I cut my hair for him.

That's what I keep coming back to, even now, not the ring, not the restaurant, not the ten years I handed over like a blank check. I cut my goddamn hair.

I had long hair when we met. Dark brown waves that fell past my shoulders, the kind of hair that took a full bottle of conditioner every month and tangled in the wind. Nate ran his fingers through it once, the third or fourth time we were together, and said, "I think you'd look cute with it short. More grown-up."

I booked the appointment the next morning.

Short, dark curls. That's who I became. That's who Clara Hayes was for ten years, the girl with the hair Nate liked. The clothes Nate approved of. Neutral colors, nothing too loud. No red lipstick because he said it looked cheap. No foundation because he said he liked the "natural look," which really meant he liked looking at a face that had tried its hardest to disappear.

I made myself small. I carved pieces off myself and handed them to him with both hands, every single time, and I called it love.

The worst part isn't that he accepted every piece. The worst part is that I was proud of it.

Ten years. I say it and the number doesn't even land right anymore. It feels like something borrowed from someone else's life. It feels like too much and not enough simultaneously, like a sentence I've been reading for so long I've forgotten what the first word was.

I was twenty-two when we started dating. Twenty-two and convinced I'd found the person I was supposed to build a life with, the clean, quiet life, the responsible one, the kind my parents would stop worrying about. Nate Sterling, NHL defenseman, stable and serious and certain in all the ways I never quite managed to be. He had a plan. He always had a plan. I stepped into it without questioning whether there was room for mine.

There wasn't. But I didn't find that out until much, much later.

He's going to propose tonight. That's what I'm thinking when I walk into Maison Beaumont, six months ago now, on the evening of our tenth anniversary. The restaurant glitters under warm amber light, white tablecloths and candlesticks and a wine list I'd rehearsed to impress the sommelier. I'd planned everything down to the detail, the reservation under a fake name so it would be a surprise, the table by the window, the dress I'd worn on our first date.

It was a pale blue wrap dress, still the same size after ten years. I'd been quietly proud of that.

Nate's already at the table when I arrive, jacket on, phone face-down beside his water glass. He looks up when he sees me, and something flickers across his expression, something I can't name then, something I understand now. Not warmth. Not anticipation. Something closer to resolution.

"Hey." He stands, kisses my cheek. Dry, quick. Like a stamp.

"Happy anniversary," I say, and my smile is real, completely real, because I'm still standing in the version of tonight I invented. The one where this ends with a ring.

We sit. We order. Nate nurses his wine. I talk, about the bakery, about my plans for a new pastry menu, about whether we should go somewhere warm for New Year's this year. He nods in the right places. Responds in monosyllables. I mistake his silence for shyness. For nerves.

He's not nervous.

"Clara." His voice cuts clean through my sentence. "I think we should break up."

He's joking. That's my first thought. The words don't assemble into anything real, so my brain hands me the only alternative that makes sense. He's joking. It's some kind of weird anniversary prank, and in a second he's going to laugh or pull out a ring or do anything other than sit there looking at me like he's just informed me of something mildly inconvenient.

I stare at him. "What?"

"I think it's time." He doesn't lower his voice. He doesn't look embarrassed. "I've been thinking about it for a while."

The candlelight shudders. I watch it, because I can't look at his face.

He's serious.

"Nate." I laugh, but it's wrong, too high, too sharp. I look around the restaurant like someone might be filming this, like there's a hidden camera and a punchline I've missed. "Okay. Very funny."

"I'm not being funny."

"It's our anniversary." My voice drops without my permission. Steady. Keep it steady. "We have reservations. You're here. I'm, " I gesture at myself, at the dress, at the carefully applied mascara that is already doing me no favors. "It's our tenth anniversary, Nate."

He doesn't say anything.

"Is this about the wedding?" I reach across the table. My engagement ring catches the candlelight and throws tiny fractured pieces of it across the tablecloth. "Because we can push the date. We don't have to do it in the spring, we can wait until, "

"Clara." He says my name the way you say stop. "It's not about the wedding."

"Then what is it about?"

He picks up his wine glass. Sets it down without drinking. Takes a breath like he's about to deliver a presentation. "I don't want to get married. I don't want to marry you. I thought I was being clear about that."

My hand is still on the table, still reaching for his. He hasn't taken it. The ring digs into my finger.

"You gave me a ring," I say. Stupid. Obvious. But I need him to hear the words.

"I know."

"That means, Nate, that means, "

"I know what it means." He sounds almost bored. "I made a mistake."

I close my fingers around nothing. Pull my hand back. 'Don't beg. Don't beg. Don't you dare beg in this restaurant.' But there are tears building behind my eyes and the whole world has tilted three degrees to the left and the dress suddenly feels like a costume for a play that's been cancelled, and I can't, I can't just,

"Can we talk about this at home?"

"There's nothing to talk about."

"But, " My voice breaks. I hate it. I hate it. ", I don't understand. After ten years. You can't just, "

"I can," he says. Simply. Like it's true.

He stands up.

I watch him stand up from the table at Maison Beaumont on the evening of our tenth anniversary, and I think: he practiced this. The way he pushes the chair in. The way he smooths the front of his jacket. Practiced, and clean, and utterly untouched.

"Nate." I'm on my feet too, but my legs aren't working right. "Nate, please, "

He turns to look at me, and for a moment, just a moment, I think I see something human cross his face. Something that might crack. And then it doesn't.

"You might be someone's cup of tea, Clara." His voice is even. Almost conversational. "But you've never been mine."

The sound of the restaurant drops away. Glasses and silverware and low murmurs, all of it: gone.

"What?" I whisper.

"You've always been a pushover." He says it like he's been wanting to say it for years. Maybe he has. "You've always done exactly what I wanted, exactly when I wanted it. That's not, " He tilts his head, like he's searching for the right word. "Attractive."

My mouth is open. I close it.

"You can keep the ring." He reaches into his jacket pocket, sets a folded bill on the table for the check. "But I'll need you out of the apartment by the weekend. I've got someone coming by." A pause. One deliberate beat. "Leave the key in the pot by the door."

He walks out.

He just walks out.

The waiter appears at my elbow with a small, careful smile, asking if everything is all right, and I nod because there's nothing else to do. There's nothing else to be. I sit back down in my chair with the remnants of a ten-year relationship scattered across a restaurant table, a half-eaten appetizer, two glasses of wine, a ring that was apparently a mistake, and I try to figure out what to do with what's left of me.

He walked out. He took my whole life with him when he left, tucked it into the pocket of his jacket right next to the cash for the check, and he walked out without once looking back.

And I let him.

Dating My Ex’s Favourite Hockey Player — Chapter 18: The Embrace

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