Page 83 of Breakaway

“I’m okay. I just wanted to call you. I wanted to…” He stopped again. “Fuck. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“Listen, I’ll call you when I get back.”

“Sure. That’s fine.” Her stomach churned. Something felt wrong. He did not sound like himself. “Good luck tomorrow night. I’ll be watching.”

“Thanks, Remi.” There was a long pause, then he said, “I love you, Remi.”

“Oh.” Her heart squeezed. “I love you too.”

She hung up with trembling fingers, closing her burning eyes. She’d go to bed, get a good night’s sleep and in the morning everything would be fine.

But Monday morning she discovered hownotfine things were. Skimming through the morning paper while she drank coffee, she flipped the page and her eyes were immediately drawn to a small headline—“Chicago Wolves player arrested for disorderly conduct.”

She leaned forward, frowning. “Saturday night, Chicago Wolves center Jase Heller was arrested at Sage Restaurant. According to restaurant manager Brian Smythe, Heller had arrived at the restaurant with a group of teammates at about nine o’clock. When advised of the dress code by the hostess and told that he could not enter the restaurant wearing blue jeans, Heller became angry and argumentative. When Mr. Smythe reinforced the restaurant policy and again told Heller he could not enter wearing blue jeans, Heller stripped off his jeans and walked into the restaurant in his underwear. Restaurant personnel asked Heller to leave, but he refused. Police were called and Heller was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct, public intoxication and resisting arrest. He was later released on bail.”

Remi sat frozen in her chair, her coffee forgotten. It was awonder her eyes hadn’t popped right out of her skull and rolled across the floor. What the hell? Arrested? He’d taken off his pants in a classy restaurant and made a scene?

At least he’d been wearing underwear.

She wanted to disbelieve that this could have been Jase, but the black letters on the page popped out at her as if they were in big bold font.

She shook her head. There must be some mistake. This was not possible.

The coffee she’d drank burbled in her stomach and threatened to come back up. She shook her head. What was going on? This was insane.

April fool’s day had passed days ago. This couldn’t be a prank. But he hadn’t said a word of this when they’d talked last night and her sense of unease and dread grew.

She had to go to work.

As if she could concentrate on thirty energetic kids. But she had no choice. In fact, she was going to be late.

She drove to school in a daze, thoughts tumbling around in her head like laundry in a dryer. Nothing made sense. She felt lost, like she was wandering through a maze, not sure which way to turn, smacking up against walls, desperate to get out.

What had she gotten herself into? Had she fallen in love with a nut job? Had he fooled her that well?

No. No. They loved each other. She had no doubt about the depth of their feelings for each other, which only made the situation more bizarre. In her wildest imaginings, she could not come up with something that reasonably explained this.

All day it took monstrous effort to stay focused enough to teach, to keep things under control with a group of pre-teens who looked for any weakness, any small crack that would give them the advantage, because once they started it was even harder to bring them back.

By the time the bell rang at the end of the day, she was exhausted.

And worried sick. She hadn’t been able to eat lunch and certainly wasn’t interested in dinner.

She had to talk to someone, so when she got home she called Delise and told her what had happened. Delise hadn’t seen the newspaper article, but sounded as shocked and confused as Remi felt.

“Don’t even say I told you so,” Remi said fiercely. Delise had been gradually more accepting of her dating Jase but still had reservations about it.

“I won’t. Do you want me to come over?”

“Um…maybe. I’m going to watch the game on TV.” Seeing Jase on television would at least reassure her that he was alive and functioning.

“I’ll come over. I’ll bring popcorn and beer.”

She didn’t want popcorn and beer, but didn’t say anything, letting Delise think she was helping.

“Thank you for coming,” she said later, as they sat side by side on the couch, a bowl of popcorn between them. Delise was munching and Remi’d picked up a few kernels, but they tasted like she was eating dog kibble. One beer on an empty stomach had her a little woozy. She kept her eyes glued to the television, watching for Jase.

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