Garrett Graham x f!reader
Summary: Garrett Graham is trying to figure out how to live without the girl he loves ,while youâre trying to convince yourself leaving him was the right thing to do. So far, neither of you seem to be succeeding
Author's Note: Thank you guys so much for all the love on this story! It's very close to my heart, so it means a lot seeing people resonate with it. There's only one more part after this, which is where we get their happy ending. I wanted to show how hard the breakup was on both of them and sit with that pain for a little while before bringing them back together. Hopefully the angst is worth it!!
I also apologize for the slow updates. Work has been keeping me pretty busy lately, so I haven't had as much time to write as I'd like. Part 3 should hopefully be out by the end of next week.
Warnings: Angst, hurt/no comfort, self- worth issues
**************************************************
It had been exactly thirty-two days since the breakup, though Garrett refused to think of it as counting, because counting meant admitting that each day had carved itself into him a little deeper, and he was not ready to admit just how badly this was still wrecking him.
Thirty-two days since he had watched you walk out of the hockey house with tears on your face and heartbreak in every step. Thirty-two days since he had stood at the top of the staircase, frozen and helpless, while the person he loved most left him behind. Thirty-two days since he had heard your voice saying things he still did not fully understand, things that had sounded too final to be real. Thirty-two days since he had seen you.
Life, infuriatingly, had not paused to match the shape of his grief.
Practice still started at six. Classes still demanded his attention. Games still had to be played. NHL scouts still came. The world kept moving as if nothing had split open inside him, as if one of the most important parts of his life had not just vanished overnight.
The first week had been the worst, because he kept waking up with the strange, hopeful instinct that maybe the breakup had only been a nightmare, only to remember, all over again, that it had been painfully real. He would reach for his phone before his eyes were even fully open, expecting a good morning text, a picture of your breakfast, a complaint about some professor, a reminder to eat something, and every single time he found nothing but silence. No little updates from your day. No random thoughts sent at odd hours.Â
Allie and Hannah refused to tell him anything. That had become its own special kind of torture. The only thing either of them had offered in thirty-two days was a flat, almost cruelly simple, âSheâs aliveâ. Every time he tried to push for more, every time Dean tried to pry something useful from them, the answers dried up immediately, and as much as it drove him insane, he understood why. He couldnât even be angry with them for protecting you from him, because if the roles were reversed, he knew he would have done the same. He would have taken anything they were willing to give him, and the desperation in that thought was humiliating enough to make his jaw clench every time he admitted it to himself.
By the second week, reality had started settling in with a dull, merciless weight. This wasnât a fight that needed time to cool down. This wasnât a temporary silence or a bad stretch or some ugly misunderstanding that would eventually untangle itself. You were gone, and the worst part was that you had left not because you stopped loving him, but because you loved him too much to believe you deserved to stay. Garrett still could not wrap his mind around that, could not understand how you could look at the kind of love he felt for you and still see only danger in it.
So he threw himself into hockey with a kind of grim desperation that made even Coach nervous. If he stayed busy enough, he thought, maybe the ache would stay quiet. If he practiced hard enough, skated until his lungs burned and his legs trembled beneath him, maybe exhaustion would drag him under before his thoughts could. He stayed on the ice longer than everyone else, pushed through drills until sweat soaked through his shirt, took extra reps, extra shifts, extra everything, as if effort alone could outrun grief. Instead, all it did was make him harder to ignore.Â
The guys assumed the extra skating was helping. It was not. Hockey was only a distraction, a way to keep his body busy while his mind kept bleeding out in the background. No matter how many hours he spent on the ice, he still found himself looking for your car when he crossed campus. He still knew which coffee shop you studied in. He still glanced toward the architecture building out of habit, still wondered whether you had eaten, whether you were sleeping, whether you were okay, whether you had ever looked at your phone and thought of him the way he thought of you every single day.
Coach started watching him with a worried look he didnât bother hiding. Dean noticed Garrett had stopped joking around during practice. Logan noticed he had started volunteering for every drill that hurt. Tucker noticed the way Garrett could change the subject in half a second any time someone came close to saying your name.
Nobody brought you up after the third week, not after Garrett nearly snapped at a freshman who asked, with the kind of careless stupidity Garrett had no patience for, whether he was âfinally over his ex.â He had not even realized he was moving until Dean grabbed his shoulder and shoved him back, but after that the lesson spread fast enough. Your name became a forbidden thing, something the guys tiptoed around like a bruise they did not want to press, but that did not stop him from thinking about you.
God, he thought about you constantly.
He missed the laugh that used to spill out of you when you were trying not to laugh. He missed the way you stole his hoodies as if they had always belonged to you. He missed finding your hair ties in strange corners of his room, the way you curled into his side when you were tired, the sound of your voice in the mornings, the soft, absentminded way you smiled at him over nothing at all. He missed the stupid little things too, the fries you swore you did not want until they were half gone, the way you always checked to make sure he ate before you did, the way you made his room feel warmer simply by being in it.
What haunted him most was how normal everything had felt before it ended. There had been no betrayal, no shouting match, no dramatic collapse, no one moment he could point to and say, there, that is where it all broke. One day he had been lying in bed with the girl he loved, and the next she had looked him in the eye and convinced herself he deserved someone easier. He had replayed that morning over and over in his head, every word, every pause, every look, and still he could not find the hidden answer, the thing he had failed to say, the thing he could have done to keep you from believing a lie that had been growing inside your own head for longer than he had realized.
Sleep became another casualty.
Garrett could not remember the last time he had rested properly. Every time he closed his eyes, his brain betrayed him. Some nights he dreamed about the breakup, and those were awful enough, but the dreams that hurt most were the ones where you were still there, where he came home and found you asleep in his bed, where your toothbrush still sat beside his sink, where your laughter still lived in the hallway outside his room, where nothing had changed and his heart had not yet learned how to brace itself. Then he would wake up, and the room would be empty, and that first second of forgetting would be followed by the brutal memory of remembering, which was somehow worse than the pain itself.
If you had fallen out of love, maybe he could have swallowed the loss and called it life. If you had cheated, maybe he could have hated you enough to survive it. If you had simply stopped caring, maybe time would have done the rest. But that was not what happened. You had cried in his bedroom and told him you loved him, and then you had walked away anyway, because somewhere along the line you had started believing your sadness was something he would eventually grow tired of carrying.
Garrett tightened his grip on his stick as he stood alone on the ice long after practice had ended. The arena was empty now, the overhead lights reflecting off the frozen surface in long, pale streaks, and the quiet made the pressure in his chest feel even worse. He could still hear your voice in his head, soft and broken, saying the words that had haunted him ever since.
You deserve somebody easy.
Because the truth was the exact opposite. Loving you had been the easiest thing he had ever done. The hard part had been convincing you that you were worth the effort, worth the patience, worth the kind of love that stayed when things got messy. And somehow, after a year of trying to show you that your sadness did not scare him away, he had still failed to make you feel safe enough to believe him.
A puck cracked sharply against the net at the far end of the rink, the sound bouncing back through the empty arena and cutting through the quiet like a slap. Garrett exhaled slowly and dragged a hand down his face before lifting his eyes toward the stands, almost expecting, for one impossible second, to see you there like you always used to be.Â
You had come to so many of his practices, sitting up in the same section every time and watching him with that soft, proud look that made his whole body feel lighter the second he spotted you. You never complained, never acted bored, never made him feel ridiculous for wanting you there, and he had always played harder when he knew you were watching because hearing you cheer for him had become one of the best parts of his day.
But the stands were empty now.
Just rows of darkness and silence.
He turned away and headed for the locker room, his skates loud against the floor in the quiet hallway, and when he got there he dropped onto the bench with a tired sigh and pulled out his phone. He didnât even have to think before opening Instagram and finding your profile, because that had become its own kind of ritual by now, stupid and painful and impossible to stop. You still hadnât been online in a month. Not once. He had posted stories more than he normally would have because some selfish part of him kept hoping you might see them, might tap through them, might remember him even if you were trying not to.
He scrolled through your page slowly, stopping at the photos of you like he always did. There was one in particular that made something in his chest ache, the one where the two of you were smiling together and looked so stupidly happy it almost hurt to stare at it. A small smile tugged at his mouth despite himself when he saw that you still hadnât taken it down. He remembered that day perfectly, could replay it in his mind without even trying.
 It had been the day he asked you to be his girlfriend, the two of you crammed into a photobooth and laughing until neither of you could keep a straight face, and then him asking the question with his heart in his throat while you looked at him like he had just handed you the world.Â
He could still hear your shocked little "Are you serious?"
Could still remember the way you'd thrown your arms around his neck before he'd even finished asking. He still kept those same photo strips in his wallet, folded a little from being carried around too much, because he had never really been able to let them go.
But the smile did not last. It slipped away as quickly as it had come, and his throat tightened. Before he could sink any further into it, his phone buzzed in his hand, and a message from the boys lit up the screen.
Dean: Anyone up for Maloneâs in an hour?
Tuck: yh thats cool
Logan: G u down?
Garrett stared at the messages for a second, thumb hovering over the keyboard while a part of him immediately wanted to say no, wanted to go home and sit in the dark and think about you until the night swallowed him whole. But another part of him, the part that was growing tired of doing this alone, the part that was sick of the silence and the memories and the way his own room felt like a trap, didnât want to spend another night moping around by himself either.
Dean: Did i just hear right or did he agree?
Tuck: i think he did
Logan: alright see u there man
Garrett let out a breath that almost sounded like a laugh, though it didnât feel like one, and set his phone down beside him before finally getting up and heading for the showers.
The drive to Malone's was short, but Garrett still spent most of it staring blankly at red lights and trying not to think about the fact that this was the first time he'd agreed to go out with the guys in weeks.
The second Garrett walked through the doors of Malone's, Dean nearly dropped the menu in his hands.
"Holy shit," Dean said, staring at him. "It's alive."
Garrett rolled his eyes immediately.
"No, seriously," Dean continued, pointing at him dramatically. "I was beginning to think we'd have to put your face on a missing persons poster."
Logan snorted into his drink.
"Tucker had money on you cancelling at the last second."
"I still think he's gonna leave after one beer," Tucker said without missing a beat.
Garrett shook his head and slid into the booth across from them.
"Good to know you all have hobbies."
The waitress came over and he ordered a beer before leaning back against the seat. The second she walked away, he noticed all three of them were staring at him.
Garrett sighed heavily. "Alright, what?"
Nobody answered right away.
Tucker looked like he was trying to figure out who was going to say it first.
Logan finally cleared his throat. "You know we love you, right?"
Garrett immediately groaned. "Oh God."
"No, seriously," Logan said. "We're worried about you."
Tucker and Dean nodded in agreement. "We know these past few weeks have been rough," Tucker said carefully. "And honestly? We get it. Nobody expects you to magically be okay."
"But you've kind of been shutting everyone out," Dean added. "Including us."
Logan leaned forward slightly. "We just want you to know we're here, man. If you want to talk, we'll listen. If you want a distraction, we'll do that too. If you want to punch Deanâ"
"Hey." Dean immediately raised a hand.
"I'm making sacrifices here."
That earned the first genuine laugh Garrett had let out in days and the guys visibly relaxed when they heard it. Garrett shook his head and looked around at them, feeling something warm settle in his chest for the first time in weeks.
The sincerity in his voice made them all smile.
The conversation slowly shifted after that. Hockey came up. Then classes. Tucker complained about an assignment. Dean got roasted for something stupid he'd done earlier that week. Logan told a story that somehow got more dramatic every time he retold it.
And for a few hours, Garrett felt something he hadn't felt in a long time. Normal.
The ache was still there.
It hadn't disappeared, but for the first time in thirty-two days, the grief wasn't the only thing in the room. By the time they left Malone's later that night, he felt a little lighter than he had when he'd arrived.
And right now, that felt like enough.
***************************************************
The arena was loud in the way Garrett usually loved, loud with anticipation and adrenaline and the collective roar of a crowd that seemed to breathe with the game, loud with the kind of energy that used to settle him the second he stepped onto the ice because hockey had always been the one place where everything else could disappear for a while.Â
Tonight, though, none of it was reaching him. The noise should have been enough to pull him out of his own head, should have been enough to keep him focused on the puck and the shift and the next play, but his thoughts had been restless all night, skittering beneath the surface of everything he tried to do like something alive and impossible to pin down. The game had barely gotten going before he could already feel that familiar, ugly sense of distraction creeping over him, the same kind that had been haunting him for weeks, the same kind that showed up every time he thought too long about you.
Then the puck slid across the ice, Garrett intercepted it cleanly, and sent it over to Dean before turning toward the boards, and the crowd erupted a second later when Briar scored. He barely heard any of it.Â
His eyes had drifted toward the stands without him even realizing it, because apparently some part of him still did that now, still searched without thinking, still looked for the shape of you in every arena he walked into as if his body had not learned yet how to stop hoping. He did not know why he bothered anymore. It was probably habit. It was probably pathetic. It was probably the one stupid instinct he had never managed to break, the one that made him look up at every game like maybe, just maybe, you would be there again.
For a second he genuinely thought his brain had turned on him, that he had imagined you so often he had finally started seeing you where you werenât, but then his heart lurched so violently in his chest that it hurt, and the world around him seemed to narrow to a single impossible point. You were there. Real. After days of silence, days of not knowing where to put the ache in his chest, days of wondering whether you were sleeping, eating, breathing, whether you had started feeling better or just gotten better at hiding it, there you were in the stands like the universe had decided to twist the knife one more time.
You looked alive. Close enough that he could make out the line of your smile, close enough to see the way you pushed your hair behind your ear, close enough that if he abandoned the game right then and ran up the stairs, he could reach you in seconds, and the thought hit him so hard it almost knocked the breath out of him.
And then his gaze dropped. You weren't wearing his jersey.
The realization hit harder than it should have. Every game for almost a year, you had worn his number. Something that belonged to him, now you were dressed in Briar colors like everyone else. No number. No sign of him anywhere.
It shouldn't have mattered, but it did.
The refereeâs whistle cut through the air, and Garrett did not move.
Deanâs voice snapped him back to the present just long enough for the play to restart, and he pushed forward on instinct, but the second his skates bit into the ice again, he could already feel how far gone his focus was because you were not alone. A guy was sitting beside you, tall and dark-haired, someone Garrett didnât recognize, and he was leaning close enough to make you laugh. The sight hit him so hard it felt physical, like a fist straight to the lungs. His stomach dropped, his mouth went dry, and everything in him went still for one awful, humiliating second while the guy said something to you and you smiled.
Garrett stopped hearing the game.
He stopped hearing the crowd, his teammates, the skate blades, the buzz of the lights overhead. All he could hear was the rush of blood in his ears, all he could see was you laughing beside somebody else while he stood helpless on the ice trying not to come apart in front of thousands of strangers.
Had it really only been thirty-six days?
The thought made him feel sick.
The puck came flying toward him a second later, and normally he would have taken it cleanly without even thinking, but his timing was off by a fraction, just enough for it to glance off his stick and skip away. The opposing team took possession almost instantly. He heard Logan shout his name, sharp and frustrated, but by then it was already too late. They scored.
The arena went quiet in that terrible, stunned way that always followed a bad goal, and Garrett stood there staring at the net, knowing exactly whose fault it was before the shame even had time to settle over him. Coach looked ready to strangle him from the bench. Garrett could feel it even from the ice.
And from there, everything only got worse.
His passes became sloppy. His instincts were late. He missed shots he normally would have buried without hesitation. It was like the ice had turned slick beneath him, like he was skating half a beat behind everyone else while his own head dragged him somewhere he did not want to go.
By the third period, even Dean was staring at him with the kind of concern that only showed up once things had already gone too far, but Garrett could not seem to recover. He was still looking up, still looking back, still making the same mistake over and over, and then the hit came so fast he barely saw the defenseman until his shoulder slammed into the glass hard enough to rattle his teeth. Pain exploded through him in a bright, blinding burst, and the crowd gasped as he hit the ice.
For one long second everything went white.
Then the noise came rushing back.
Whistle. Shouting. Skates scraping. Teammates calling his name.
And the first thing Garrett did, before he even fully understood where he was, was look up toward the stands.
Like a complete fucking idiot.
Someone grabbed his arm and hauled him upright, and when Garrett turned, it was Dean staring at him with a look half concern and half disbelief. âJesus Christ, Graham.â
Garrett shoved him off automatically, more from instinct than actual irritation. âIâm fine.â
He wasnât, and everyone knew it.
Briar lost anyway, 4â2, in what had to be the ugliest game of the season, and by the time Garrett got into the locker room after the final buzzer, the silence waiting for him inside was worse than the noise had been. It was the kind of silence that meant everyone was angry but nobody wanted to be the first to say it. He sat down heavily on the bench and started pulling off his gear with hands that felt too stiff and slow, his whole body sore, his shoulder throbbing, his mind still somewhere in section 104 where you had been laughing at somebody who was not him.
Then Logan finally lost patience.
âWhat the hell was that?â
Logan laughed once, but there was no humor in it. âNo, seriously. What the fuck was that?â
âLeave it alone,â Dean said, but even his voice sounded tired.
âNo.â Loganâs gaze locked on Garrett. âCoach is ripping us apart right now because our captain forgot how to play hockey.â
Garrettâs jaw tightened. âLogan.â
âNo.â Logan shook his head, frustration finally snapping clean through his usual restraint. âYou were checked out the entire game.â
Garrett stood up immediately, the motion so fast it shifted the whole room, and every guy in there seemed to go rigid at once because they all knew he hadnât been right since the breakup, even if no one had been stupid enough to say it out loud until now. Loganâs face was flushed with anger, his voice getting louder now as he pointed straight at Garrett like he was trying to force him to finally hear what everyone had been ignoring.
âYou know what I think?â he demanded. âI think you saw her.â
The room went dead silent.
It was the kind of silence that made it obvious everyone understood exactly who Logan meant. Not a single person in the room needed clarification. Logan stepped forward again, his own frustration spilling over now that he had finally started, and his voice sharpened with every word.
âYou saw her in the stands and spent the entire game staring at her instead of playing hockey.â
Garrettâs fists clenched at his sides. âShut up.â
âNo.â Loganâs expression tightened. âBecause Iâm tired of watching this.â
Garrett looked ready to swing, and Dean and Tucker moved between them immediately, one hand out toward Logan, the other hand toward Garrett like they were trying to keep the whole room from detonating. âAlright, thatâs enough.â
âNo, it isnât,â Logan shot back, and then he looked around the room like he wanted someone, anyone, to disagree with him, but no one did. âWeâve spent over a month watching him destroy himself.â
Nobody said a word because everyone knew it was true.
âWe get it,â Logan went on, his voice still edged with anger but quieter now, more frustrated than cruel. âYouâre heartbroken. Fine. Be heartbroken. But youâre the captain, G. People depend on you.â
That one landed harder than the shouting.
âAnd she isnât coming back just because you punish yourself enough.â
The words settled over the room with brutal finality, and for the first time all night Garrett didnât look angry. He didnât look defensive. He didnât look like he wanted to argue or throw something or storm out. He just looked exhausted, drained down to the bone in a way that had nothing to do with the game and everything to do with missing you for too long.
When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet enough that the whole room had to lean into it.
***************************************************
You spent the entire week crying in your bed, replaying that morning over and over until every second of it felt carved into you, sharp and impossible to erase. You never really remembered how you got home. One moment you had been standing in Garrettâs bedroom, saying the words that had already started to feel like a mistake the second they left your mouth, and the next you were standing outside your apartment with shaking hands, fumbling for your keys so badly you could barely get the door open. The second you stepped inside, whatever fragile thing had been holding you together finally gave way.
You sank to the floor before the first sob even finished tearing out of your chest.
Hannah and Allie came running when they heard you, and the moment they saw your face, whatever questions they might have had died in their throats. Neither of them asked what happened. Neither of them pushed. They just dropped down beside you, one on either side, and pulled you in like they already knew the truth would be too painful to say out loud. Allie wrapped her arms around your shoulders while Hannah held you against her chest, and that was all it took for the grief to come spilling out in full force.
You cried until your ribs hurt. You cried until your throat burned raw. You cried because you had just walked away from the person you loved most, and for the first time since making that decision, there was nobody there to tell you it had been the right thing to do.
Heartbreak felt different this time. Worse, somehow. You hadnât felt anything like it in years, not even when your father left, and the closest thing you could compare it to was losing your mum, though even that was not quite the same. When your mum died, there had been finality to it, a cruel and unchangeable certainty that made the pain unbearable but at least simple in one horrible way. She was gone. There had never been a version of the world where you could call her, or run into her on campus, or wake up one morning and find her knocking on your door with coffee and an apology.Â
But Garrett was still here. He was still breathing, still existing in the same city, still sleeping in the same bed you had spent countless nights beside him in. You could have driven to the hockey house right then and probably found him sitting exactly where you had left him, and the thought of that made your chest ache so badly you had to squeeze your eyes shut.
The days that followed blurred together into one long stretch of crying, exhaustion, and silence. You barely left your room. You slept at odd hours and ignored half the messages on your phone. You skipped meals until Hannah started practically forcing food into your hands, watching you with the kind of worried patience that made you feel both grateful and ashamed at the same time. Some days you were angry at Garrett for making you love him enough that losing him felt like being torn open. Some days you were angry at Dean and Logan and Tucker for being right, for noticing things you had tried so hard not to admit. Some days you were angry at your father for planting the kind of fear in you that taught you to expect people to leave. But most of the time, if you were honest, you were angry at yourself.
Because under all your reasons and all your justifications, beneath every explanation you had given Garrett that morning, there was one truth that kept clawing its way back to the surface no matter how hard you tried to bury it.
You missed him so badly it felt like a physical ache. You missed his voice, his stupid jokes, the way he reached for your hand without thinking, the way he looked at you like you were something precious and worth keeping safe. And no matter how many times you reminded yourself why you had done it, no matter how many times you told yourself that leaving him was for his own good, the same question kept circling back and back until it was impossible to ignore.
You asked yourself that question a hundred different ways during the first week. Every morning when you woke up and reached for your phone before remembering you had no right to expect him to be there. Every night when you lay in the dark staring at the ceiling, wondering whether he was okay, wondering if he was sleeping, wondering if he was still hurting as much as you were. Every time your fingers hovered over his contact before you forced yourself to put the phone down again. Was it worth it?
You tried to tell yourself yes. You tried to tell yourself that one day he would understand, that one day he would find someone easier, someone who didnât carry grief and abandonment and fear around like extra weight strapped to her ribs. Someone who wouldnât make him miss important things because she was falling apart. But every time you tried to picture him with someone else, your chest hurt so badly you could hardly breathe, and that was when the first terrible realization started to settle in.
You had left him because you thought it would make things better. But nothing was better.
You were still sad. Still grieving. Still carrying every wound youâd had before. The only difference now was that Garrett wasnât there anymore, and somehow that hurt even more.
You kept reaching for your phone anyway.
Every morning. Every night. Every time something happened during your day. A funny sign on campus. A professor saying something ridiculous. A new coffee shop opening near the library. For months, Garrett had been the first person you told everything to, and now every instinct ended in silence. More than once you opened your messages and stared at his contact, your thumb hovering over the screen while your chest filled with that awful, helpless feeling that came right before tears. You never texted. Never called. But you stared.
The worst part was knowing that if he called right now, you would answer on the first ring. And that was not fair. You were the one who left. You did not get to break his heart and then expect him to put it back together for you. So you stayed away, cried when nobody was looking, and sometimes when people were.
The second week didnât get easier.
It started with Allie walking into your room and freezing in the doorway. You were still in bed, the curtains still closed, an untouched plate of food sitting on your desk from earlier, and you hadnât even realized how bad it looked until you saw her face. She stared at you for a second, then crossed her arms and said, âGet up.â
You pulled the blanket higher. âNo.â
âIâm not going anywhere.â
She gave you a flat look. âYou havenât gone anywhere in twelve days.â
âYou go to class and then come home and rot.â
You glared at her. She glared right back. Then Hannah appeared behind her holding a coffee and said, âOh good, the intervention started without me.â
âThere isnât an intervention,â you muttered.
âThere absolutely is,â Hannah said, stepping in like she had been waiting for her cue.
You groaned, but they ignored you completely. Forty minutes later you somehow found yourself sitting in a coffee shop with both of them, while Allie aggressively shoved a muffin toward you and told you that sunlight was not optional. âIâm getting sunlight,â you argued.
âYou hissed when I opened your curtains,â Allie said.
âBecause it was bright.â
âYou looked like a vampire.â
For the first time in days, you laughed, and it caught you so off guard that it almost felt like someone else had done it. The sound slipped out before you could stop it, and for a few seconds all three of you just sat there staring at each other. Then Hannah smiled, soft and careful, and that was what did it. Your eyes stung almost immediately, because you realized it had been the first real laugh since the breakup, and that realization ruined the moment just enough to remind you how much was still broken.
The third week brought a different kind of misery, the kind that came from realizing the breakup had not fixed anything at all. You still missed your dad. Still struggled with your motherâs death. Still carried the same insecurities you had before. Still woke up anxious. Still felt sad. The only difference was that now Garrett wasnât there to reach for your hand when your thoughts got too loud.Â
That realization followed you everywhere, especially at night, because despite your best efforts, despite refusing to ask questions and trying not to check his page, you still found ways. It started with Allie sitting beside you on the couch one night, scrolling through Instagram while you pretended not to care until you caught sight of Garrettâs profile picture. That was all it took. Just one glance, one stupid flicker of his name on a screen, and your stomach dropped.
âCan I see?â you asked before you could stop yourself.
Allie looked up immediately. âNo.â
She sighed like she had expected this all along. âYou know this is unhealthy.â
âYou broke up with him.â
âYou cried for three hours after the last story.â
Another sigh, then she handed over the phone.
You hated how quickly you took it.
The video was only fifteen seconds long. Garrett was on the ice, helmet on, laughing at something Dean said off camera, and that was it. Nothing dramatic. Nothing special. Nothing that should have meant anything. But your chest still tightened anyway, because he looked real. Not like a memory. Not like a photograph. Real.
You watched the story three times before handing the phone back.
After that, it became a habit.
A tiny, private one you never admitted out loud. A practice clip. A team photo. A stupid video of Tucker doing something dumb. Brief, impossible glimpses of a life that no longer included you. And every single time, without fail, your heart broke all over again.
By the time Wednesday rolled around, you were trying reluctantly to force yourself back into something that resembled a routine. It felt wrong in a way you could not quite explain, like putting on clothes that no longer fit properly and pretending not to notice the seams pulling at the edges. Every part of you still wanted to stay in bed and disappear under the weight of the blankets, to let the days blur together until they stopped asking anything of you, but after weeks of doing exactly that, you were beginning to understand that grief only got louder the more room you gave it.
You went to class. You answered a few texts. You even made yourself go to the library, telling yourself it was because exams were coming and your architecture exam was only a week away, that this had nothing to do with the fact that you were desperate for something, anything, to pull your thoughts away from Garrett for more than five minutes. It was a convincing excuse, maybe even to yourself, and for a while you managed to believe it.
The library was packed when you got there, every table crowded with stressed students surrounded by open books, cold coffee, and enough highlighters to make the whole place look fluorescent. After wandering the rows for several minutes, you finally found an empty table tucked into a quieter corner and sat down before your brain could talk you out of it. You spread out your notes, opened your sketchbook, and bent over the page like burying yourself in work might somehow keep the rest of your life from catching up to you.
For almost an hour, it worked.
Then someone said your name.
You looked up from your sketchbook and froze when you saw Tucker standing there with a small, uncertain smile, like he was trying very hard not to make this weird when both of you already knew it was weird.
âHey,â he said, keeping his voice light. âHavenât seen you in forever.â
You gave him a careful smile of your own, though it felt thin around the edges. You hadnât seen any of the boys since the breakup, and even though you had told Allie she didnât have to change her whole life for you or stop bringing Dean around, she had refused to hear any of it. She kept saying being around them would be too hard for you after what you had heard, you had told her and Hannah, and while she had been furious on your behalf at first, you had managed to calm her down by insisting there were no hard feelings, because the boys had only been worried about Garrett. You would have done the same for any of them.
âYeah,â you said softly. âHow are you?â
Tucker nodded, like he was choosing his words carefully. âGood. Hockey seasonâs stressful, but you know, it is what it is.â
The conversation stalled after that, just long enough for the silence to start stretching awkwardly between you. You glanced down at your sketchbook, then back up at him, because there was one question sitting in your throat now, heavy and impossible to ignore, and it felt as though Tucker already knew exactly what you wanted to ask.
Your mind fought with itself for a second. You almost let him go. You almost swallowed the question and pretended you did not care.
âIâm gonna get goââ he started, already shifting his weight like he meant to leave.
The words slipped out before you could stop them.
For a second, neither of you moved.
Tuckerâs expression softened immediately, and you looked away at once, suddenly wishing you had not said anything, wishing you had kept your mouth shut and your pride intact, but the moment had already passed. There was no taking it back now.
âYou donât have to answer that,â you said quietly, staring down at the edge of your notebook as if that could save you.
Tucker sighed and then dropped into the chair across from you, the movement so casual and so deliberate that it made you look up again despite yourself.
âHeâs practicing a lot.â
That wasnât really an answer, and you both knew it.
âHeâs sleeping?â you asked, because somehow that felt like the next thing to check, the next sign of whether or not he was okay.
Your throat tightened. âHeâs eating?â
Tucker dragged a hand over the back of his neck and gave you a look that confirmed everything before he even opened his mouth. âDeanâs basically been forcing food into him.â
You stared down at your sketchbook, the lines blurring together until they stopped meaning anything.
âTuckâŠâ you said after a moment, your voice smaller now, quieter, and much more fragile than you wanted it to be. âIs he angry at me?â
That seemed to catch him off guard.
His eyebrows pulled together at once. âNo.â
The answer came instantly, without hesitation, without even a second of thought.
You looked up. âHe should be.â
Tucker shook his head. âMaybe.â
The word landed carefully, like he was trying not to upset you more than you already were.
âHeâs angry,â he said after a beat.
That somehow hurt worse because anger at you would have been easier to understand. Something you could put a name to. Instead, Tucker just looked tired in that deeply familiar way people do when they care too much about someone elseâs pain and donât know how to fix it.
âThe guyâs been through it,â he said quietly.
You nodded, because you knew that. God, you knew that. You had been thinking about it nonstop for weeks, trying not to picture him hurting, trying not to imagine what he looked like when nobody was around to distract him from your absence.
The silence stretched between you again, heavier this time.
Eventually Tucker stood up, shoving his hands into his pockets like he was starting to feel the weight of the conversation too.
âI should get going.â
You nodded, though neither of you moved right away.
Then he reached out and squeezed your shoulder, gentle and brief, the kind of touch that said more than any speech could have.
âYouâll be okay too, you know.â
That nearly made you cry, because it sounded less like comfort and more like something he was hoping was true for both of you.
Tucker gave you one last look, then walked away, disappearing between the shelves.
Then you sat there for another ten minutes staring at nothing at all, your hands resting uselessly on your sketchbook as you asked yourself again for the hundredth time if it was worth it
***************************************************
The conversation with Tucker stayed with you far longer than you wanted it to, because it was the first real piece of Garrett you had been given in weeks, and it still was not enough, also because knowing he was not okay did not bring you the relief you thought it would. That was what made the guilt so unbearable, because you had left for his sake, because you had convinced yourself that walking away would make things easier for him, and yet the thought of him hurting now sat in your chest like something heavy and sharp, refusing to let you breathe around it.Â
You tried to push it aside while you ate dinner, while you stared at the ceiling before bed, then again the next morning and the next after that, but it followed you everywhere, settling into the corners of your day until it became impossible to ignore.
By Friday, Hannah had finally had enough of watching you disappear inside your own head.
âYou need to leave this apartment.â
You looked up from where you were curled into the corner of the couch, knees tucked close to your chest, and shook your head immediately. âNo.â
âThat wasnât really a suggestion.â
âIt wasnât a good one either.â
Hannah rolled her eyes, and across from her Allie looked equally unimpressed, the two of them having spent the last month hovering over you like worried guards around something fragile, as though they were waiting for you to crack open if they looked away for too long. At first it had felt sweet, even comforting, but now it was becoming harder and harder to not feel cornered.
âIâm serious,â Hannah said.
âYou havenât done anything except go to class and the library for weeks.â
âI went grocery shopping.â
You pointed at her like that settled the argument. âStill counts.â
âIt really doesnât.â
âAllie, back me up here.â
Allie snorted into her drink and made no attempt to hide her amusement, which only made you narrow your eyes at her harder.
âWeâre worried about you,â Hannah said, and the fight went out of you almost immediately, because you knew they were. You knew every annoying comment, every insistence, every attempt to drag you back into the world came from a place of concern, and somehow that made it more difficult to argue, not less.
You let out a long breath and sank deeper into the couch. âIâm fine.â
Both of them stared at you in the exact same way, and you stared back for a beat before muttering, âOkay, fine. Iâm functioning.â
âThat is not the same thing,â Allie said flatly.
Silence settled for a second, and then Hannah leaned forward like she had been waiting for the right moment to unleash whatever terrible idea she had been holding onto.
You narrowed your eyes immediately. âNo.â
âI havenât even said it yet.â
Allie laughed, and Hannah ignored her completely.
âOne of my classmates has an extra ticket for something tonight.â
âYou still do not know what it is.â
Hannah sighed like she had been personally burdened by your stubbornness. âIt is not a date.â
That made you go still because unfortunately, that had been your first assumption.
âYou just said classmate.â
âBecause he is my classmate.â
You frowned, suspicious all over again, but she kept going before you could stop her.
âHe was supposed to go with a friend. The friend bailed. Now he has an extra ticket and I already told him you were not interested in dating, so do not start panicking.â
You dropped your head back against the couch with a groan. âThis is a nightmare.â
âIt is one hockey game.â
At that word, your whole body stilled.
You sat up slowly. âHockey game?â
A quick, guilty glance passed between Hannah and Allie, and your stomach dropped before either of them even said anything. You already knew.Â
Your heart started pounding so hard it felt like it had moved into your throat.
âCome on,â Hannah said. âYou do not even have to stay the whole time.â
âYou do not even have to see him.â
That made you laugh again, but there was no humor in it, only that awful, brittle feeling that had lived inside you for weeks now. That was the problem, though, because you might see him. After spending so long carefully avoiding every possible chance of running into Garrett Graham, you were not sure your heart could handle seeing him in real life and not in a memory, not on a screen, not in someone elseâs story.
The thought alone made your chest ache.
âYes, you can,â Allie said, and this time her voice softened just enough to make your defenses wobble. âYou do not have to do anything except sit there and watch the game.â
You looked away because the truth was uglier than any of their encouragement could fix. A month ago, you would have done anything to see Garrett again. Now the thought of it made your stomach twist, because seeing him meant facing the fact that life had continued without you, and you were not sure which version of that truth would hurt more, seeing him miserable or seeing him happy.
You were tired. Exhausted, really, from grieving, from avoiding, from pretending the breakup had not carved a hole straight through the center of you.
So when Hannah and Allie kept looking at you with those hopeful, impossible faces, you finally let out a slow breath and said, âFine.â
Hannah sat up so fast it was almost ridiculous. âYes.â
You groaned. âDo not make me regret this.â
âNo promises,â Allie said, and Hannah laughed like that settled everything.
But it did not settle anything.
Because somewhere deep inside your chest, underneath the fear and heartbreak and panic, something twisted painfully, and for the first time in thirty-six days there was a very real chance you were going to see Garrett again.
By the time six oâclock rolled around, you were regretting every decision that had led you here, especially the one where you had actually agreed to come. You had picked up your phone at least five times with every intention of cancelling, and each time youâd stopped yourself because you could already picture the look on Hannahâs and Allieâs faces, both of them worried enough as it was after spending the last month trying to drag you out of the hole you had disappeared into.Â
You stood in front of your mirror one last time, staring at the completely ordinary outfit youâd put together out of habit more than effort, jeans and a Briar hoodie that felt almost insulting in how normal it looked, and then your eyes drifted toward the back of your bedroom door where Garrettâs jersey still hung untouched.
Your chest tightened instantly.
This was the first hockey game in almost a year where you wouldnât be wearing his number. The first time you wouldnât walk into the arena with GRAHAM stretched across your back like it belonged there. It felt wrong in a way you couldnât quite explain, like you had forgotten something important, like a piece of yourself had stayed behind even before you did.
Hannah had connected the two of you earlier in the week, and despite the fact that you had already exchanged several texts with him, you still somehow managed to blank on his name every few hours, which was embarrassing enough to make you want to disappear into the floor. The message simply said outside, and you let out a long breath before grabbing your keys and forcing yourself to leave the apartment before you could change your mind again.
A few minutes later, you stepped outside and spotted Ethanâs car waiting near the curb. Relief washed over you immediately when you noticed Allie climbing into the backseat, because you had practically begged her to come with you and also because she was going to watch Dean play.Â
The ride to the stadium passed in a blur of half-conversations and shallow breaths, but by the time the three of you made your way inside and climbed the stairs toward your seats, your stomach had already started to twist. Then you stopped dead.
The one you had sat in at every home game. The one Garrett always knew how to find without even looking. The one where you had watched him score and celebrate and grin up at you from the ice like he could make the whole arena disappear just by glancing your way. The seat where he had pointed at you after wins. The seat where you had fallen in love with him in a hundred tiny moments that had once felt too small to matter and now felt impossible to forget.
For a second, you genuinely forgot how to breathe.
You just stared at it, unable to decide whether you wanted to laugh, cry, or turn around and walk straight back out of the arena.
The first period began exactly how you expected it to: loud, overwhelming, and so painfully disconnected from your own life that it almost felt like watching someone elseâs world through glass. At first, you tried to focus on anything else, the game, the crowd, the sharp sound of skates cutting across the ice, the way the arena seemed to pulse every time Briar surged forward. Ethan turned out to be easier to talk to than youâd expected. He was quiet in a way that felt natural rather than awkward, and his humor slipped in so casually that you found yourself laughing before you had time to overthink it. He made a comment about the guy two rows down who looked personally offended by every missed pass, and to your own surprise, the sound that left you was real.
Allie noticed immediately and bumped your shoulder with a look that didnât push, didnât ask, just quietly acknowledged the fact that, for one brief second, you werenât completely unraveling.
The arena erupted, and you clapped because everyone else did, because it was easier than thinking about anything else, because your body still knew how to react even if your heart didnât seem to belong to you anymore. Ethan half-stood in excitement before catching himself and sitting back down, laughing at himself when he realized he was the only one reacting that enthusiastically.
âYou know,â he said, leaning closer so you could hear him over the noise, âI think I might be the only person here who doesnât take this game personally.â
You shook your head, a small smile tugging at your mouth despite yourself. âYouâre not wrong.â
âGood,â he said. âBecause I was worried.â
âThat Iâd accidentally sat next to a secret hockey analyst.â
That earned a real laugh from you, and for a moment it almost felt normal. Almost.
But even while you were talking, your eyes kept drifting back down toward the ice, and that was when you noticed it.
Not in a dramatic, obvious way. Just a subtle wrongness, something you only caught because you knew Garrett too well to miss it. He wasnât sloppy. He wasnât making huge mistakes. But there was a hesitation in him, a fraction too long before every pass, a beat too slow every time he turned, as if his body was out there while his mind had wandered somewhere else entirely.
Dean barked something from the bench. Logan looked frustrated. Coach stood rigidly behind the glass.
Garrett still didnât settle.
You frowned before you even realized it. âWhatâs going on?â
Ethan glanced toward the ice. âLooks like theyâre off their rhythm or something.â
Even from the stands, even after all this time, you could tell when something was wrong with him. Garrett took a shot and missed wide. Then another. A low murmur rippled through the crowd, confused and uneasy, and the sound of it made the back of your neck go cold.
Then the hit came out of nowhere.
One second he was moving across the ice, and the next a defenseman slammed into him hard enough to send him crashing down, the impact echoing through the arena as the crowd gasped in one sharp breath. You were on your feet before you even realized it, your heart lurching painfully as Garrett hit the ice and stayed there for a split second that felt like an eternity.
And then he looked up right at you. The entire world seemed to stop.
You couldn't tell what was in his expression from this far away.
Then his gaze shifted to Ethan sitting beside you.
Something in his face changed so quickly you almost missed it, and then he looked away. Just like that the moment was over.
The refereeâs whistle shrieked. The crowd stayed suspended in shocked noise.Â
Garrett pushed himself up and started toward the bench, and you watched him go with a kind of heartbreak so immediate and so sharp it felt almost physical. He disappeared into the tunnel a moment later, and you sat back down slowly, your hands trembling in your lap, because seeing him walk away shouldnât have hurt that much, not when you were the one who had left, but it did.
Around you, the arena began emptying in waves. The disappointed noise of the crowd filled the space left behind by the game, strangers grumbling about missed passes and a team that had looked completely out of sync from the first period on. â
What the hell was wrong with Graham tonight?â someone muttered on your left.Â
âWorst game Iâve seen him play all season,â said another.Â
âHe looked completely out of it.â You heard all of it. Felt all of it because you knew, or at least part of you thought you did.
Allie eventually peeled away to find Dean, which left you walking toward the parking lot with Ethan under a night that suddenly felt colder than when youâd arrived. Neither of you spoke for a few minutes. Then Ethan glanced over and asked, gently, âAre you okay?â
The question landed harder than it should have.
The honest answer was no. You had not been okay for weeks. You had not been okay since the moment you walked away from Garrett. And standing there now, in a parking lot full of people leaving behind a game you could barely remember watching, you realized something with sudden, sick clarity.
Not tomorrow. Not next week. Now.
âEthan,â you said, stopping so abruptly he had to stop too. âThank you for tonight. Iâll take it from here.â
His brows pulled together. âWhat do you mean, youâll take it from here?â
You swallowed, your throat tight. âIt was really nice meeting you.â
You didnât wait for him to respond. If you did, you knew you would lose your nerve. Instead you turned and ran back toward the arena, the cold air cutting at your lungs as your heart hammered against your ribs. Garrettâs face kept flashing through your mind, the way he had looked at you, the way his eyes had shifted to Ethan beside you, the way he had looked away as if whatever heâd seen had been enough to break the moment clean in half.
You had to make him understand that Ethan was nothing. That there was no one else. That there had never been anyone else. That leaving Garrett had not stopped you from loving him, it had only made you realize how badly you had ruined the one thing you had never meant to lose.
By the time you reached the hallway outside the Briar locker room, your lungs were burning and your pulse was thudding so hard it drowned out almost everything else. The corridor was mostly empty now, a few staff members moving through with tired, distracted expressions. You ignored the curious looks and sat down on a bench outside the locker room, trying to drag air back into your chest, trying to decide how on earth you were supposed to explain something like this.
How did you apologize for breaking the heart of the person you loved most?
How did you admit that leaving him had not been about falling out of love, but about loving him so much it scared you sick?
You were so deep in your own thoughts that you didnât notice anyone stop in front of you until a shadow fell across your shoes. When you looked up, Logan was standing there.
Hope hit you instantly and you shot to your feet so fast your knees nearly clipped the bench. âHey.â
Your eyes moved past him at once, toward the locker room door.
âIs he still in there?â
The question barely left your mouth before Loganâs expression changed.Â
He looked exhausted, like the game had worn him down too. When he finally spoke, his voice was controlled in a way that made the words hit harder.
âDonât you think this is a little unfair?â
He gave a short, humorless breath and shook his head once before looking at you properly, and since youâd known him, Logan did not look happy to see you.
âYou canât keep doing this to him.â
The words landed like a slap.
Your mouth parted. âWhat are you talking about?â
âYou break up with him,â he said, still calm, which somehow made it worse. âYou rip his heart out, and then you show up.â
âNo.â He cut you off immediately, and the sharpness of it made you flinch. âYou didnât see him after you left. You didnât see what that did to him.â
âHe stopped sleeping.â
âHe stopped eating properly. Heâd sit in his room staring at his phone like an idiot, hoping youâd call.â
Each sentence hit harder than the last, sinking deeper with every word.
âAnd tonight?â Loganâs voice was still steady, but now it carried something raw underneath it. âTonight was the first time Iâve ever watched Garrett completely fall apart on the ice.âÂ
âHe loves you.â The words came out sharp and immediate, like they had been waiting there the entire time. âAs much as he did before.â
Your heart cracked again.
âBut you donât get to keep breaking him and then show up whenever you miss him.â
The silence that followed felt enormous. You could hear the muffled sounds of people leaving the arena, the faint scrape of shoes, the hum of fluorescent lights overhead. Everything felt too bright, too empty, too exposed.
âHeâs always going to love you,â Logan said quietly.
Then, with a look that felt like it had been dragged out of somewhere painfully honest, he added, âThatâs the problem.â
The words hung in the hallway long after he stopped speaking.
You stared at him, unable to look away, and for a long moment all you could think about was how carefully you had told yourself the story of why you left. You had left because you loved Garrett. You had left because he deserved better. You had left because you were afraid of being the reason he missed opportunities or gave too much of himself away until there was nothing left.
But standing here now, hearing Logan defend Garrett with the kind of loyalty that came from loving him deeply, something inside you shifted.
What if it had never been only about Garrett?
What if part of it had been about you too?
Your fear. Your insecurities. Your certainty that people always left before you could be left first. Your desperate need to be the one who walked away before you got abandoned.
The realization twisted in your stomach.
Garrett had never wanted to leave.
He had spent a year choosing you, every single day, and instead of trusting him, you had looked at the life he wanted and decided you knew better. You had decided what was best for him. You had decided what he deserved. You had decided what he would one day regret. You had made the choice for him.
And now, even here, you were trying to do it again.
Your gaze drifted toward the locker room door.
You could still go in. You could still tell him Ethan wasnât your boyfriend. You could still tell him you loved him. That you missed him. That breaking up with him had not fixed a single thing. But for once, you stopped thinking only about what you needed.
You thought about Garrett.
Tonight he played the worst game of the season. He had seen you sitting beside another guy. He had spent the last month surviving the heartbreak you caused. And now you were sitting outside his locker room because you wanted relief from your own guilt.
The thought made your chest ache because showing up right now wasnât some grand romantic gesture. It was selfish. It was only another way of asking Garrett to carry something for you.
âYou should go home,â Logan said, and this time his voice was gentle.
You looked at the locker room door one last time. Your heart screamed at you to stay, to fight, to do something, anything. But you stayed where you were only long enough to understand the truth you had been trying not to see.
Maybe loving someone wasnât always about chasing them. Sometimes it meant giving them the space to hurt and accepting that you could not fix everything the second it became unbearable.
A tear slipped down your cheek, then another. You wiped them away quickly, but your gaze never left the door.
Somewhere on the other side of it was Garrett probably changing out of his gear, Sitting in front of his locker or hurting.
The thought nearly undid you..
You wanted one more conversation. One more chance. One more minute.
But that was the problem, wasnât it?
There was always one more minute. One more excuse. One more reason to wait. And somehow Garrett always ended up paying the price for your hesitation.
You took a shaky breath and stepped backward.
Each step felt wrong, like you were walking away from him all over again.
Logan didnât stop you. He didnât reach for you. He just watched, and that was somehow kinder than anything else he could have done.
Your throat tightened. âTell himâŠâ
The words broke apart before you could finish.
That you had come looking for him?
That you had sat outside the locker room debating whether to walk back into his life?
That you still loved him?
None of it felt fair tonight.
So you swallowed hard, shook your head, and let the thought die there.
Logan gave a small nod. Nothing more.
You were grateful for that, because if he had offered you even a sliver of kindness, you werenât sure you would have been able to leave.
You turned and kept walking, past the locker rooms, past staff and fluorescent lights and the hollow noise of the arena settling after a loss, until the cold night finally hit your face and made everything feel real again.
The parking lot was almost empty. Behind you, the arena glowed against the dark like a warning, and somewhere inside that building was Garrett Graham, the boy who loved you, the boy you loved, the boy you had been trying so hard to protect that you never stopped to ask what he actually wanted.
You wrapped your arms around yourself and stared at the building for a long moment.Â
The thing was Garrett had never needed you to decide what was best for him. He had only ever asked you to trust that he knew what he wanted and the cruelest thing you'd done wasn't breaking his heart. It was loving him so much, and still never believing him when he said he loved you back.
