Page 28

Chapter Twenty-Eight

A n entire month’s worth of accomplishments, gone.

Wiped out.

Pointless.

Wyatt has been sitting with me in silence for an hour. I think he can sense I don’t want talk. It’s not only that I’m disappointed, but rather that I feel completely defeated. And unworthy.

“Peyton?” The nurse who’s been taking my vitals today pops her head into my room, and both Wyatt and I lean forward, awaiting her words.

“Yeah?” I croak.

“Your parents are pulling around. It’s time to head home. We’ll bring the wheelchair in a minute.”

Such succinct instructions. Nothing about them makes me feel empowered. Someone else will push me down the hall. Someone else will drive me home. I won’t be going to my apartment at school or waking up the next day to take a new step forward. I’ll be working on getting out of bed again and straightening my leg, forcing it to feel the ground beneath it.

“ Groundhog Day ,” I utter.

“Huh?” Wyatt breathes out.

I shake my head.

“It’s like that movie, the one where he lives the same day over and over? Groundhog Day ? Until he can figure out the magic thing that lets him move on to the next day.” My parents love that movie. That movie and everything Adam Sandler has ever made. When other kids watched cartoons, I watched Happy Gilmore .

“I remember that one,” Wyatt says, moving his hand along my back. His fingertips touch the scar on my spine. It feels different, and I shudder.

“Sorry,” he says, pulling his hand away.

I shake my head.

“It doesn’t hurt. I just . . . hate it.”

His eyes drop and he slides off the bed.

“Oh.”

“It’s not you. I mean, I hate what that scar represents. And I’m going to hate the new one, too. And then next month, ha! Probably something else.” I flap my arms at my side, and Wyatt’s gaze stays on my hands for a beat.

“You know, last time you couldn’t move your arm all that much at the start. So, it’s not all gone.” His eyes flit up to me, but I can’t meet his stare. I can feel the flat line of my mouth.

Wyatt helps me move to the edge of the bed when the nurse comes with the chair, and he follows along as I’m pushed to the elevator, then down to the lobby where my dad takes over, guiding me out to my grandmother’s car. They decided to swap out my mom’s SUV today for something with a lower profile. It’s easier to climb into a sedan.

“I’ll see you at the house,” Wyatt says, taking my hand briefly as my mom helps me straighten my legs in the passenger seat.

“Oh, you don’t have to—” He’s gone before I finish, and when I turn to face my mom, she levels me with look of pity.

“Don’t,” I say, not wanting the lecture about pushing people away.

“I’ll stop if you stop,” she says, and as pissed off as her retort makes me, it also makes me puff out a tiny laugh.

My dad climbs into the back seat and we make the long drive home. The driveway is packed with cars, which means everyone is here—both sets of grandparents, Aunt Sarah and Uncle Jason, and Wyatt’s mom. My parents had planned on having everyone over for dinner, and I guess they didn’t change the plans despite, well, fucking this.

We pull in and park, Wyatt coming to a stop behind us, and my dad rushes around the car to open my door. In seconds, it’s nothing but hands reaching in for me. It overwhelms my senses, and nobody seems to be able to figure out the best way to get me out of the car. What’s worse? Nobody seems to be asking me—the one needing out of the fucking car!

“Just . . . stop!” I slap my thighs, and the sting on my skin of each leg hurts equally. I blink for a second, registering that fact and putting it in my new book of wins. If I’m going to do this all again, I need to do it my way. And people need to listen.

“Wyatt, help me get out of this low-rider. Mom and Dad? Go inside. Get dinner going so we can all eat, and then everyone can go back to where they came from, and I can go to bed.”

My dad’s jaw flexes, his instinct to dig in and fight me warring with wanting to make his daughter happy. My mom meets my stare, and I mouth, “Please.” She gives me a soft nod and turns into my father, pressing her hand on his chest to urge him inside.

“They’ve got this,” she says.

Wyatt hangs outside the car, his hands balled into fists at his sides. I think he’s waiting for me to tell him what to do, which is why I wanted it to be him. Of everyone in my family, he’s the most likely to hear me. To listen. But I need him to hear it all. Even the part he’s not going to like.

“I just want to sit in the air with you for a little while. Help me to the back of the car?” I look up at him and he nods.

Kneeling, he scoops a hand under my thighs to help me twist in the seat. I loop my hands around his neck and hang from him as he holds my hips and helps me into a standing position. I feel like I’m choking him, and my body feels heavier than it did before.

I prompt Wyatt to brace me under my right arm, and he holds me tightly against his side, my feet barely needing to work as we slowly make our way to the back of my grandmother’s car. I lean against the bumper, not quite sitting but not standing either. It will have to do. Wyatt mimics me.

“Until the sun sets, yeah?”

“Okay,” he answers.

I close my eyes and inhale the desert air. There’s a thread of coolness running through it, like fall wants to happen. It’s different out here. The heat has levels, and when it’s football season, it’s still hot in the desert, but not as hot as it can be. But this ribbon of coolness isn’t warm at all. It has a chill. I’m ready for it.

“I don’t want you to come for a while,” I say.

“Peyt—”

I hold up my hand, unable to look at him.

“I’m not being a brat or trying to be dramatic. I’m just being real, Wyatt. I know Bryce had nothing to do with the story that guy wrote?—”

“ Pssh , that was just bullshit press, Peyt. That’s nothing.”

I give in to the temptation to look him in the eyes, and when I do, as hard as he’s trying to hide it, I can see his reservation. There’s a weight pulling them down. His upper lip twitches. He feels the pressure.

“You said the Heisman talk wasn’t important,” I point out.

He shrugs.

“It’s not.”

I laugh, then lean my head back to look at the sky when my eyes water.

“But it is, Wyatt. You’ve known for years that this draft class is going to be tough. You’ve put in so much work. It’s the finish line. You cannot take yourself out of the race. Not when you’re this close. And I . . . I have to go back to the starting line. It’s going to take me years to get back to something close to what I was. At least a year to walk on my own.”

“So, I’ll help you,” he says.

My gaze snaps to his.

“But I don’t want you helping me. I want you fighting for your dream.”

We stare into each other’s eyes for several long, quiet seconds while the sun drops below the mountain crests. It paints us with a hue of orange, then violet. It’s beautiful. Wyatt’s beautiful. I love him so much. But I can’t be the thing that pulls him away from his dream.

“I don’t want to be the reason you have resentment in your heart,” I finally say.

“Peyt, I couldn’t. Not ever.”

I shake my head because I know he means it, but I also know it isn’t true. Nobody plans to be resentful; it simply creeps in over time.

“I’ll be right here. We’ll talk every day. Even after the draft. And I’ll memorize whatever time zone you’re in when you get there, to whatever team is lucky to score you. And then, maybe . . .”

“Fucking maybe? Peyt, there’s no maybe. There’s us. This isn’t going anywhere. You’re being?—”

“Real. I’m being real, Wyatt. And I agree. I believe in us. But for now, I need to know that you are giving football your all. And I promise I’ll give this my all too.”

He shakes his head again, his gaze drifting off to the side before he steps in front of me and cups my cheeks with both hands. He licks his lips, then closes the short distance to press his mouth to mine, taking his time to suck in my top lip before my bottom. It’s a deep kiss, his tongue tangling with mine until he pulls a soft moan from my body, and my hands move to clutch the front of his sweatshirt on instinct.

When he pulls away, he holds my stare, his mouth a hard line, his eyes devoid of tears—but nothing about his expression is happy.

“We’ll talk about this more later. I’ll let you have your way for now, but . . . uh uh. I’m not done with my argument just yet.”

I sigh and he quickly retorts, “Sorry, but I’m not.”

He glances down to our feet, and I follow his gaze. Our toes don’t match up, his left foot pointing at me while mine veers off to the side. I can’t feel it doing that. I feel the shoe over my foot, the compression sock that squeezes me all the way up to my knee. I even feel the chill in the air bringing my skin to pebbles. But I can’t tell that my foot isn’t ready to move forward. And I was just on the cusp of being able to try a step on my own before one blood clot, and not even a long procedure to remove it, ruined everything.

“Let’s get you inside. If you don’t mind, I’d like to stay for dinner and then I’ll let you have your way . . . for now. I’ll go back to campus and get up for weights in the morning, then prep for our game Saturday. But this conversation is only on pause.”

I breathe in through my nose and finally give him a little nod. When he feels free of the weight of having to care for me, he might realize just how much it’s been dragging him down.

Together, we shuffle our way forward, Wyatt knowing me well enough to understand I want to make this awkward walk without anyone’s help but his. I don’t want the walker—the old one or the new one. And though he’s doing most of the walking for me, I’m doing a little. It’s that little that gives me hope that next week there will be more on my own. And then next month, yet even more.

We make it to the door, and Wyatt holds my right side while I brace my body on the railing that my dad had installed to go along with my ramp. I’d like to take the stairs, but that’s way too ambitious. I was just starting to work on the transition from dirt to concrete before this setback. I’ll need to get back up to speed.

While Wyatt moves to my other side to help guide me up the ramp, we’re hit with the spot of headlights, and we both turn to squint to see who it is. The rumble of Whiskey’s truck stops, and when he kills the lights, I’m able to make out both him and Tasha inside. Wyatt chuckles just then, and I glance his way.

“What’s funny?”

He bunches his lips, staring at Whiskey’s truck for a beat, then moving his gaze to me.

“I was on my way to tell you about it before your hospital trip. But you should know, for your own amusement tonight, that Tasha and Whiskey? They’re fucking.”

“They’re . . . what the fuck?”

“Hey, girl!” Tasha shouts, dropping from the passenger side of Whiskey’s lifted truck onto the driveway with a clomp as her boots smack down.

I’m still in shock, and no matter how loud my inner voice tells me to pull my shit together, my face doesn’t get the message. When Tasha steps in close enough to make out my features, her eyes instantly flash to Wyatt and her face turns a new shade of red.

“Wyatt! You told her?”

“You two are . . . fucking?” I say, moving my finger between both of our best friends just as my Aunt Sarah opens the front door.

“Hey, everyone! Peyton’s friend and Wyatt’s friend are fucking! Now we all know,” she announces, poking her head out the door and meeting Tasha’s incredulous expression with one only the queen can wear. Nobody does a mic drop like my Aunt Sarah.

Whiskey moves between us, carrying a case of beer as he steps inside. He glances at me on his way, and the smile on his face says it all.

Fucker wore her down.