Iain,

  I decided it was better if I moved out tonight. It’s too hard for me to hear you right now, and it feels like you can’t hear me either. All I want to say is “yes,” to agree with you, to do what you want so I won’t lose you, and I can’t do it.

  Remember when we were saying how your pressure came from inside, and I said, “the fire within”? You have so much pressure on you, and I know it. You don’t always get to choose how things turn out for you. I know that. You could get injured. Somebody else could be better no matter how hard you work, and they’d be picked and you wouldn’t. I get that. I do. But you know you’re the one pushing to get what you want. You’re pushing yourself to be the best so you achieve those things, if they’re possible. You’re pushing yourself to do your very best, but it’s for yourself. It’s not for your parents, and it’s not for your coach, and it’s not for the fans. It’s so you know you did your best.

  I’ve never done that, and I need to. I need to be the one pushing. I can’t let myself be erased again.

  I know you don’t get it. You can’t, because it’s so far from how you feel. Which is what makes you so incredible. I need you to trust that I know how I feel, though. I need you to want me to be as strong as you.

  Remember how you said that I needed to fight? This is me fighting. It’s so hard, and it feels so horrible, but I’m fighting. I’m fighting for me, and I’m fighting for us. The shoes are supposed to be together, but they’re equal, aren’t they? The right one isn’t better than the left, and they’re both walking forward. One foot isn’t dragging the other one along.

  I know, I already said all that. You didn’t understand me, I know. I guess I keep wanting to try to explain, because I want so much for you to understand. More than anybody.

  I’ll talk to you after your game. Maybe we can have lunch on Sunday, if you still want to. Maybe we can try again.

  Nina

  At the bottom, something else had been written, then crossed out. He turned the paper over, trying to read the impression of what was under the strikethroughs. And then he saw it.

  I love you.

  He read the letter once, then set it down and walked around the kitchen, into the lounge, and stared out the windows into darkness. Then he came back in and read it again.

  That was when he realized that he hadn’t asked Nina where her new place was. That he had no idea where she’d gone. That she’d run again, and this time, she’d run from him.

  He pulled out his phone and rang her up. Voicemail.

  “I didn’t mean for you to leave,” he said. “We should talk. How d’you expect to work it out if you leave?”

  He rang off, then stood and looked at the phone.

  Wait.

  That had sounded pretty narky, he had a feeling.

  He rang her back. Voicemail again.

  “Uh, erase that last one,” he said. “I mean, I’d like to talk. I don’t get it. I won’t pretend I do. But you can’t just leave without even trying. Call me back.”

  He rang off and stared at the phone some more. Silent. He texted her.

  Left you 2 voicemails. Call me.

  He sat on the couch, turned the telly on, and flipped channels. Soccer in the UK. Click. A squeaky-voiced pink cartoon pony. Click. A couple blokes he knew, looking like their ties were too tight, chatting in a studio about rugby. Click. Somebody’s house in the UK, knee-deep in clutter, and a gloved hand lifting a rat-chewed purse. That one got a click so fast, he practically wore a hole in the remote, to a channel where a terrier was yapping frantically and running in circles.

  He pushed the Off button and checked his phone in case it was on silent. Nothing.

  A shower. If she came back to talk, he should be cool, not standing here sweating. He took the phone into the bathroom with him, though, just in case.

  He heard the ding of a text while he was still in the shower cubicle toweling off. He stubbed his toe on the tiled edge lunging for it, but he barely noticed.

  I’ll talk to you Sunday, if you want to talk, he read. Right now, you’re angry and I’m sad. Let’s wait.

  He started to text back, but his hands were wet, and it wouldn’t work. He scrubbed them impatiently on the towel and typed back, Talk to me now.

  A long wait, then the answer. I already told you how I felt. You didn’t like it. I don’t hear you saying you’ve changed your mind. I think you just want to change mine.

  He texted back, Of course I want to change yours, then thought, Wait. He was going to erase it, but his thumb somehow hit the wrong button, and it went through.

  He was texting back, Wait, when her message came through.

  I’ll text you Sunday. Not until then. I’m going to bed.

  He’d stuffed up again, or she was still being stubborn, or both. And he still didn’t know where she was.

  My Other Shoe

  It wasn’t a comfortable night, and Iain was glad when morning came and it was time to go to training. A short one today, the Captain’s Run always held on the day before the game, when the coaches went to the sidelines and the skipper ran the show. When you thought and talked and worked together the way you would the next night on the pitch, because when those eighty minutes began, the coaches wouldn’t be on the paddock playing the game.

  You’d be out there all alone then, so it had to be inside you, and inside the team, or it wouldn’t be there at all. The job you had to do, and the awareness of what was happening around you. The game plan, the actual game, and the difference. The adjustments you made, because being able to see clearly, and to adjust to what you were seeing, meant the difference between winning and losing.

  He set it all aside—Nina, her letter, his empty house—and focused, working all the strain and indecision and anger out of his body along with the sweat, and for a few hours, he was free.

  Back in the sheds again afterwards, he’d showered and was at his cubicle getting dressed when Hugh came and sat on the bench beside him.

  “Josie wants to know if you and Nina would want to come for a barbecue Sunday night,” his skipper said. “We could have a few of the boys over with their families, give her a chance to get to know them. Bring Arthur as well, of course, if he’s still here.”

  Just like that, it was all back. “He’s gone home,” Iain said. “And Nina’s gone as well.” He pulled his shorts on to give himself a second.

  “Oh,” Hugh said. “Huh.”

  He was still sitting there, though, and Iain looked at him and said, “What?”

  Hugh shrugged a big shoulder. “Josie’ll be surprised, that’s all. Unless it was you.”

  “It was me. Some, anyway. Not that I wanted her to go.”

  “Stuffed up, eh,” Hugh said.

  “Say that it wasn’t working out the way I thought it should, and that I got pretty narky about it. I’m trying to sort out what to do, but I’m coming up against a bit of a wall.”

  “Ha,” Hugh said. “I could pretend I don’t know about that, but I’d be lying. At the time I met Josie—nothing that happened was anything like I’d planned, and I was always about three steps behind. There my future was, tapping me on the shoulder, and me looking the other way.”

  Iain didn’t answer, because he couldn’t think of what to say, and Hugh got to his feet and said, “Never mind, then. See you tomorrow. We’re going well, anyway. Got everybody on the same page at last.”

  “The boys are fizzing,” Iain agreed. “You may want to work on your speech in the sheds, though,” he added, trying to joke. Trying to pretend that he didn’t want to go sit on the beach with Hugh and a few six-packs and let his skipper pour him into bed again. Not an option on the day before a match, so it was time to harden up and get past it. “Get Josie to help you. Maybe she can come up with something besides, ‘Get out there and do the business, and no mucking about.’ That one’s not going to win you any Sporting Personality of the Year awards.”

  The white grin split Hugh’s tough, bearded face, making him look more like a pirate than ever. “We won, didn’t we?” He dropped a hand on Iain’s shoulder, gripped it for a brief instant, and said, “See you.”

  Iain finished dressing, dragging it out because he didn’t want to go home, and the room slowly emptied around him. The equipment manager, a veteran named Wally who’d seen it all in his twenty-eight years with the team, was collecting kit in a corner, and Iain was still sitting there.

  Wally came over to pick up some discarded mouthguards and said, “It’ll be all right on the night. You can always tell at the Captain’s Run, once it’s not down to the coaches anymore. You can see plain as day if the squad has it or not then. If they’ve got it inside them.”

  Exactly what Iain had been thinking, and he was trying to figure out how to tell Wally that that wasn’t what he was worried about, then giving it up as impossible. But while he was still working it out, the older man gave a decisive bob of his short-cropped gray head and headed off again.

  If they’ve got it inside, Iain thought. The fire within.

  He had it. He’d always had it. The hard burn.

  Nina did, too, no matter what she thought. He hadn’t been able to understand her doubts the night before. They’d seemed so unreasonable.

  Did that mean they weren’t real, though?

  Maybe all that noise from her mum, from that bastard prince, and whoever else had told her what to do—even, maybe, from Iain himself—maybe it had drowned out her own voice. Maybe it was there, but it was only a whisper. Maybe she needed quiet in order to hear it. Maybe the coals from her fire had burned so low, she wasn’t even aware of their heat.

  There my future was, tapping me on the shoulder, and me looking the other way.

  The sheds were quiet now. Wally, the lone remaining figure, walked out pushing a cart of equipment, and still Iain sat. Finally, with a sigh, he pulled Nina’s letter from his gym bag.

  He’d felt weak when he’d tossed it in there this morning after reading it ten—twenty—times the night before. At first with anger, arguing every point. Then with a sort of hollow futility. And finally, with something too much like despair. Now, though, he read the words again, and he was feeling something else.

  He set the letter down and picked up his phone.

  He didn’t like to text. His thumbs were too big to make it anything but awkward. But he did it now.

  Hi.

  Been thinking about you ever since. I did it again, and I know it. I didn’t listen, just like when I found out you weren’t a princess.

  You wrote me a letter, though, and it helped, because I could read it over again and listen. I’m going to write you one and hope you’ll listen too. Not sure I can do it as well as you, but I’m going to try.

  You said I’m strong, but you’re stronger than me. You said you loved me, not knowing if I’d say it back, and I didn’t say it back. Then you told me again anyway.

  I got scared because I thought I was losing you. I hurt you because I didn’t have the guts to tell you how I felt.

  His fingers hovered over the keys. “Get out there and do the business,” he muttered aloud. “No mucking about.”

  He started typing again as fast as he could go, flinging the words onto the screen.

  There’s something a rugby player knows, though. You can’t look past this week. You can’t live in the future, because it could all be gone by then. You can break a leg in training that will end your career. And looking past next week loses games and series and championships, so you don’t do that either. You look at this week. You live in the now. You do everything you can, and once you have, you take what comes and cope with it.

  He rested his weary thumbs on the phone for a second, then plowed on.

  I can’t see past next week with you, and it scares me. But I want next week. So I’m going to do everything I can to make this week good. And then the week after that. And then the one after that. I’m going to take what comes, and I’m going to cope. I’m going to keep walking toward it, whatever it is. I’ll hop if I have to, if I don’t have my other shoe. Or if that other shoe’s busy giving me a swift kick up the arse. But I’ll hop to get to her, because I need my other shoe. So if you’re willing to walk with me, even if I’m a piss-poor excuse for a shoe, then please. Talk to me. I need you. I love you.

  He thought another minute, then typed, I’ll be home in an hour. Then all the way till tomorrow morning. If you want to try again, come to the house, or ring me and I’ll come to you. Either thing. Anything.

  He didn’t read it over. He didn’t stop to think. He pressed Send, and then he waited.

  The minutes passed, and Wally came into the room again. “Still here, mate? They’ll lock you in if you’re not careful.”

  “Yeh, nah.” Iain stood up, collected his bag, and headed for the door, feeling like every step was through sand.

  He told himself that she wasn’t necessarily sitting at home—wherever home was—waiting for him to come to his stupid senses. That she was swimming or walking or making business plans instead. Or shopping for groceries for her new place. Living her life. And that she’d read it. That she’d listen.

  But it was so hard to make himself believe.

  Surprise

  Nina stepped into the shower in her minuscule cottage, shivering despite the heat of the day. She was still chilled, even though she’d changed out of her swimsuit. Too long a swim, but she’d needed it.

  Fifteen minutes under the warm spray, and she finally felt warm enough to dry off and dress in shorts and a T-shirt. The enthusiasm for anything prettier, or for makeup, seemed to be beyond her. Who was going to see her?

  That’s no way to think, she told herself. You’re going to see. It didn’t help much, though.

  Cup of tea. She took the five steps between “bedroom” and “kitchen” and switched the jug on. Her phone was sitting next to it, and she hesitated, then picked it up.

  She saw the notification on the screen and almost set the phone down again. Sunday, she tried to tell herself, but of course it didn’t work. She was swiping, and reading.

  The jug boiled and shut itself off, and she didn’t notice. She had a hand out, was gripping the counter for support, and then she was swiping back up to the beginning and reading again. After that, was pulling her sandals on, grabbing her purse and shoving her phone into it, and running for her car.

  It was only five or six kilometers, but the traffic was as horrible as always on Lake Road. She inched her way along, fretting as another light changed from yellow to red two cars ahead of her.

  He’ll wait, she told herself. No rush. But it didn’t feel that way.

  Finally, she was turning, then turning again, was up the hill to Iain’s street, finding a parking place behind an unfamiliar—and enormous—black car, and running down the long drive, almost skidding in her sandals, her footsteps unnaturally loud on the concrete.

  She had her key in the door, was pushing it open, calling Iain’s name. She felt the touch on her shoulder and whirled, the smile already beginning.

  It began, and it died.

  Matthias was crowding through the door after her, slamming it shut behind him, and flipping the deadbolt.

  “What . . .” she asked. “What are you doing here?”

  “Sabrina.” He sighed. “How can you ask? I told you that we were going to be married. And what did you do?”

  “I left,” she said. “I left.”

  Beep. Beep. Beep.

  The burglar alarm, waiting for the code. Matthias’s pale-blue eyes tracked the sound. “Switch it off.”

  “No.”

  His hand shot out, closed around her wrist, and raised it to the keypad. “Switch it off.”

  His fingers were pressing tight against the fragile bones, finding a nerve, and she cried out in pain. “Do it now,” he said. “Or you’ll be sorry.”

  She punched in the code, her breath coming in sobbing gasps, and the beeping stopped. He relaxed his grip, but he didn’t let go of her. “See how easy it is,” he said, “when you follow instructions?”

  “I won’t marry you,” she said. “I’ll never marry you. You can do anything you want to me, and I still won’t do it.”

  “I have no desire to marry you,” he said. “Why would I want a lying little slut like you?”

  “Then why are you here?” She was trembling with shock and fear now, trying to focus, to plan.

  “I’m here to win. Why else?” He put a hand on the top of her head and tightened his grip on her wrist again. He began to push down, and her knees were buckling.

  “There was only one thing you were really good for,” he told her through his teeth. She was going down, dropping, with his hand twisted in her hair, his grip hard and painful. “You’re going to do it. And then I’m going to put you in the car, drive up some back road in this godforsaken wasteland of a country, and make you do everything else I can think of. I might give my bodyguards a turn before we toss you out again. You can see if he wants you then, once we’re all done with you, when you’re sore and bruised and half-broken. See if he wants that.”

  He had her on her knees, and she was panting, gasping at the searing pain as her hair was pulled nearly out of her scalp.

  He let go of her wrist, was fumbling with his belt, his grip slackening on her hair in his haste, and it was her chance. She drove the crown of her head forward with everything she had. Straight through the pain. Straight into his groin.

  His breath left his lungs in a whoosh, and he’d let go of her and was doubling over. The second he did, she stumbled to her feet, and she was running. Down the stairs, slamming open the lock on the sliding door.

  Over the fence. Across the creek. Splash over. Run through the reserve, down the road.

  She was sprinting, her mouth wide open, pulling in great gulps of air. She was plummeting down the paved track of the reserve, then looking behind her and stumbling.

  Running feet behind her. Around the corner.

  She was going faster, somehow. A lightning decision, and she was heading to the sea.