“Mark!” I shouted, shoving my hand in the doorjamb so he wouldn’t close it on me. “Please, just let me explain.”

I was standing outside of his unit in my hastily thrown-on civvies and he was looking up at me with narrowed eyes like I was the absolute scum of the earth. The game had ended nearly an hour ago. That was how long it had taken me to change and get rid of the endless stream of cameras in my face. I couldn’t even remember half of what I’d said during those interviews. Hopefully it wasn’t anything I was going to regret later. I had enough of those as it was.

“Explain what?” Mark said coldly. “That you’ve been lying to me this entire time?”

“I’m sorry,” I said, voice small and miserable. “It’s only been four months. I was waiting for the right time to tell you…”

“So fucking what? I don't care how long it’s been. I trusted you, Carter. I opened up to you. I told you my whole goddamn life story and you can’t even tell me that you play hockey? That you’re evidently some kind of prodigy? That is so messed up and unfair. I’ve been worried about you, you know? I’ve been losing sleep over how stressed out and distant you’ve seemed ever since we got together. I thought that it was my fault. That maybe I pushed you too hard for a relationship or that I was moving too fast.” There was a sheen of moisture developing over his eyes that felt like daggers digging into my heart. “This isn’t a game to me, Carter. This is my life. While you were out here making excuses and running around and pulling all of these strings in order to keep your little secret, I was out here trying to build an actual relationship with you. Like, how am I ever supposed to trust you again?”

I sucked in a breath.

“Look, I know I messed up. Please just give me the chance to make it up to you.”

Mark shook his head.

“I don’t know if you can.”

“Let me try.”

Mark closed his eyes and then opened them again. In his gaze I could see sadness and anger bleeding into each other.

“What else haven’t you been telling me?” he asked quietly.

I looked at him with big pleading eyes.

“Nothing. I swear.”

Mark searched my gaze and took his bottom lip between his teeth. He was biting so hard that I worried he was going to make himself bleed.

“I want to believe that,” he said finally, “but I don’t know if I can.”

“Mark,” I begged. “Please. You’re all I’ve got. I can’t do this without you…”

Mark laughed humorlessly.

“Do what without me? Play hockey and hide who you really are? It seems like you’ve already been doing that just fine. I’m not some consolation prize for you to fall back on just in case your dreams don’t all come true.”

There were fat ugly tears streaming down my face now, and there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop them. Those words hurt worse than any blow or punch or separated shoulder ever could.

“But I love you…”

I expected that to be enough, for love to save the day just like it always did in cartoons and movies, but the words only made Mark stiffen as if I’d just punched him in the gut. He sighed, and momentarily hid his face in his hands.

“I can’t do this right now,” he whispered so softly I almost couldn’t hear him. “I just can’t.”

There was no “I love you too,” no “I understand,” no “I forgive you.” Only silence, thick like a wedge in between us. It felt like my heart was caving in on itself.

“Are you breaking up with me?” I breathed.

I was terrified that saying those words out loud would make them real, but I needed to know. If this tiny pocket of happiness I’d built here in the middle of this sham of a life was about to come tumbling down, I needed to know.

Mark nodded, deliberate and slow. His voice was hoarse and clipped with emotion.

“Yeah, I think I am.”

My ears rang. Mark’s fists were shaking. Neither of us said a word.

We stood there with our eyes locked and our bodies tense until one of Mark’s roommates finally came over to see what was going on. Rashid glanced back and forth between the two of us and placed a careful hand over Mark’s shoulder, drawing him back inside.

“Carter, I think you should go,” he said, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. It was clear that he had no idea what was going on or why we were both so upset, but he was taking his roommate’s side out of respect.

The door swung closed and I heard the latch click. I stared for a few seconds longer and then turned tail and walked across the street without looking both ways. I felt like I was having an out of body experience. That all of this was happening to a completely different person.

It was stupid. We had won the game. The Vipers were advancing in the tournament. I was one step closer to everything I’d ever dreamed of, but here I was feeling emptier than I ever had. That night when I laid down in bed and closed my eyes, all I could see was Mark, angry and hurt and frustrated, telling me that he could never trust me again.

What was the point of the playoffs, the MLH, or even hockey in general if it meant losing the people you love in the process?