Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 115577 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 578(@200wpm)___ 462(@250wpm)___ 385(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115577 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 578(@200wpm)___ 462(@250wpm)___ 385(@300wpm)
He gave me a little shake, but I could see it in his eyes.
He was wondering why I cared so much.
He could see right through the bullshit.
The trainers guided Emily toward the tunnel, their hands steady at her back, their voices low as they talked her through it, and I stood there like I was anchored to the turf, like if I moved now I might shatter completely.
She didn’t look back again, and she didn’t need to.
I stayed right where she left me.
Helmet in my hand. Heart tripping in my chest.
And when the whistle blew and the team started moving, when it was time to lock in, to focus, to do the one thing I’d built my entire life around—
I didn’t know how.
Not when it felt like the most important part of me had just been walked off that field.
Emily
“Emily? Did you hear me?”
I blinked.
The voice was near. It was beside me, perhaps. Or above me. It was somewhere close.
But I was under water, and it came from the surface, and I couldn’t find it in me to swim and kick my way up there, too.
I sat reclined on the green velvet couch Darcy had insisted on when we moved into our open-plan apartment — bright and airy but pieced together, like neither of us had quite decided to stay — a pillow tucked under my right arm, which was held stable by an ugly, rigid cast.
I stared at my knees like they were responsible for all of it, or like they’d have answers for how to go back in time and change it all.
Everything replayed in flashes, cued by the rhythmic beating of my heart.
Thump.
The tumble.
The crack.
Flash.
Collapsing on the field.
Training staff surrounding me.
Thump.
Walking off the field, feeling the weight of my parents’ stares.
Flash.
Braden’s golden eyes, the way he was already moving for me before I stopped him.
Thump.
Flash.
The tunnel. Bright lights. Cold air against my skin.
“Sit here.”
A bench. Ice pressed into my palm. My wrist already swelling beneath it.
“Don’t move it.”
Thump.
“Where does it hurt?”
“My wrist.”
“How bad?”
“Bad.”
A glance between trainers.
“We’re sending you in.”
Flash.
The car ride blurred. My parents’ voices didn’t.
“Baby, we’re here.”
“I’m okay.”
I wasn’t.
Thump.
The hospital.
Paper gown. Crinkling table. My arm propped like it didn’t belong to me.
“We just need a quick X-ray.”
“Hold still.”
Click.
Click.
Flash.
The screen turned toward the doctor. Not toward me.
His eyes scanning, dissecting.
“It’s a non-displaced fracture.”
Thump.
“And you’ve sprained the surrounding ligaments.”
Flash.
“How long?” I asked.
“Six to eight weeks.”
Six to eight weeks.
Thump.
Flash.
There it was again, that voice calling to me, asking if I’d heard whoever it belonged to. But I was still drowning in my new reality.
Six to eight weeks meant I’d be out until at least Christmas — likely until the new year.
That was my whole season.
Everything I’d worked for was slipping through my fingers and I couldn’t tighten them. I just watched it all unravel, powerless, hope-ridden.
My arm was in a cast, the pain from when they set my wrist still fresh in my mind long after that warm cast had hardened.
Six to eight weeks.
Six to eight weeks.
Six to eight—
“Emily.”
I blinked, finding my father bent down to one knee in front of where I sat on the couch. My mom was behind him, and I realized it was her the voice had belonged to. She wore her stress visibly like a scarf, like it was choking her out the longer I didn’t respond.
“Did you hear your mother?”
God, my father had always had the best voice. It was so deep, a low baritone filled with kindness. It didn’t surprise me that he was as successful as he was. With a voice and face and charm like his, I’d buy anything he was selling. I’d trust him with my fortune, if I had one.
“No,” I managed.
Dad tried to smile, the edges of his eyes crinkling just a bit. Those eyes were just like mine — dark and endlessly brown. “We’re going to stay a few days, all right? We can rent a house, take you there to care for you until we need to head back.”
For a moment, I let the warmth of his offer wash over me like waves over my feet on a tropical beach. I imagined nodding and saying that would be lovely. I thought of what it would be like for him to hug me and load me up in their rental car and drive me somewhere where we could be together as a family, where I could face my reality with people who loved me.
But it was just a moment.
Because in the next breath, I remembered who my parents were, who I was, and that spending more than an hour with them in any capacity would make all of us uncomfortable.
I saw it even now as my dad made the offer, how his face was tight with discomfort. I’d registered him on his phone earlier, likely looking at his calendar and trying to figure out what he’d have to move and how to make it all work.