ll be asleep by the time they get back to her room.

The tears stream down Frankie’s face when she walks in.

It’s dark outside, and the light is off, but it glows in here—a pleasant, low-level light from the hundreds of stars stuck to the ceiling.

Frankie’s heart aches at the sight of it.

How Jasmine was making it work for her, and she was telling her she’d never love her.

Frankie misses it here. Going to sleep on a dedicated pillow, with a side of the bed, with the woman she is so helplessly in love with. Frankie rests Jasmine lightly against the mattress while she kneels on the floor.

Jasmine wipes the tears from Frankie’s face and then rests her forehead against hers. “I’m so tired, Frankie.”

“You can go to sleep, sweetheart. What pjs do you want?” Frankie tries not to look around the room, but her eyes fall on the pile of books on Frankie’s side of the bed. The meticulous notes and the highlighting. God, Frankie makes her life so hard.

“Your top,” Jasmine says, with a yawn. Frankie searches through her drawer, but there’s nothing that would even fit Frankie in here. She’s terrified to go through her own drawer. There must be piles of her stuff ready to be shipped out everywhere.

“The one I have on?”

“Yeah,” Jasmine whispers. “Nothing else smells like you anymore.” Frankie takes it off. Thankfully, she showered not long ago. She kneels on the floor again.

“Arms up,” she says.