When Trust Is Gone - The Quarterback's Regret Novels & Stories

He snapped his gaze to me, a faint, desperate flicker of hope sparking in his eyes. I met his gaze, speaking clearly but slowly. "But for me, it doesn't erase every disappointment of being abandoned over the past three years. It doesn't undo the suspicion and humiliation I endured in public. And it certainly doesn't make the hurt of you choosing to believe her over me at the very end simply vanish." The light in his eyes went out entirely, leaving only a cold, lifeless gray. "Once trust is shattered, it can never be amended back to perfection. What we had ended the moment you kept choosing her over me. The truth and your regret only put a final period on something that should have ended long

"I tried calling after I heard about the accident, but you changed your number. And when I came back, you were gone." "You lost the right to find me when you left," I say flatly, the words harsher than I intend. Her shoulders stiffen, but she holds my gaze. "You think I don’t regret it? I do. Every damn day. I should’ve been there. But I was an idiot. And by the time I realized it, it was too late." For a long moment, I say nothing. The space between us feels heavy with unspoken things. She was the one person I trusted. The one who always had my back when others couldn’t. But when everything fell apart, she was nowhere to be found. And all of it, for a person who was never right for her.

“And… I’ll call Steffano too.” Neither of them really heard me anymore—they were too busy bickering. As I walked away, I glanced toward the shoreline. Two figures. Still arguing. Boston and Sigmund. Trust. That word lingered in my mind. It’s the foundation of everything. And when it breaks… Everything else follows. That’s what happened with Timothy. He didn’t just betray me. He destroyed my trust. And once that’s gone— There’s nothing left to hold on to. I exhaled softly and pushed the thought away.

Like if he breathed too hard, we’d collapse into each other. “I’d give everything to undo it,” he said. “One night. One mistake. I don’t even remember her face. But I remember yours. Every look you ever gave me. Every time you made me feel like I was enough.” “You weren’t.” He nodded, accepting it. “But I want to be.” My voice cracked. “You can’t just fix us because you regret it. That’s not how trust works.” “I know.” He looked like he was in pain—real pain. Not the burn on his arm. The kind that eats you from the inside.

He knew he might have already pushed her too far, shattered the fragile trust they had built. He let the moment slip away, the missed opportunity hanging in the air like a shroud, su#ocating him with its weight. The regret bloomed in his chest, a su#ocating weed threatening to choke the life out of him, stealing his breath and leaving him hollow. He shoved the phone into his pocket, themetallic edge a cold reminder of his cowardice.

I didn’t stop. Not even when Jeff called my name again. Not even when his voice cracked with something dangerously close to regret. Because regret didn’t change the fact that he had lied. Regret didn’t erase the doubt curling around my ribs, squeezing my lungs tight. Regret didn’t bring back the version of myself that had trusted him. So I kept walking, my boots crunching against the gravel, my breath coming fast and sharp in the cold night air. And Jeff—

“What are you saying?” “Nothing,” He responded. Trust? Regret? Trusting someone is hard for me but I just gave it out to this not-so-human creature. What’s happening to me? Is it still me? Doom, I really hope I won’t have any regrets on trusting you because if I’ll do? I know it will be damned in front of my naïve and fragile persona. After that sunset hangout, Doom disappeared like a bubble again. That’s his literal behavior, leaving someone without any goodbye’s or saying that he’ll leave.

"I keep thinking about what Elias must have felt, watching that friendship curdle into betrayal. Whether he saw it coming, in the months before the patent was refiled, or whether it arrived as a complete surprise, the way genuine betrayal usually does — from someone you'd stopped watching closely because you'd already decided they were safe." "I don't know. I don't think we'll ever fully know that part. The letters stop before we get to see it happen." Wren traced the edge of the photograph carefully, the same discipline she brought to every fragile thing she'd ever handled. "I think that's part of what makes it worse. We get the warmth, and then we get the aftermath, and the actual moment t

The silence inside the car was worse than the cold. It was heavy with everything I’d left behind in Kraków the smell of hospital disinfectant, the quiet horror of an empty apartment, the sheer, crushing reality that everyone I loved was gone. I was driving toward a ghost because I had nothing left to lose. There were no tail lights ahead of me. No headlights in the rearview mirror. Just the rhythm of tires crunching over packed ice and the gale screaming against the glass.

I replied grimly. “Just because that happened once doesn’t mean it’ll happen again Jerry, you need to learn to trust.” He spoke like he was walking on eggshells. He was right to be cautious. I scoffed bitterly, “That’ll be utterly foolish of me, after all that has happened.” He sighed, “I won’t push anymore alright, but sooner or later you’d have to.” “I have to go now.” I said abruptly and ended the call. Trust? That was a luxury I gave no one - Ryan was the only exception, and only because he earned it.