Page 26 of Your Biggest Downfall (Ravens Hockey #3)

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The entire day passed in a numb haze, as if yesterday hadn’t happened or like it wasn’t affecting me at all.

I went through the motions—picking up Iris’s dry cleaning, grabbing her lunch, running her errands—but it all felt distant, as though I was watching someone else live my life.

Iris had specifically requested I complete those tasks at the same time as the meeting with Austin.

Initially, I was annoyed. I should have been in that meeting, there to reassure him that he was going to be okay and that he needed to go.

But by the time I returned to the arena, I found myself oddly grateful for Iris having given me the trivial errands, which had kept me distracted.

After our conversation earlier, I realized she knew what was going on, and that was her way of keeping me out of the meeting.

Luna kept texting me, checking in, asking how I was feeling.

I kept responding with the same word: fine.

I was fine. Numb, but fine. The truth was, I didn’t want to dig any deeper.

If I did, I was afraid of what I might find.

So I kept it all at arm’s length, pretending that everything was normal, that nothing had changed.

But while I was waiting in line for Iris’s lunch order, I caved and checked social media.

I couldn’t help myself. I scrolled through the comments on a few posts, seeing the buzz around Austin, the speculation, the opinions flying left and right.

No one knew it was me. They had no idea who the girl in the photo was, and for a moment, a twisted sense of relief washed over me.

But that relief was fleeting. The numbness crept back in, and I put my phone away, forcing myself to focus on the task at hand. It was easier to pretend everything was fine when I didn’t have to confront the reality lurking beneath the surface.

As I handed over Iris’s lunch and coffee, I pasted on a smile, trying to convince myself as much as anyone else that I was okay.

That I was fine. But deep down, I was biding my time, waiting for the inevitable crash when the numbness would wear off and I’d have to face the fallout of everything that had happened.

Iris was behind her desk.

“Everything is set. I’ll go ahead and see you Tuesday.”

According to our contracts, we were to be given a mandatory day off the next day since we’d had a crisis. So, I was going to take tomorrow to see Mami. She didn’t know what was happening with work, only that I had texted her and Aunt Mae that there was a crisis and I wouldn’t be there, yet again.

“No.” Iris’s stern tone shocked me.

“No?” I asked.

“Come here.”

I was in the twilight zone. She never asked me to approve or look at what she put out. I knew it had to have been the statement. I wanted to ask how Austin took it at the meeting, but I didn’t want to pry.

I walked a few steps and stopped behind her so I could look over her shoulder.

She looked up at me, then back down at her computer. She wasn’t typing though. “He’s going to a thirty-day rehab. It wasn’t pretty, but he is going.”

I nodded... numbly. The coat of armor I’d conjured for myself this morning was coming in handy. I swallowed. No one else was going to tell me. I doubt he told his family who the girl was.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

I blinked, holding my eyes closed a little longer than usual.

I never knew my father, never had or needed a man in my life, so men had always been a mystery to me—a distant, unapproachable concept.

But then Austin showed up, crying at my door, and it shattered the illusion that men were these strong and emotionless beings.

The same guy who had been doing blow off my ass hours earlier was bawling his eyes out.

It hurt more than the shame I felt for myself.

I wasn’t used to seeing men like that—broken, raw, desperate. And I wasn’t used to feeling anything other than indifference toward them. But Austin’s tears, his pain, got under my skin in a way I hadn’t expected.

“I posted our official statement to all our social accounts, including emailing all necessary companies and persons.”

As I scanned the document, a wave of sadness swept through me.

It wasn’t just about the situation—there was sadness for how deeply I had become entangled in something so destructive.

I had allowed this to happen. I had let the pressure of wanting to impress Austin cloud my judgment.

I got swept up in the thrill, the escape he promised, and I let it all happen.

But it wasn’t just about me. I let him fall too.

I watched as he spiraled, and I did nothing to pull him back.

He put his entire career on the line, and I didn’t stop him.

The magnitude of that realization was overwhelming.

How could I have been so blind, so wrapped up in my own desires that I didn’t see what was happening to him?

I was disappointed that I hadn’t stopped Austin when I had the chance, but more than that, the crushing humiliation of losing my virginity in a shitty bar bathroom weighed heavily on me.

I coughed a few times, trying to mask the pain, but it was impossible to ignore. I was drowning in a sea of regret, unable to breathe, unable to find a way to the surface. The reality of what I had done, what I had let happen, was suffocating.

“I, uh, this looks great.” Please don’t cry. I had worked all day not to break down, but the rush of emotions was colliding inside me all of a sudden. “I—I have to get to my mother. If there is anything else you need, then I can do it later?”

I backed away from her desk and tried to get to the door before the tears broke free.

“I’ll see you Tuesday” was Iris’s only response, and I was grateful nothing more needed to be said.

I grabbed my purse and walked out of the office. Reaching the entrance, I pushed open the doors. The moment I stepped outside, the sun’s warmth hit my face, a warmth that reminded me of being with Austin.

But that warmth was deceptive, a cruel contrast to the emptiness inside me.

As I stepped farther into the sunlight, the weight of everything I’d been holding in finally broke me.

My knees buckled, and I dropped to the ground.

The tears I’d been fighting back all day flooded out, and I cried.

I cried for the mess I was in, for the choices I’d made, for the pain I’d caused, and for the loss of something that had felt so good, if only for a moment.

I buried my face in my hands, the sobs racking my body as I let it all out.

The world around me blurred, and it was just me, alone with my guilt and regret.

The sun continued to beat down, and all I could do was cry, hoping that somehow, this outpouring of emotion would cleanse me, or at least numb the ache that had settled in my heart.

I’d let things go too far. I’d let myself be swept away by the excitement, by the desperate need to feel something other than the emptiness that had been gnawing at me for so long.

I’d let him take me to that place, both physically and emotionally, and in doing so, I had betrayed everything I thought I stood for.

I’d allowed myself to be complicit in his downward spiral, when I should have been the one to pull us both back before it went too far.

The shame burned through me, hotter than the sun on my face.

I couldn’t escape the knowledge that I had crossed a line, one I couldn’t uncross.

I cried because there was no undoing what had been done.

I cried because I had let my guard down, because I had allowed my desires to make me willfully ignorant of the consequences.

I cried because I had let him down, let myself down, and there was no going back.

I bawled for my friend who was in an unfamiliar place.

I was stripped bare, exposed to the world and to myself, and the shame cut deep. This was a wound that would linger, a scar destined to stay for a long time. And as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t blame anyone else. This was on me. I had allowed it to happen, and now I had to live with it.

When I finally pulled myself up from the sidewalk, I grabbed my phone and looked up the nearest NA meeting.

I needed to figure out how to be better for him.

I needed to understand him more. After finding a meeting that supported friends and family members of addicts that started in a half hour, I got an Uber and went straight there.

The shame and regret hurt me, but I couldn’t let it define me. Austin was going to be gone for thirty days, but when he got back, I was going to be stronger. I was going to do my own work so I could be better.

I hated that I still wanted to be with him. I hated that I still got butterflies for him. I hated that he understood me on such a deep level, maybe even deeper than Luna ever understood me.