Page 9 of Cross the Line
CHAPTER 2
ELIJAH
For nearly two hours, the room has moved without me. Voices eddy around the coffee table, around the tablet, around my name, while I stand where I first stopped and haven’t quite remembered how to start again.
I keep my phone in my hand because it anchors me to a single point—Jayden’s message, my reply—and because, when I close my eyes, I see the moment after he read it.
The slump of his shoulders. Hurt and disappointment weighing down on him. The same hurt and disappointment that I’ve caused Finley for months. His frown, her tears. It’s all I see, and then it loops—the slump, the gloss of her eyes, the guilt threading both—until balance goes watery and the carpet seems to drift under my shoes.
The air in here thins, not all at once, but with a quiet persistence that makes my lungs second-guess the next breath.
“Okay,” Coach calls with a loud clap like he’s addressing a boisterous locker room. “How are we handling this?”
Connie doesn’t try to cut through the noise; she just perches on the table next to him and turns her attention gently my way. “What do you want to do, Eli?”
Do I really have any choice right now? Because it feels like I’m back in a shitty hotel room in Colorado with my power taken away from me. And again, I can’t fight back.
When I shrug, Shayne holds up his iPad with one of the photos of Ryker and me glaring my way.
Vomit burns up my throat at the sight of the boy in the photo. Me.
At first glance, it doesn’t fit my nightmare. It looks like two kids in the heat of the moment. It’s nothing like the truth I recall.
Suddenly, I’m questioning myself like I did all those years ago. Did I do this? Maybe itismy fault. What if I’ve been in denial about everything that happened, and at the root of it, Ryker is right? What if I did want it? But I’ve been holding on to some twisted sense of righteousness. Trying to be someone I’m not.
“What happens if I do nothing?” The question comes out flat.
Shayne lets out a breath that sounds practiced. “More stories will run wild. Speculation will become a frenzy around you and the franchise. It could impact your sponsorships,oursponsorships… There are so many angles and variables at play here. Not to mention that you have a girlfriend.” He keeps flicking, pinching, enlarging pixels into conclusions.
After going back and forth for a while, he pauses on one of the least blurry pictures and zooms into a darkened corner where my bicep is partly cut off at an odd angle.
My arm burns as soon as I set my eyes on the detail he circles in red. I can feel the panic rolling through me like an avalanche ready to take me out. And my heart is still beating. Still fighting frantically against the sharp pain pulverizing my chest. Beating somewhere without me.
“Who else was there?” Shayne asks, moving to the dining table where Coach and Connie have sat down. When I shake my head in reply, he levels me with an unmoving stare. “Now isn’t the time to protect others, Sylkes. Save yourself.”
It’s too late for that. The past can’t be changed.
“Eli…” Connie drawls my name, inviting me to sit beside her. When I don’t budge from where I’m standing, she gets up and rounds to my side. “That article doesn’t change who you are.”
“With all due respect, Dr. Armstrong, there are times when a person’s public image is his character, and this is one of those times. This article suggests that Elijah has been having a secret affair with another man.” He swipes to the last image attached to the email, and my entire body goes cold. “That boy… this man.”
I study the leading angle of the photograph and the story it shows. A lie. I don’t remember being this close to Ryker when he followed me out to the parking lot at the rink. I know he came close, but… not this close.
With the door of my SUV open, it shields our faces in a way that, with our closeness, looks like we’re caught in an intimate moment. Like we’re kissing.
Bile rises up my throat. The immediate urge to run bites at my heels. That’s the only way I can protect myself right now.
“We’re not even friends anymore,” I say as I head for the door.
“Sylkes,” Coach calls after me. “Elijah… Son…”
“Wait, please,” Cecilia lunges in front of me. She looks flustered as she sucks in a deep breath and says, “That’s Coach Hallman.”
“What do you know, Four?” Shayne asks at the same time as she tells me, “I overheard your argument when he came to the training facility.”
“What argument?” Coach comes to stand at my side.
Cecilia pulls back with an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, but I think you have options. There are ways we can spin this if we look at the facts. When he came to the facility, he was obviously harassing you.”
