Hail Mary: An Enemies-to-Lovers Roommate Sports Romance(94)

I nodded. I held her gaze until I couldn’t anymore. I turned and walked numbly down the stairs and right out the door without a plan of where I’d go next. I just walked and walked and walked until my body refused to walk any longer. I’d ended up somewhere in the North End, staring at people laughing and eating and drinking and enjoying their lives, all of them oblivious to the zombie among them.

Eventually, I texted Braden, and he came to pick me up.

We were quiet on the drive back, Braden driving my car because I knew I couldn’t. When we pulled into the driveway, I looked at the door with a pit in my stomach.

“Did I lose her?” I asked.

Braden sighed, looking at the house and then at me. “She’s gone, man.”

And all the strength I’d been using to hold it together left me.

I didn’t care that Braden was still there, that Kyle and Blake were now coming out of the house, too. It didn’t matter if I did care. I was powerless against the emotional dam that split wide open inside me.

I somehow managed to push the car door open and stand up.

Then, I broke.

My roommates rushed to me. They weren’t my friends in that moment. They weren’t my teammates. They were my brothers. My family. And they held me while I fell apart.

“It’ll be okay, man. She’ll come back,” Kyle said.

The air pulsed, because every single one of us knew that was a promise that wasn’t his to make.





Mary

The gray morning matched my mood perfectly, colorful leaves dripping wet from the way the clouds hugged them. It was quiet except for where the dew dripped down into the grass, a soft pit, pat, pit, pat that drew me outside like a magnet. The distinct smell of fall decay hung in the air, and I welcomed the wet morning with open arms. I was so sick of the sunshine, of the world continuing to spin on without a care.

I wrapped myself in a blanket and went outside on the back porch just so I could sit with the fog.

With the blanket wrapped around me, the scent of Leo that still barely clung to the hoodie I’d stolen from him wrapped around me, too. I closed my eyes and inhaled it along with the cool morning air, and just when I thought they’d dried up, my eyes welled with tears again.

It’d been almost a week since I moved out of The Pit and back home with my parents.

It was a last resort, one I’d only chosen after Margie informed me the house wouldn’t be ready for me to move back in until after the holidays. She and I had both decided it was time to let me out of the lease, for us to go our separate ways while she fixed everything up. I couldn’t wait in limbo any longer, and this time, I really didn’t have a choice.

I had to go home.

It had killed my pride to make the call. I’d called Dad, of course, who didn’t ask a single question. He just said he was on his way. And while hearing his voice, his concern, his love for me filled my aching heart with warmth, I knew when he pulled into The Pit, Mom would be with him, locked and loaded with a million questions.

I’d been right.

She’d been tight-lipped and quiet while we loaded up the SUV with my belongings — including Palico. The roommates had helped, minus Leo, who had left because I’d asked him to. I didn’t miss the hard edge of my father’s expression as he watched three male college athletes interact with his daughter. But Kyle, Braden, and Blake showed him and my mother both the highest respect.

They also gave me the best hugs of my life when it was time to leave, and I tried not to cry as we said goodbye.

As soon as we were in the car and on the highway, Mom started in.

She berated me with questions the entire drive home. How in the world did you end up there? What were you thinking? You should have called us. You should have moved home. This is why you never should have moved into that decrepit house to start with. You should be in college, in a dorm room that’s safe and passes a thorough inspection. How in the world did you end up with a cat? And what does that Margie character say of this? You better be getting your deposit back. I can’t believe you’ve been living with men without our permission. You could have been killed, or worse—

My father putting his hand on her knee had silenced her, and while he hadn’t so much as looked at her when he did it, I watched Mom take her first real breath, cover his hand with hers, and fall silent.

Mercifully.

I’d slept in my old room, which was pretty much the same, except that it was painted brighter now, with a bed set only my mother would love, and there was a treadmill in the corner facing out of my favorite window — the one I used to gaze out of as I sketched. It wasn’t any easier to sleep in here, not with memories of high school clinging to the space. I stared at the television that I used to play Xbox on with Leo, heart lurching every time.

I so desperately wanted to get high, but I didn’t have any edibles on hand, and I knew I couldn’t sneak a joint — not in my mother’s house. It didn’t matter if I walked down the street to smoke it, she’d find out.

So, I tossed and turned soberly through the night before Dad knocked on my door at two in the morning, his walking sneakers in hand.

We didn’t talk as we walked, and unlike when I was younger, it didn’t really help me sleep. But it did make me feel marginally better — less alone, at the very least.

And the next morning, I gave my mom all the answers she was looking for.