Page 80 of Challenge
I don’t wait for her answer. I stand up and make my way around the table toward her. She won’t make eye contact with me, but when I reach out, she puts her hand in mine and stares at our fingers linked together. Tears continue to slide out over and over, but I still don’t say anything. Words aren’t what she needs right now.
The music isn’t slow. Not at all. People are dancing wildly around us, but I tune it all out. I wrap her in my arms and clasp her head to my chest. I begin slowly rocking her to the music, alternating between holding her, squeezing her, and running my fingers through her hair the entire time. Her shoulders shake every once in a while and I know she’s crying. All I want to do is take away the pain. I don’t want anything more in this world than to take away this pain she has in her.
My desperation to do this for her trumps football. It trumps my family. It trumps my desire to kiss her. What I want for her to feel in this second supersedes any sexual desire I’ve ever had for her.
I need her to feelthis.
“Let me take you home,” I whisper into her hair, loud enough she can hear me.
Her eyes shoot up to mine and the pain in them guts me. “No,” she exclaims. “I couldn’t stand it.”
My face falls. “Why, Indie?”
She shakes her head side-to-side like the answer should be clear as day. “Because I’m not right for this. I’m not right for you.”
I cup her face in my hands, my jawbone ticking with ferocious need to make her see. “Indie,please. Let me take you home.”
She jerks her head out of my hands. “No, Cam. This was a mistake. I don’t want you.”
Her words feel final as her watery eyes dry up, piercing through me once again.
“Just go find one of your hundreds of girls at your beck and call. Or that girl you punched Tanner over. If she’s worth fighting your brother for, she’s who you should be with.”
“She was you,” I growl, stepping back into her space.
Her face crumples in pain, and she walks backwards away from me. “If she was me, I feel bad for you because I’m not worth that.”
“Indie—”
“I’ll see you at your surgery, Camden.”
I want to chase after her. I want to say more. I want to show her my heart again, but I don’t…because I’ve already said too much. None of it will matter anyway.
She stumbles back over to the picnic table, grabs a confused Belle’s hand, and drags her toward the door and out of my heart.
For good this time.
THE NEXT THREE DAYS AFTEROld George are pretty grim. My body swirls in doubt and desperate thoughts of self-preservation. This is worse than the first time Indie blew me off because now I’ve seen more of her heart. I know more of her darkness. She showed me why she’s so damn attached to that stupid list, and it’s not something I can fix because she doesn’t want me.
So instead, I’m trying to figure out what the hell happened to me. I went from being on top of my game, pulling birds from my brother like it was nothing, to an emotional and physical cripple.
If I knew this was how feelings felt, I’d have avoided them like the horrid STD they are.
I head to Tower Park, hoping that standing on the pitch and looking up into the empty stands might give me some much needed perspective. It’s the place where it all began for me, so surely I can find some clarity there.
I drape myself out on the grass, deep in thought, but even this grass feels different. This pitch that I look at like hallowed ground feels pokey and all wrong against my back.
Where have my balls gone? I can’t control Indie. I can’t control my dad. I can’t control the surgery. I can’t control my recovery. But above all, I can’t get away from this deeply rooted fear of what my life could be like without football. It’s all making me crazy.
Feeling out of control is not an emotion I appreciate. I can’t gain power over a damn thing in my life and it’s eating me alive. I’m due to get the surgery on my knee in a week, and my entire body is roaring with anger over so many things that I think I might explode on the table.
Before I know it, I’m pressing the buzzer to Vi’s flat in Brick Lane. I need to talk to her more than I need to talk to anybody.
She lets me up, so I step inside the private alley lift that takes me to the eleventh floor of an old period building. Her flat occupies the entire floor. It’s a symbol of how different our dad treats her over us. Don’t get me wrong. Vi deserves every penny. She’s been the voice of reason for our family since the day she could speak. This is a small price to pay for how much she’s helped all of us.
But she’s a camera bag designer and not exactly making the kind of money it would take to be able to afford a London penthouse like this. She moved out of our dad’s Chigwell house a few years ago and bought this flat with a trust that he’d set aside for her. So it’s her money and she invested it wisely. Regardless, he’s never set up trusts for the rest of us. Gareth says it’s because we make more than he did back then. I think it’s because he doesn’t want us to be able to quit football.
When I walk in, Hayden meets me at the lift with Vi’s dog, Bruce, on a lead. “Hey, Cam.”
