to see me them I wouldn’t be back until the morning. When I told them what happened, they all consoled me, and having them there was a temporary relief for the burn.
But they left the next day, going back to Hawai’i, and once I was alone, it all sank in.
Monday’s practice wasn’t too bad. We mostly watched tapes and talked about plays that went wrong and ran drills. Tuesday was an off day, and yesterday, I’d managed to keep my shit together.
But today, I was a dumpster fire.
Coach called practice about a half hour later, and I kneeled around him along with the rest of the team, listening numbly as he explained what he’d seen, what was working, what could work better.
And he didn’t forget to remind us how important this next game was, to show what we had before the decision on who would be cut was made.
Gerald tried to talk to me after, but I waved him off, jogging into the locker room for a quick shower and change before I hopped in my car and fled the training facility.
As soon as I was out of the parking lot, I dialed Colby.
“Well, if it isn’t the future star wide receiver for Da Bears,” he greeted, making a deep, funny voice when he said the team name.
“Trust me, if I keep playing the way I did in practice today, I’d be lucky to even make it to the official cut date before they booted me.”
“Wait, what? You had a killer game Sunday,” Colby said, and I heard him tell someone in the background that he’d be right back. I assumed it was Cheyenne. “What happened?”
I sighed, hitting my blinker with more force than necessary as I waited at the light. “I fucked up and lost the best thing to ever happen to me, and now I can’t focus on anything but that.”
There was a short pause before Colby let out a sigh of his own. “She found out.”
“She was at the fucking game.”
“What?” Colby whistled. “Jesus, man. I thought you said she hated football.”
“She does,” I affirmed. “But her best friend is a huge Bears fan. She has season tickets and her fiancé couldn’t go to the first pre-season game. So…”
“So she took her best friend.”
“Yup.” The word popped on my lips, and I shook my head, stomach bottoming out like it had done all week whenever I thought about how Belle must have felt, sitting there with Gemma when she realized it was me on that field in front of her. “I went to her right after the game. I explained everything, man, but she didn’t want to hear it.”
“I mean, can you blame her?”
“No,” I said quickly. “But I guess the bigger part of me didn’t think it would be this big of a deal. I thought once I explained, she’d understand, and we’d work through it… together.” I swallowed. “But she just gave up. The first sign of trouble, and she wanted out.”
“I don’t think it’s that simple, man.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, if this would have been months ago, and you would have gone to her and told her everything, yeah, I think it would have been sort of laughed off and then you both could have moved on. But… you dug a deep hole for yourself the longer you kept the charade up. And especially knowing her past, and the way that guy led her on…”
My fists clenched around the steering wheel at the thought of him.
“You hit her soft spot, dude. The one thing that scared her most was that you could possibly lie to her. And then…”
“And then I did.”
Silence fell between us, and the light turned green, allowing me the opportunity to take out my frustrations on the gas pedal as I peeled out onto the street.
“I’m losing it, man,” I said, eyes blurring a bit with the admission. I sniffed, shaking my head. “I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I can’t fucking catch a ball or run a route to save my goddamn life.”
“You’ve got to let her go.”
I shook my head even more violently. “I can’t.”
“You have to. Look, you poured your heart out that night, right? You told her everything. You explained, you asked for forgiveness, you did everything you could. But, Mak, if she doesn’t want to forgive you, if she doesn’t want to be with you anymore… you can’t force her to.”
I scrubbed a hand over my jaw. “I just… there has to be