Fumbled (Playbook #2)(87)

“What the fuck are you talking about, Poppy?” He struggles to sit up, the pain in his eyes chased away by anger.

“I told you I’d never make you choose between me and football, and I’m not.” He opens his mouth to speak, but I keep going before he can interrupt. “But I can’t do this. I’m not meant for this life. I can deal with the blogs and the crazy fans pulling at you wherever we go. But what I can’t do is sit by idly while you kill yourself every Sunday so you can live in some mansion in Parker.”

“You’re fucking ridiculous,” he spits, his rage acting as a much more effective painkiller than whatever the hospital gave him. “You’re making shit up because you’re fucking afraid and it’s bullshit. You run when shit gets hard. You ran when you were pregnant. You ran when you saw me. And you’re running now. That’s your shit. Don’t put it on Ace and me.”

I fight the urge to flinch. I know they say words can’t hurt you, but his words make my stomach lurch and the acid in his voice makes my skin burn.

“He called you TK.” I surprise myself with how strong my voice comes out. “I told him I was coming to see you and he said, ‘Tell TK I said to feel better.’”

All anger and color drain from his face.

“He what?” he whispers.

And even though I told myself I would not touch him, under no circumstances would I comfort him, my feet move of their own accord. Sure, Nurse Bitchy might get pissed, but I climb into TK’s bed, dropping my head onto his chest and curling into his side.

“I love you, TK, so, so much,” I whisper, my tears falling onto his hospital gown unchecked. “I actually never stopped loving you. I hated you, but I still fucking loved you. And now I watch you come home limping. I see you closing your eyes and rubbing your head from the headaches. You used to be the voice of reason between the two of us, now you snap and get so crazy angry over everything. Something is not okay. You are not okay. I feel like I’m watching you kill yourself. And I can’t do it. I can’t watch as the man I’ve dreamt about spending my life with withers away in front of my eyes because of a game.” I hiccup, trying to fight past the tears. “I love you too much to stand around and watch it, and I love you too much to ask you to walk away from football. But if I stay, it’s going to break me.”

“But I need you. I need Ace.” His heartbeat is pounding faster and faster beneath my cheek. “You guys can’t leave me.”

“You’re his dad, and now that you know, I would never take him from you. But me and you? It’s not going to work.” I close my eyes, soaking up his heat and comfort for the last time. “We made the best kid and we got caught up in old feelings, but me and you just aren’t meant to be. Time couldn’t change that.”

TK doesn’t say anything, he knows I’m right. His arms tighten around me, almost to the point of painful, but before I can register any hurt—at least the physical kind—he drops his forehead to mine and the only thing I feel are his tears falling onto my face.

We lie in the hospital bed, unmoving, for what feels like hours, our tears merging together, our silent pleas and regrets floating around us, until the curtain opens and light from the hallway floods his room.

“Mr. Moore?” the doctor’s hesitant voice says. “We have to take you for a CT scan now. Do you need a moment?”

“No.” I push away from TK and scramble out of the bed. “He’s ready.”

“Poppy.” TK reaches for me, but I’m too far away . . . in every way possible.

“Go, TK.” I don’t try to fake a smile, it would only be a slap in his face. “Get better. When you’re out, we’ll talk and figure out an arrangement with Ace.”

“Please,” he whispers, his hoarse voice causing a fresh bout of tears to fall down my cheeks.

“I love you.” I turn, pushing past the doctor and into the hallway, not caring what people think as I run with tears streaming and almost nonhuman-like sounds falling from my mouth.

I find a stairwell, not capable of waiting for an elevator or breathing in the same confined air as anyone else. My grief is too large, too consuming. I know I’ll suffocate.

I won’t survive.

I burst through the hospital doors and into the parking lot. Cold air and an unwanted memory hitting me hard. Thoughts of me bursting into the parking lot of the Emerald Cabaret filling my mind. Only that time, TK was falling into my life. Now I’m pushing him away.

I thought, leaving his hospital room, I had already broken.

But I was wrong.

I was still moving then.

Sharp pains shoot through my chest from the pieces of my shattered heart. My legs give out beneath me and I fall to the cold concrete sidewalk outside Saint Joseph. My lungs catch fire as they fight with the tears stealing my breath.

I ignore the passersby and hide in the darkness of the night as I give in to the soul-shaking, body-racking sobs of a heart that will never be mended.





Thirty-eight




“Sadie, I’m fine.” I slide a drink in front of her and hold her very disbelieving eyes. “I am!”

“You are so not fine.” She brings the straw to her lips, sucking back some Diet Coke.

Okay. She’s right.

I am so not fine.