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Page 2 of Salvation (Rising From the Ashes #3)

Campbell

I t’s football time in Alabama. A season I used to love when I was younger.

The smell of the air on Friday nights. The sound of the crowd cheering on our team.

The taste of victory on a pretty girl’s lips after we win—not just any pretty girl, though—her.

It had to be her. All those things were a part of me.

I lived for them. I still like them now that I’m older, but the joy is muted—no longer in color but shades of gray.

“Block your man, Ellis,” I yell from the sidelines, now a coach instead of a player. “Block your man.”

It’s our first game of the season with thirty seconds left on the clock. The air is still sticky with the end of summer heat, and a bead of sweat drips down my temple.

It’s been a close game all night, and now we have the ball. We need to score to win. After losing at state last year, a lot is riding on this season. The boys want it, and we can get it with Hayes Miller, my best friend since grade school, coaching.

Hayes took over the program a year ago. He was reluctant at first. Football had a lot of bad memories attached to it. Ultimately, he agreed, and it was the best thing for him. Not only was he able to make peace with his past, but he also got his girl—after she broke his nose with a tire iron.

The boys line up, and the whistle blows.

This is the part where my heart should hammer and excitement should course through my veins.

But even though I still love this game, I feel nothing.

I haven’t since I was sixteen years old.

I smile when I’m supposed to—make jokes like people expect me to—but inside, I’m dead.

I guess that’s what happens when a man loses everything.

With the flick of his wrist, the center snaps the ball, and I hold my breath, watching the boys run the play we’ve practiced a thousand times.

“Please, God. Let me feel something. Anything,” I pray as the ball sails through the air, and the crowd waits in anticipation.

I’ve prayed that same prayer every day for years, but nothing ever changes. I keep trying, though, hoping my faith will be enough one day.

It has to be enough.

But when one heartbeat descends into the next and the ball falls into the receiver’s hands, that prayer goes unanswered again.

I’m numb.

Still, I go through the motions. I sling my hand in the air, cheering as the receiver sprints down the field. My voice can be heard above everyone else’s as he runs it in for a touchdown, and I take off running with the team to meet him in the end zone.

It’s a show I’ve perfected, and the irony is not lost on me.

I’ve learned that if people think you are happy, they won’t look close enough to know you’re not.

Reaching the end zone, everyone else crowds around the receiver, slapping him on the back and offering him congratulations, but I hang back, letting my eyes drift to the spot they always do at the end of a game—to the top right-hand corner of the bleachers.

It’s always empty, and yet, I always look anyway.

My eyes fall on the spot, and for one single second, I can feel my heart again as I spy familiar blonde curls.

Ivy.

The lights turn on, and my life gets brighter. The world lifts off my shoulders. I can breathe for the first time in years.

But then I blink, and the darkness returns—just like it always does when reality smacks into my chest. Ivy’s not here. She left, and she’s never coming back.

______________________

I walk in my back door, rubbing at my neck.

It’s late, and all I want to do is go to bed.

Tonight isn’t the first time I thought I saw Ivy.

She’s everywhere. The sound of her laughter in an aisle over at the grocery store.

The amber of her eyes in an unsuspecting stranger.

Her memory haunts me wherever I go, like a ghost intent on making me pay for my mistakes.

Scrubbing my hand down my face, I pull my phone from my pocket and tap the screen to check it before going to bed for the night.

Three missed calls from my mother stare back at me, and even though I would love to wait to return them until tomorrow, Della Rae Richards is not to be ignored.

I wouldn’t put it past her to show up at my house and stand over my bed in the middle of the night, all over an unreturned phone call.

The woman is crazy. In a good way, but still crazy.

So, pulling out a chair and sitting down, I swipe my thumb across my screen and press the phone to my ear. She answers on the second ring.

“Campbell,” she says before I can even say hello, “is that you?”

Two kids scream in the background, and I hear my mom cup her hand over the speaker to talk to them. I sigh, rubbing my free hand over my forehead, already exhausted from this conversation.

“Sorry about that, honey,” Mom says, returning her attention to the phone.

“Did Isaiah drop his kids off again?” I ask, already knowing the answer, but asking anyway.

My older brother, Isaiah, was the only child for a long time.

Our parents babied him, constantly bailing him out of everything, and that habit has continued now that he’s older.

By the time he was eighteen, he loved three things: my parents’ money, alcohol, and drugs.

There was a time when everyone thought he was doing better—getting his life together.

He met a girl, settled down, got married, and had a couple of kids, but when she divorced him last year, he slid right back into those old habits, relying on my parents to bail him out.

“Campbell,” Mom says my name with a warning.

“Was he at least sober today, Mom?” I have to ask.

She doesn’t say anything for one second—then two—but I already knew the answer in the first second.

“Mom.” There’s admonishment in my voice that I’m begging her to hear.

“No, Campbell. That’s my baby, and you don’t give up on your babies. I’ll just keep praying.”

It’s a stab in my chest, and she doesn’t even know it.

I sigh again, letting it go because no matter what I say about the situation, she’s never going to listen to me. Between my older brother and younger sister, Ali, my voice gets drowned out in the noise of their chaos.

“Did you need something, Mom? You called me. We had a game tonight, so I’m just getting home to return it.”

“I just wanted to see how you are doing, honey. That’s all.”

Warning signals go off in my head. It’s not that she never calls to check on me.

She does, but my relationship with my parents is weird.

I’ve always been independent, mostly because I was forced to be.

With two other kids who constantly need them, I try to make life easy on them so they don’t have to worry.

I keep my problems to myself because I can see how much the stress from my brother and sister weighs on them.

I think they don’t know what to do with me because of that.

So when she calls, there’s always a reason behind it—more than just to check on me.

“Uh-huh, and what’s the real reason?” I ask, a bit of teasing in my voice, ever playing the part.

“Fine. There’s this girl.”

“Nope.”

“Campbell.”

“No.”

“You’re going to die an old and lonely man, son. I need grandkids.”

I snort. Blackmail is my mom’s favorite tactic, but she’s terrible at it.

“You have grandkids.”

“I need more.”

“I think Liam and Indy are enough.”

It’s true. The twins are a handful, constantly coming up with tricks and playing them out together.

They’ll get arrested before they turn sixteen at this rate.

Don’t get me wrong, I love them, but they are free-spirited.

What I don’t add is that even if I were to find a girl, settle down, and get married, kids wouldn’t be a part of the equation.

Not after—I shake my head, clearing the thought before it can go too far.

The ice in my veins spreads a little further.

A long sigh crackles over the phone into my ear. “I worry about you, Campbell.”

“There’s no need to, Mom. I’m happy.”

It’s a lie. I haven’t been happy since the day Ivy left Benton Falls, but that’s a story I never told my mother or anyone else.

Another scream comes from the background.

“Liam,” my mother yells, and I have to pull my phone away from my ear so the volume doesn’t pierce my eardrum. “Do not slide down that banister. You’ll break your neck.”

I make a note to thank my nephew later because I use his distraction as a way to end the conversation.

“Go take care of him, Mom. I’ll talk to you later.”

A beat of silence passes, like she’s torn between what’s happening in her home and talking to me. I make it easy on her.

“I promise, Mom. I’m fine. I have to go.”

I hang up the phone and set it on the table beside my keys before she has a chance to argue.

With the conversation over, I slip my shirt over my head and make my way to the bedroom. There’s a record player in the corner, and I stop there, sliding a record out of its cover and putting the needle in place.

A slow melody floats through the room—a sweet torture that I only listen to on the days I see Ivy, when I let my mind wander to where she might be and if she’s happy.

Maybe she’s angry, or maybe she’s numb like me.

Except when it comes to her, I’m not numb at all.

It’s the opposite. Instead of feeling nothing, a hundred emotions rush through my veins, racing to be the one that hits my heart and finally kills me.

Throwing my shirt into the dirty clothes hamper, I discard the rest of my clothes, grab a gray pair of sweatpants, and slide them on.

I’m just about to jump into bed when the doorbell rings. My eyes flick to the alarm clock on my bedside table, and my brows furrow. It’s almost eleven o’clock at night. Hayes is the only person who ever comes to my house, but never at this time.

Grumbling, I walk out of my bedroom and to the front door. My hand falls on the knob, and I slowly pull open the door. Honey-colored eyes meet mine, and this time, they are real.

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