Work Text
“…Cause I can't make you love me
If you don't
You can't make your heart feel
Something it won't
Here in the dark
These final hours
I will lay down my heart
I feel the power but you don't
No, you don't
Cause I can't make you love me, If you don't…”
- “I Can’t Make You Love Me,” Bon Iver
She remembered the way it felt to have him look at her like she was the only thing in the world that had ever mattered. Remembered how special and significant he’d always made her feel as he listened, laughed, and cried with her. Remembered the way she felt like all of her put-on-hold dreams might really come true. Remembered feeling like they were on the cusp of having it all…She had wanted it all. She thought that he had too.For Tessa, they’d spent the past five months on tour together all around the world. Five months of being each other’s one constant. Five months of skating, living and exploring together, loving and compromising, and just being with each other. Five months of holding hands, kissing, and making love. Five months of falling in love. Five months that could be the start of everything she’d ever wanted, if only he’d say he wanted it too.As they stumbled through the door of her hotel room on their last night, soaked and laughing, she glanced up to say ‘goodnight,’ when he rubbed the pad of his thumb softly against her cheek, and the rest of his fingers tangled in her damp, curling hair.“God, Tess...” His voice was gravely and soft as he stared into her eyes, struck all over again by how unintentionally beautiful she’d always been, before he covered her lips with his own.And just like that, they melted into all of the things they’d ever been to one another. All of the lines they’d drawn in the sand erased. A single kiss was never just a kiss. All she could do was get caught in his gaze and hold onto his arms for dear life. It felt like all of the oxygen had left the room as she kissed him back, her arms curving around his shoulders; her hands finding their way to the nape of his neck, softly kneading and pulling him closer.He lifted her right before her legs buckled - knowing and predicting her every move before it was ever made, without conscious realization. And as he reverently laid her down on the bed, he searched her eyes, his heart aching as he kissed her deeply.For Scott, they’d spent the past five months on tour. Five months of trying not to get too attached. Five months of skating, sharing a daily routine, making memories, and just being with each other. Five months of her head on his shoulder, of interlocked fingers, kissing, and making love. Five months of falling in love with her – knowing that when his five months were up, so were they. Because five months didn’t change a lifetime of promises to remain just friends, and it wouldn’t change the fact that he wasn’t good enough for her. Five months were just a tease, a glimpse at a life that could never be his.As he held onto her under the sheets, his hands, lips, and mind memorizing the way she felt and moved, she pulled away to look at him. Her forehead pressed against his, as she gazed into his eyes, searching for something he didn’t know.“I love you.” Her voice was soft and sure as she ran her fingers along the outline of his jaw and lips. She’d never felt more relieved or certain of anything as she studied his face, and his grip on her tightened. And just like that, reality came crashing in, and all of their blurred roles went crawling back to their ordered boxes. This type of ‘I love you’ wasn’t allowed.“What are we doing?” he whispered as he buried his face against her neck, planting one last kiss and lingering in the curve he’d so often called home.She could feel everything slipping away with his words. It felt like deja vu – like she was sixteen and he was reminding her that they still had so much left to accomplish before this could happen. When he was twenty-four, and she was telling him all of the reasons it would never work as they furtively hooked up, hurting not only themselves, but others.Now, she was twenty-six, with her hands pressed against his back, not willing to give up without a fight.“We’re being together.” She felt his warm, jagged breath against her neck as she spoke. “We finally have our chance, to have it all.”He pulled away, her hands grasping his as he did so. “You don’t -- you don’t want this, Tessa.” He paused with a low sigh. “I don’t want this.” He watched as she blinked rapidly, her face contorting as he scooted farther away from her. “You deserve better; and… we made that promise a long time ago...” She pushed herself up, the sheet pooling around her waist, her hair falling against her chest. “I do want this,” she insisted. “I do; and we made a promise as kids, Scott.” She felt tears gathering in the corner of her eyes. “We made a promise to wait until the competitions were over. They’re over now. And I...I love you. I -- I know we don’t...we haven’t said it before, not like that...but I do.” Her voice was raw and she felt hyperaware, with his eyes on her, that she was naked in so many ways - so she covered herself in the only way that she could, pulling the too-thick sheet up and around her shoulders.“Tess...” Her name felt heavy on his tongue as he closed his eyes, unable to watch her reaction. “You’re... not in love with me.” “I am, though.” Her voice didn’t sound like her own as she stared at his eyelids, wishing she could understand him. He snorted sadly, feelings and thoughts he didn’t even know he had tumbling out suddenly, “No, Tessa. You aren’t. You can’t be in love with someone we both know that you and your family don’t think is good enough for you.” He avoided looking her in the eyes as he continued, “I’m going to college, because you deserve a guy who’s smart, and intellectual like you, and who has it all figured out. I’m in gen ed courses, but -- I don’t even know what degree to get, or what I’d even do with one.” He watched her eyes widen in shock. “C’mon. I’m a farm boy from Ilderton, who won the lottery when he was paired with the little girl from London. I’m not the man who gets to live happily ever after with her.”She blinked away tears as her pinky brushes against his. “That’s -- not true, Scott. That little boy, you, were enough then, and you are now.” Her voice was entirely too soft as she looked down at her lap, “Don’t you want this?”He shook his head. “Tessa. It has nothing to do with wanting or not wanting this.” He couldn’t stand how small and vulnerable she looked sitting across from him in this big bed. “Hell, we’ve cheated on people; and had sex with each other like it was just shaking hands. How can we possibly spend a life together? We don’t know how to be together, not like normal people. We’re broken, messed up people.” Sex with Tessa was never like shaking hands, but, still, in his heart, he knew it would never work. People didn’t love and hurt each other for twenty years, just to end up with the same person for the rest of their lives. There was no ‘happily ever after’ for them. That wasn’t the way it worked. She flinched at his words, because in all their fights, he had never said anything quite so frank. In all of their years together, she had never never felt so reduced and insignificant. “I just wanted to be with you, Scott; and you know that! I don’t care what...” Her heart is beating so quickly that she can feel a ringing pulsing in her ears. She starts over, again, flustered. “And you know it was never like shaking hands! Sex was never casual, or a mistake…” As her eyes searched his stony face, she suddenly realized that maybe it had always been one-sided. Maybe he didn’t feel the same way she did. “...At least, it wasn’t for me.” She heard the strangled sob that escapes her throat, like she was watching herself fall apart, from outside her body. All Scott felt was regret, as he watched her sob, her hands covering her face. This was why they would never work, he thought. Because they always hurt one another...or, he hurt her. “Shh, T,” he murmured, edging toward her on the bed. ”It’s...it’s going to be okay.” In all honesty, he wasn’t sure that it would, but this was his role in her life - he had always been the one to help her get back up.She shrugged off his hand angrily, “Don’t fucking touch me! You don’t get to fucking break me and then ‘fix’ me.” As she watched him flinch in response, she felt a strange rush - wanting to hurt him just as much as he’d hurt her. “I’ve never intentionally made you feel inadequate,” she continued. “I’ve adored you since I was seven years old; and you always ignored me, in favor of other girls! I’ve chased you around the fucking ice and had surgeries because I couldn’t bear the thought of some other girl out there holding your hand. And, even if you asked me right now, I’d go the rest of this quad, continue competing, because I just want you to be happy.” She swiped at her eyes aggressively with one hand as she holds the sheet to her with the other, “So, honestly, if someone never measured up, Scott, it’s me, not you.” If it wasn’t for the tear on his cheek, she would have stopped then. But he stared at her, his mouth dropped slightly open, and she continued. “But now, you’re the coward who isn’t willing to take a risk. I’ve taken all of the risks I can, Scott. I’ve laid it all out there; and I’m not going to wait on you forever anymore.” “Tessa...” His throat burned like acid, as he forced himself not to reach for her.“No. I...I can’t do this anymore.” She shook her head as she looked away from him. “I’ll just...I’ll see you at the airport.” She didn’t look up, but eventually felt his weight lift from the mattress, and heard the door close behind him. The flight back home was long and silent. She popped in headphones and closed her eyes as soon as she sat down in her window seat. Scott spent the majority of the flight glancing over at her, and then back at the seat in front of him, with the sickening feeling that there was no way of coming back from an argument like this one. They didn’t speak as they gathered up their luggage and waited outside for their respective mothers to pick them up. Scott felt a chill in the air even though it was only June. He wanted to tell her that he loved her, and that he didn’t really mean any of the hurtful things he’d said, but as he looked over at her, leaning on her luggage and staring blankly ahead with her perfectly messy hair, he realized he had lost any right to say such things.“Scotty! Tess!” Alma called out, as she opened the trunk of her car. Kate pulled in almost immediately behind her. “Have a good time?” She smiled as she hugged them, one at a time, and Kate joined them, stepping out of her car.“Europe is pretty this time of year.” Tessa swallowed thickly. She felt her mother’s eyes reading her as she pulled away from Alma.“You sound a little hoarse,” Kate frowned as she hugged her. Tessa cast a furtive glance towards Scott for a moment, before smiling weakly at her mother, “I think I’m just exhausted.” It was the most honest non-response she could give, as Scott joined them, his hands shoved into his pockets. “So - thanks,” she nodded to him awkwardly, as their mothers glanced between them, before making their excuses to step into their respective vehicles and wait for their kids. “Yeah. Anytime, Tess.” Scott pulled her in for a hug that she didn’t really return. “Always.”She pulled away, and looked at him for a long moment before nodding. “Goodbye, Scott.” She could feel his eyes on her, as she got into her mother’s car, and they pulled away. --- Scott wasn’t really all that surprised when he got a text from Tessa a week later, saying that she didn’t know how to be herself without him, and that she was going to Europe for a semester, to figure it out. It felt like a slam in the gut, when he realized that she had already boarded her plane when she’d sent her text. He spent the next month getting drunk all over Canada and calling her just to hear her voicemail - it was all he ever got. He thought: the sick crux of it all was that, after twenty years together, the only vivid imagery of Tessa that his brain allowed him to see was the way she looked so broken, in that hotel room and airport. Twenty years and he left all of the important things unsaid. Twenty years and much too late.