Page 7 of Ring Rust

“Yeah. So you’ve said,” Jasper said, stepping closer to the door. His hand rested on the handle. “This isn’t about the competition, Ryan. I don’t expect you to show up to my competitions anymore. I just thought when you retired, things might change, and it’s been clear since the night of your party, they never will. This has been on my mind for almost two years, and I?—"

“Two years?”

Jasper shrugged.

“I thought we were in a rough patch. Relationships have rough patches, Jasper.”

“A relationship should have fewer rough patches than this. Rough patches shouldn’t outnumber smooth ones. Rough patches shouldn’t involve one person missing every important event because something better came along.”

“It wasn’t better, I just… I’m sorry, I didn’t think about it.”

“I know you didn’t.”

Ryan looked at the medal again, trying to remember what miniature Jasper had been working on. His heart sank when he remembered: a mini chicken coop with exact replicas of their eighteen chickens. “You got second place?”

Jasper huffed and crossed his arms but stayed silent.

Dread creeped up Ryan’s spine, desperation strangling his voice with the realization of just how badly he’d fucked up this time. “I can do better. We can go back to counseling?—”

“Last time you couldn’t even make it to half of the appointments.”

“I will this time.”

Jasper stared at him, saying nothing.

Panic clawed at Ryan’s throat. “I’ll call Marina and have her book that trip?—"

“I don’t want to go on a trip.”

Jasper’s right hand reached for the ring on his left and Ryan’s chest squeezed so hard it hurt and stole his breath.

“Please don’t do that,” Ryan said. He swiped at his eyes.

Jasper’s fingers closed around the ring again. “I’m sorry. Okay? But it’s done. I waited until you retired, because?—”

“What do you mean, it’s done? What does that even mean?”

Jasper dropped his hand to his side and sighed. “It means that at some point, our life ended. Our paths split up. Your life kept going and there was no room for me. My life stayed stagnant until I finally gave up on you and started doing things for myself, and those things didn’t interest you.”

“There was always room for you?—”

“One day I woke up and realized I didn’t even know what to tell people when they asked how you’d been or what you’d been up to. I spent years explaining away your absence. You were in Milan when I celebrated becoming principal. Tokyo when I turned forty?—”

“You could have joined me there! I told you that.”

“Oh, and don’t forget you were in São Paolo when the theme park caught fire, and I had to deal with that nightmare, which stole all the free time I was normally blessed to spend flying to wherever you were.”

“What, that’s my fault now? I didn’t light the park on fire, and I never forced you to fly out to visit me.”

Jasper dragged his hands down his face and groaned. “It’s not about the park, and it’s not about flying to meet you in fucking Tokyo! It’s about how by the time I realized how disconnected we were, it was too late. I’ve accepted the years of false promises you offered as my punishment for being stupid enough to believe you might actually prioritize me some day. I can’t sit around another ten years while you figure out what comes next foryou. It’s never what comes next for us, and I’ve made a fool of myself long enough thinking someday it will be.”

Even if he ignored that devastating blow, Ryan knew he was grasping at straws. “You couldn’t have just talked to me?”

Jasper’s jaw clenched. “If you think I didn’t try to talk to you, things are even worse than I thought, and I think we can be done here. I am done here.”

Ryan’s breath stuttered as he tried to figure out how, in twenty minutes, he’d gone from reaching for a rag to clean up spilled orange juice to searching for when, exactly, his marriage fell apart.

There was a lot he wanted to say and questions he wanted to ask, but he couldn’t risk Jasper putting his hand back on the door handle. He closed his eyes and breathed in slowly, piecingtogether the best approach to stopping Jasper’s departure, but he was interrupted by the clink of a ring dropping into a bowl.