Page 42 of The Way Home
“Do what?”
“Make it sound so easy.” The way he spoke made me believe it. He made me feel like it was all possible.
“Being withyouis easy. Everything else is just noise.”
My chest warmed, and my lips curved up. This man. I absolutely would never find another like him, and I didn’t want to. “For someone who says they don’t do relationships, I think you’re off to a good start.”
Jeremy grinned wide. “It sounds like you’re coming around to the idea.”
My head bobbed slowly. “I’m getting there.”
With a pump of his arm, Jeremy shouted, “Yes!”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Better get used to it, darling.” Jeremy pulled my chair closer to his and kissed my smile. “Okay. Parents. People. We got it all covered. Is there anything else holding you back?”
I sighed heavily. There was one more thing, the biggest fear of them all. My gaze fell, and I lowered my voice. “You.”
Jeremy’s head jerked back as if I’d struck him. “Me? Why?”
I bit my lip, trying to keep from running away. I didn't want to give voice to it, but if we were going to move forward, I had to say it. “I’m terrified that I’m going to fall so deeply for you, and one day you are going to wake up and realize that I’m not good enough for you. If that happens, I don’t think I could ever go back to being your brother. It’ll break me, and it’ll break our family.”
A flash of hurt appeared on his face before morphing into something like determination. “Fuck, Ri… I… I’ll be right back.”
Stunned, I watched him get up and run down the hallway, which wasn’t at all the reaction I expected. Saying it out loud made my stomach twist in knots, but it was the thought I’d had the most. For all my uncertainty about starting something up again, the worst part of it was thinking of it ending.
When Jeremy returned, he had his open laptop in his hands and went to the couch. “Can you come over here?”
I stood from the table and walked around the couch, not sure what to do. Jeremy patted the spot next to him, and I took it. “What are you doing?”
“I need to show you something.” He pressed a couple keys on his laptop, and then set it on the coffee table so we both could see it. The screen showed a paused video of a football game witha team that looked familiar. My eyes automatically sought out Jeremy’s number.
My brows pinched, and I looked at him. “I don’t get it.”
“Just watch.” Jeremy pressed play and sat back.
As it began, recognition set in. It moved in slow motion, or maybe that was simply how I remembered it. My hand found Jeremy’s, and I squeezed it tight, knowing what was coming. I whispered, “I remember this game.”
“As do I. Vividly. I watched it to take notes last week. It was the first time I let myself watch it, and the first time I had the full picture of what happened.”
I hid my face in his shoulder. “I don’t want to see it.”
“I know, but I need you to, please.”
With my cheek still resting on him, I angled my face to see the video. It was coming, I squeezed his hand hard, bracing myself. The smack of body hitting body and body hitting ground were almost unbearable. Jeremy was down, tackled and not moving. I tucked myself into his side. That had been one of the scariest moments I’d ever witnessed. I didn’t know if he was going to get up again. Seeing it again made that feeling come right back. A pain in my chest at imagining the worst.
Jeremy paused it and pulled the time bar back enough to play it again. “What are you doing? I don’t want to watch you get hurt again.”
He slid a glance over to me with a look of understanding. His own golden skin had paled slightly. This couldn’t be easy for him to see either, so why was he doing it? “I know. I know. Don’t watch me. Watch the crowd.”
He hit play, and I forced my eyes away from the field, staring at the people instead. It was faint, but I heard it. I saw it. I sawmyself. There I was, screaming his name, feeling the pain that accompanied it tightening around my chest.
Jeremy stopped the video, closed the laptop, and turned to face me. “I heard you.”
I was still having a visceral response to seeing and hearing that intense moment, and I wasn’t fully back in the present yet. “What?”
He put a hand to his chest, and a bead of sweat rolled down his forehead. “I stopped breathing. Stopped. Panic was setting in as my brain tried to catch up, but I was afraid. I’ve never told anyone how afraid I really was in that moment. I’m supposed to be strong, supposed to be able to shake things off, but I was scared. Then I heard your voice. I’ve spent years thinking it was all in my head, that it was a trick of the mind from not getting enough oxygen, but I heard you. Riley, you called my name, and I started breathing. I didn’t know it was real until I watched the video recently.”
