After she leaves you sit on the bed with your arms loosely folded around your knees. A cigarette would be appropriate, but athletes are not supposed to smoke. Nevertheless, it doesn't take you long to figure out that you've blown it sky high this time. You told yourself before that things were fine the way they were, with fiancé and ladylove both. This, however, falls under the heading of fine in no known universe. This is unforgivable.

And yet you find ways that you can weasel out of punishment. You had called out in your mind for Sue, yearned for her in ways you never had known before you could yearn for another woman, prayed for her to come to you and ease the ache of your body. And your Long Island Sue had come. It wasn't your fault that instead of being long-limbed and golden-haired, with her wise eyes and familiar wit, she had come to you small and slim, her hair dark and curly, her mouth too bright and her eyes too young. You had called. She had come. That was all there was to it.

You can look him in the eye and tell him honestly that since the announcement you've only been with Sue. He'll believe you. He won't ask questions. You're not sure if that's a symptom of being single-mindedly in love or not. You wouldn't know. There's always been something else on your plate.

Leaning forward, you put too much stress on your bad knee and a wince escapes you. You can see, very faintly, the scars from the operations that put your knee back together. The memory of her body hits you hard and fast, making you remember that she shares more than one mark of yours now. You remember the taste of her, unexpectedly sweet and logically tender.

You realize that you don't know how to keep the secret. You had wanted to, in New York with the right Sue, but you were found out far too quickly by teammates who always knew too much and understood even more. Until you left, it was an accepted fact. In Houston you never had to worry about the wrong thing at the wrong time, nor do you expect to in Connecticut. But tomorrow, you share a locker room with Kara who knows you almost as well as anyone, and Swin who knows Sue too well. Some things can be covered up. Some things are harder to hide.

Then, of course, there is the fact that no one knows in the first place. You sigh, relieved. That may be the only way that no one ever would guess that either of you would ever, much less that you would ever with one another. If someone sees you with a hickey, they'll assume it was your fiancé; if anyone sees her, they'll make up wild rumors. It's what a group of women does best, after all. No one will ever know. That makes it easier, but only for those who don't know. For four of you, it isn't easy at all.

You can fudge the truth with him. But you can't with her. You get up and start pacing, trying to think of what you can possibly do. There's always the simple solution of sweeping it under the carpet and never mentioning it. You know your fellow sinner wouldn't tell her, she has no access. So it's easy to sweep under the rug, but something inside you objects to that. If you do something wrong you want to admit it and be absolved of your guilt. It's what you've been brought up to do.

But you doubt that she would absolve you. As far as you know, she's been true to you, even when she's had every excuse to go out and find someone else to counterbalance your fiancé. You can only imagine the betrayal she would feel, and you doubt she would want to have much more to do with you. She believes in loyalty, the way you once used to, and if she ever found out that you had been disloyal to her- well, you're pretty sure the results would not be pleasant for either of you. Her temper is relatively calm, but when it's finally set off bad things happen.

Not to mention the posse of teammates that she could round up to help leave you in pain that you've never felt before. You have no one who would defend you blind, except maybe Kara, and if Kara found out why you needed defense, she probably wouldn't provide it. You stop pacing; it takes your long arms a moment longer to stop swinging to the rhythm of your stride. You realize the magnitude of your mistake. By not being alone in your bed for part of one night, you have risked being utterly alone forever.

And in a way, you realize, it was a coming of age. Once upon a time, you were young and you came to Sue, seven years older than you and so much wiser, and asked for her love, and she gave it to you along with her friendship. Now Sue has come to you, seven years younger than you and callow. It's a cycle, or perhaps a role reversal- you're too tired to figure out which. Either way you wonder if it's a sign that it's finally time to end it, to finally stop playing the middle.

You sink back down on the bed hopelessly. Wrapping your body back up into a ball, you begin to sob your heart out. You cry for hours, until your teeth hum with pain and grief pounds a pulse in your temple and your nose runs faster than any tissue can keep up. Even after you reach that point, you keep crying. There just doesn't seem to be anything else to do. You need her forgiveness, but she'll never provide it, not after what you did. She'll never want you again.