Only When It's Us (Bergman Brothers #1)(79)

Somehow, I held it in. For a desperate moment, I let myself pretend each soft stroke through my wild hair was her hands, the warm steady presence behind me, hers, after a long shift at the hospital. I shut my eyes and held my breath and bathed in that dream until his touch faded and the door clicked shut. Then I cried until sunrise blazed through my curtains.

I’ve made progress. I eat regularly now. I run and lift a few times a week. I keep up with my drills at the field with Rooney. But I’m a shell of myself. I know that. I just don’t know how to be anything else anymore.

“Hey, you.” Rooney sets a warm hand on my back. “What are you hungry for?”

I stare down at my homework, knowing I need to memorize these equations but also knowing I’m too tired and hungry to get anything accomplished. On a heavy sigh, I drop my pen. “Anything. You pick.”

Rooney sits slowly at the dining room table and clasps my hand. “Willa, I want to say something. I think… No. Let me start again. Willa, your grief is valid. Your pain is real.”

I stare at her. “But?”

“But nothing.” Rooney shifts in her chair, scooting closer. “And it’s threatening your well-being. I think it’s time to go talk to someone. Go to grief counseling. I don’t know if they’re appropriate for this, but maybe also look into antidepressants. Not so you can be some unnaturally happy person, but so you can live again. It’s been months, and you’re still struggling to function, Willa. There’s no shame in grief. You’ll grieve as long as you need to. There’s just room for caution when it’s compromising your well-being.”

Rooney wipes tears from my cheeks that I didn’t know were there. “I’m here to remind you of who you are and what you want, Willa. You will always be Joy Sutter’s daughter. That’s never going to change. But you won’t always be a soccer powerhouse. You won’t always have this free education. You won’t always have a man waiting at your door to give you comfort. Some things are timeless—your mother’s love, her mark on your life. But so much else, you have to find the strength to snatch them up before they’re gone.”

“Roo, I don’t know how,” I choke. She pulls me toward her, rocking me in her arms.

“I know. Shhh.” Rooney kisses my hair. It makes me think of Ryder and his kisses to my crazy locks. I miss that spark and fire that used to crackle and roar between us. I miss his bushy beard and his butter-soft lumberjack flannel. I miss our loaded silences as much as his newfound, deep voice.

“First things first, okay?” Rooney says. “Let’s get you set up with a university counselor. Get you feeling better rested and clear-headed. Get your grades back on track. Then we get the guy.”

I laugh. “Yeah, that’s still not happening. Not the way you think. I need friends, Roo. Nothing else.”

Rooney pauses her rocking for just a moment and squeezes me tighter. “Okay, Willa. Okay.”





25





Ryder





Playlist: “Do I Wanna Know?” Arctic Monkeys





“Who did it!?” I roar.

Both Tucker and Becks have the wisdom to look terrified.

“Yeah!” I kick an errant soccer ball right at them and watch with satisfaction as they scatter to avoid getting nailed. “You still glad I got my voice back? You motherfuckers!” I lunge for Tucker, quickly wrestling him down to the ground. His back is pinned under my knee and I have his arm twisted in a position that’s hopefully excruciating.

“It was his idea!” Tuck howls.

I release Tucker with a lunge upright and bolt for Becks. He barely sidesteps me before he trips, then slams into the table and crumples to the floor.

“Please!” Becks holds up his hands. He looks like he’s about to shit himself, and he should. My six-foot-three, two-hundred pounds is south on both Becks’s height and Tucker’s weight, but it doesn’t matter. I’m an angry, angry man, and when I’m pissed, my Viking blood roars through my veins, demanding violence.

“Give me one good reason I shouldn’t break your goddamn arm, Beckett Beckerson.”

Becks whimpers as I set my foot on his throat. “B-because you’ll thank me once you shave that animal off your face and it knocks Willa on her ass.”

I hiss in a breath because it hurts to hear her voice. We don’t talk about Willa. I got very drunk a few months ago, not long after Joy died and Willa shut me out, and I told them everything. Then I made them swear not to speak about Willa or torture me with anything related to her. They’ve been saints about it.

Until now.

“Why?” I growl.

Becks glances over to Tucker, then back to me. “Rooney said she’s going to grief counseling and finally coming around. Before that, she was getting bad—”

“Don’t.” I can’t hear it. I almost lost my mind at first, desperate to push myself on her, when I knew how badly she was hurting. I tried everything I could think of, and still, she wouldn’t look at me, talk to me, answer my texts or calls or notes.

I understood she needed to grieve, and that she’d grieve in her own way, which was obviously entirely alone. But for once, logically understanding something didn’t make it hurt any less.