“Fuck!” he yelled and punched the nearest wall, and I winced, taken aback by his sudden burst of aggressiveness.

“Liam! Calm down!” I came from behind him and placed my arms around his waist, but he didn’t even react to me, becoming madder each second.

“I can’t believe this. Soccer is my life. I need to be in the Euro cup. I need to play.”

I buried my head into his back, squeezing his waist. “I’m so sorry.”

He surprised me when he pried my hands off him and separated himself from me. I watched his tense form as he paced left and right, clearly still in pain because of his knee, but that didn’t stop him. His hands raked through his hair, his gaze bouncing around the room.

“If I can’t play, what will I do with my life?”

Something in me turned into ice—an existential fear I hadn’t experienced on my own skin but recognized very well.

I still remembered the guy who had been a hockey star and who had broken his hip. He desperately wanted to be back in the game, working his ass off to recover, but there were complications and he couldn’t continue playing anymore. He was twenty-seven at that time and without college or interest in anything else but hockey.

I stayed with him during those days, offering him support and cheering him up, but I couldn’t reach him. He fell into a deep depression and started using drugs and alcohol. The last I heard of him was that he had a huge fight with some of the press, who were calling him out for fooling around with no goal in his life.

I didn’t like seeing Liam in the same predicament. Although, Liam was more strong-willed and ambitious than this guy, losing something that was precious to him was painful nonetheless.

I wanted to calm him down and remind him that he wasn’t alone in this.

“Look at it this way—you’re going to use this time to rest well and recover completely, and then you can return even stronger for the next season.”

My soothing words fell on deaf ears.

“I already told you why I need to be there now. Why can’t you understand that?” He looked wounded, his guard up as he observed me with incredulity.

I placed my hand on my hip, losing the battle against my temper. I didn’t react well to other people’s anger. I wasn’t Claire. I had no idea how to stay calm when my anger levels spiked like sugar levels after a bottle of Coke.

“Look, I know it’s bad, and I know you’ve been counting on opportunities that were presented to you at the moment, but maybe you will get the same opportunities next year. Whatever happens, I’ll be with you through it and we will find a solution together. Okay?”

I could have been speaking to a wall with the way he was looking at me. He hadn’t even heard me.

“You’re not helping me now. You don’t even care about how I feel.”

I recoiled as if he had slapped me. Hurt rushed through me incredibly fast, claiming all of me. “What?”

“You don’t care that my world might be falling apart now. You just stand there and act if I’m being unreasonable.”

“That is not true! I—”

He headed toward the door. “I need to be alone. You’re only making things worse, and I don’t want to say something I’ll regret later.”

That’s it. My temper flaring, I walked closer and halted in front of him, blocking his way.

“You’re acting like a prick! It’s all about me, me, me, and me! You don’t even listen to what I’m saying to you because you’re too stubborn! You wanted to risk an injury, acting like a spoiled child, and now that you’re out, you’re exaggerating!”

My words were too harsh, I could see that clearly on his face, but like a fast-approaching train, I couldn’t stop just like that.

“Is the cup that important to you? Do you really want to go to Europe that badly?!”

If I hadn’t been feeling this furious, maybe I would laugh at the expression of incredulity on his face that was beyond comical. I was lashing out without caring if I was going to hurt him or not because I’d had enough of this uncertainty between us.

“Then what about us, Liam? Hmm? What about us? Actually, is there “us” in this story? We have spent together all this time and you never told me how you feel about me. Do you even feel anything for me?”

I was shaking terribly, feeling the tears starting to surface, but I had no intention of letting even a single one out.

“Like, I know it was stupid from the start to get involved with you since you would leave sooner or later but still. I thought we had something. I thought we clicked. Now I know I couldn’t have been more wrong since all you care about is going back to your precious soccer. You don’t care that maybe, just maybe, I’ll be hurt because you’re leaving me.”

Shit. I wasn’t supposed to say all of this. I wasn’t supposed to reveal how I felt like this. This wasn’t the right time, and from the way he was watching me—like he couldn’t care less about my feelings—I realized I was just digging a deeper hole.

I should leave before I lost all my dignity.

“No, you know what? Forget it. It doesn’t even matter.”

Without even looking for his reaction, I left his place, carrying a mix of desperation and fury deep within myself.