The trip to the training facility always felt longer when I was in a bad mood. When I arrived, I looked around, searching for the cheerleaders that Sadie trained. I wanted to see her again, even if it would be from a distance.

“Get a grip, McMurray,” I told myself.

She wasn’t there. Just as well. I wasn’t sure I could afford a distraction. I was one of the best players on the team. I had a whole group of men that I couldn’t let down.

“Are you okay?” Hanson asked me when we ran through the same play for the tenth time, and I still couldn’t seem to get anything right. I fumbled the ball when I caught it, got trampled when I didn’t fumble, and I was out of breath long before training was over.

“Yeah, fine,” I lied.

Hanson nodded and let it slide. He was a good friend. Good friends didn’t push.

I couldn’t get Sadie off my mind. I tried to figure out what it was that was bugging me, and I couldn’t find it. It wasn’t just about seeing her again and having her reject me again. It was more.

What, then?

When one of the forward players knocked the wind out of me in a tackle and I lay on the grass, gasping like a fish out of water, I realized what it was.

Sadie had seemed different before brunch than she had on Saturday. She had started off as if she knew me, really knew me. As time had passed, she had pushed me away until there had been nothing left of that sliver of the past, but it had been there.

For one small moment, something had been there. I was sure of it. I just wasn’t sure of how to get it back, capture it, keep it. It was almost as frustrating as those early days in the hospital had felt.

When we walked to the locker rooms together, Hanson and I walked side by side.

“I saw Sadie yesterday,” I said. “For brunch.”

Hanson glanced at me. “Shit. That’s big.”

I nodded.

“I asked her out for drinks after the game Saturday, but she was too tired.”

“How did it go?” Hanson asked.

“Well, she said she never wanted to see me again.”

Fucking fantastic, in other words.

“Oh.”

I nodded. We walked into the locker rooms in silence. When we sat on the bench together, pulling off our protective gear, I told him what was on my mind.

“For a moment, it was different. It was like everything was the way it used to be. It didn’t last very long, I don’t even know how to tell you what it was that gave it away. I just…” I blew out a breath in a sigh. “I don’t know.”

Hanson stopped tugging at his gear and looked at me, one hand on his knee, elbow jutted out.

“Maybe you should keep doing it,” he said.

I looked at him. “And just keep screwing myself over?”

“Well, you said it was just a chat, just catching up, right?”

I nodded.

“So, keep doing that. Keep just getting to know who she is now. Maybe something will come of it. If you push too hard, she shuts down, but if you don’t? If you just let her be?”

I blinked at him.

“And if I fall for her again, and she pushes me away eventually? I’ve already lost two years of my life because of this. Two years of loving her. I don’t think I have that much more time to waste. Time is money now.”

Hanson shrugged. “Love is always a risk. It’s just a different kind now.”

I nodded slowly, and Hanson carried on stripping off his gear. I did the same, my mind spinning.

“You know, women are like sand,” Hanson said.

I pulled a face. “What?”

He shook his head and then said it again. “Sand. Beach sand, I mean, not that muddy shit. If you hold onto the sand tightly, it slips out of your fingers. You know that, right? When we used to go to the beach as kids?”

I nodded, not knowing what he was getting at.

“But if you cup your hand, it stays right there. You can keep it all if you don’t squeeze. If you don’t hold on so tightly.”

I understood what he was trying to say.

“That’s what I learned with Lacey, anyway. Her and her fear of kids, and we have one. It’s not the best scenario, but we’re making it work.”

But it wasn’t that easy. It was fine to say that I could keep her, if she decided to stay. But if she didn’t? I had told Hanson that I’d taken a long time to get over her. The truth was, I hadn’t gotten over her at all.

I’d just learned to live with a hole in my life, with a gap that would never be filled. I couldn’t afford to hope it would change, and this time, she might come back to me.

Hope was a dangerous thing. I had hoped, once, and it had damn near crippled me. I couldn’t do it again. It was easy for Hanson to tell me how I should handle it. He had been through a difficult time in his relationship once, too. But he still didn’t know what it felt like or what I’d been through.

Everything was easier said than done.

I collected my bag and left the training center to go to the cafeteria. I wasn’t hungry, but I had to keep feeding my body if I was going to push this hard.

Hanson’s words kept running through my head, what he said about the sand and holding on too tightly. It was all well and good to say I had to keep trying, to get to know her for who she was now, and to just spend time with her. Maybe she would end up remembering me if we spent enough time together.

But she had pushed me away. Again. She had told me she couldn’t do it, and she was right. I wasn’t able to argue, to tell her what she should and shouldn’t do. I had already made it that much harder for her just after the accident, pushing for her to remember me, pushing for her to know who I was when it just wasn’t going to happen.

I couldn’t do it to her again. I should leave well enough alone and leave everything the way it was. I had built a life without her, I’d become famous, and I did what I loved.

I didn’t need someone in my life.

It was a blatant lie, of course, and I knew it. I was lying to myself to try and get over her. I just couldn’t go through it all again. I couldn’t fall for her, get to a point where I didn’t want to live without her again, just for her to tell me she didn’t want me in her life anymore.

Flashbacks about our time together— if you could call it “together”— always appeared at the worst times, and grated the shit out of me. I didn’t like thinking back on the love we shared because it hurt like hell. I didn’t like thinking back to the pain, either, because it hurt even more.