Page 22 of Resilient Love

I don’t even wear earrings anymore. They’d just get torn out on the pitch.

Nausea roils through me, bile climbing up my throat as an image pops into my mind. Elise’s wide-eyed expression staring out the window of the bus, her attention caught on the casino across the street.Bloody fuck.

Rafael ends his speech, and my teammates give him a less-than-thrilled clap before making their way to the tunnel. Chelsea and Letty meet my worried gaze, their lips pinched as they realise the same thing I have.

She’s gone.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

RAFAEL

The women pileout of the locker room. All of them except the three troublemakers, who are looking between one another with frantic eyes.

Elise is nowhere to be seen, and that rock in my gut is now a boulder of despair.

“Where is she?” I bark out, not caring which one answers so long as I get some damn answers.

Chelsea closes her eyes briefly before meeting mine, her fingers toying with the edge of her black-and-fuchsia shorts. She swallows hard, and when she opens her mouth to speak, I swear there’s a high-speed train rushing past my ears because herwords barely register past the blaring sound of panic coursing through me.

“I’m gonna need you to repeat that for me,” I grit out, and she gives me those big doe eyes that would probably work on someone with a bigger heart than mine, but after years of stomping on my own, there isn’t much left to salvage.

“We don’t know,” she says again, her voice small, and her words choppy.

“You don’t know?” I ask, enunciating each word.

“No.” She shakes her head. “We lost her,” she says, the words a quiet, watery whimper, her lips trembling before she slumps onto the bench behind her, tears soaking her sun-kissed cheeks.

I run a ragged hand over my face, disbelief and frustration humming inside me. “Fuck!” I shout, unable to hold it in any longer. The three women startle, their eyes widening, shoulders shaking, and I instantly regret my tone. I pinch the bridge of my nose, tensing my jaw as I aim for a more even tone. “Do you have any idea where the bloody hell she could be?”

Letty and Chelsea shake their heads, but Adhira whispers, “I think I might.”

I tug on the roots of my hair, the strands long from days of anxiety that I haven’t been able to pinpoint, my appearance falling to the wayside as I’ve grappled senselessly for control. I stare at the ceiling with barely controlled rage simmering in my blood. My eyes meet theirs before barking out instructions for them to follow if they know what’s good for them. “Go tell the assistant coaches that there’s been an emergency. They’re taking over,and Elise won’t be back tonight.If they ask for more information, say she was sick and I’ve got it taken care of.”

They nod, rushing out to do as I ask. Adhira comes to stand in front of me, holding her ground. “Before you go after her like a madman, there are a few things you need to know first,”she says, and I can already feel the pounding headache forming behind my temples.

“I don’t have all day, Adhira,” I grit out.

“Elise has bipolar 1 disorder,” she says, and suddenly so many pieces of the puzzle that make up Elise Auclair come snapping into place. “Those were the meds she was taking when you saw her. She’s still too embarrassed about her diagnosis to tell anyone about it other than the three of us, so I guess she quit taking her meds in order to test clean, but instead of restarting them, she started edging into mania. We don't have all day to talk about this, and frankly, it really is none of your business, but you need to know what you’re walking into so you don’t run the risk of her panicking and fleeing.”

She gives me a rundown on what not to do when I see her, how to approach her, and where she’s banking on me finding her. Apparently, there was a casino a few minutes away, and according to Adhira, people with bipolar 1 who are experiencing mania have a tendency to make impulsive decisions like gambling and seeking out sex.

The thought of finding Elise with another person pleasuring her has the edges of my periphery going black for reasons I can’t even begin to fathom.

When Adhira’s told me everything she can think of, I take off out of the building and down the road to the casino.

It’s hard to miss, especially with how gloomy the weather is. The building shines like a beacon, and when I rush inside past security, a cloud of cigarette smoke falls over me, burning the inside of my nostrils.

I cough loudly, ambling through the large space, cursing Elise for getting us into this situation. If she’s not here, I have no idea what I’m going to do.

Panic surges through me, my heart lurching inside my chest, my pulse speeding up as I pass by yet another set of slot machines without Elise seated behind them.

My fists clench at my side as I make it to the last row.

I release a loud breath, and my shoulders sag when my eyes land on her. She looks completely out of place in her gym shorts and sports bra, but no one seems to care. There’s a crowd gathered behind her, cheering as she excitedly stares up at the glowing board in front of her.

My eyes widen when I see the screen for myself, bright with the number seven thousand fifty-three. She’s somehow won over seven thousand pounds.

Before she can click the button to keep going, likely to lose everything she’s won the longer she sits here, I push past her onlookers and drop to her side, placing a hand on the top of her thigh.

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