Page 134 of From Drummer to Gamer

“Yes,” she mumbled. “I just need some time to figure all this out.”

I nodded, hugging her tight to me.

Her softness was crushed tight to every inch of my hardness, smelling like sweet honey and vanilla. God, I already fucking missed her. I didn’t want to be apart from her for even a minute.

But just the opposite happened when she finally did wave me goodbye with glimmering eyes before she hurried to her apartment.

And I just stood there for a moment, watching her disappearing back as emptiness flooded my heart.

I never felt emotions like this before, like the unfamiliar feelings of loss. Like, somehow someone dug a huge gaping hole inside my chest and forgot to fill it up.

Only my firecracker had the power to fill it up.

But now she was gone.

I drove my empty self back home and when I entered the apartment, all I heard was silence.

Just like how I used to like.

But not anymore.

The Chan siblings slammed into my life so loudly and unapologetically that I thought it would be the worst decision of my life. But now it was quite the opposite.

I missed them.

Both of them.

Even that loudmouthed kid

But especially her.

Her breathtaking smile, her wide hazel eyes, and her beautiful heart.

I fucking missed it all, and they hadn’t even been gone a day.

CHAPTER 30

SIERRA

I was back home, but it felt like anything but home.

More like a prison.

A prison where I had reduced myself into an unrecognizable version of myself.

But the only person who did this to myself was me. I had no one else to blame.

I had a beautiful man waiting for me in New York and finals in exactly sixteen days, but here I was hiding in Iona.

Since finals was a grand affair, it took place in another stadium, and there was usually a few weeks’ gap for us to train. But this time, I was doing anything but training. I hadn’t touched my PC since semis, and I was also ignoring my teammates. I didn’t have it in me to let them down, but my heart just wasn’t in it.

I thought I was so sure, like I knew what I wanted. And I thought I could be that strong girl who braved her chest and opposed her parents’ views and brought a gold back home to the incredible man who cared and supported her.

But all that dissolved into nothing in an instant. After they left that night, I tried. Itriedso hard to stay strong and prove myself, but the more I tried, the more the memories of my family flooded back to me.

My mom holding me to her chest whenever I was sick, her making me all my favorite food without me even asking, her softly caressing my head when I couldn’t fall asleep, her crying when I hurt my leg once, and my dad picking me up everyday after school with a grin on his face even though his work was on the other side of town.

It was then that I realized I missed them terribly.