The phone rings and rings, then goes to voicemail. Defeated, I go back into my mom’s room.
“She didn’t answer.” I chew my bottom lip and stare at the phone in my hand, willing it to light up with her return call.
“Why don’t you go to her house?” Sky asks.
I narrow my eyes at her. “What’s going on? You don’t evenlikeNoah.”
She shakes her head. “Not true. I didn’t like how broken-hearted you were, and I didn’t like him coming back when his brother got married and breaking your heart all over again. But, I do like him for you. In your heart you’ve never been able to let him go, even though you do it physically.” She stands up and comes to me, resting her hands on my shoulders. “I just want you to be happy, Ember. I want you to put yourself first.”
From the hospital bed Mom makes a garbled sound and we both rush to her. She tries it again, and another sound comes out. Over and over she does it, until the sounds turn into pieces of words. Sky brings her a sip of water, and she keeps going. Eventually she manages a short, hushed sentence.
“I love you girls.”
“Mom, we love you too,” Sky says through her tears.
I laugh even though I’m crying. My despair over Noah is overshadowed, until my phone rings from the counter. I peer over, reading the name flashing across the screen.
“It’s her.” I gulp, looking at my mom. Mom points to the phone insistently. I answer and bring the phone to my ear. “Johanna, hi.”
Her elegant, smooth voice comes through. “Ember? Is everything okay? How is your mother?”
“She woke up.” I smile at my mom. “She’s doing great.”
Just then the doctor walks in. Sky greets him and gently pushes me out of the room. “I got this,” she whispers. “You take care of you.”
I nod and walk a few feet down the hall, away from the flurry of activity at the nurses station.
“Sorry, Johanna, I had to leave the room I was in.” I pause to rub my forehead with my hand. “Listen, I know this might sound crazy, but I want to know when Noah is leaving today, if he already left, what airline he’s on, or if I should even be asking. I know he’s going back to Atlanta, and he’s going to play again, but—”
“Ember, slow down.”
I take a deep breath, nodding even though she can’t see me.
“First off, Noah and Miranda’s plane took off thirty minutes ago. They caught an earlier flight. Second, what do you mean he’s going to play again? He quit.”
I’m silent, staring at an indentation in the wall, trying to wrap my mind around Johanna’s words.He quit?
“He told me he’s rehabbing with the team, and he’s going to play again.”
“Oh, dear.” Johanna lets out a heavy breath. “That’s not true, Ember. I think,” she pauses, the line is quiet, then she says, “I think maybe he was letting you think that, so you could be happy with Matt. We had a conversation about sacrifice and selflessness. It’s his way of letting you go.”
“No,” I whisper. The indentation on the wall becomes watery, my vision swirls, and the tears flow quickly. He can’t let me go. He can’t. Not my Noah. Not the boy who pulled me from a lake and peered into my soul.
This crack in my heart is the worst of them all. I could patch the others, because I was letting him go to pursue a dream. But this… This is misery.
“I’m sorry,” Johanna says.
“I need to go,” I whisper, and hang up.
There is no place for me to hide. No place for me to break down. I want to rage. Wail. Scream. Pound my fists on the wall.
Squeezing my eyes and hands shut tight, I breathe in and out. In and out. My mind races even in my attempts to calm myself. Thoughts hurtle through my brain, colliding.
For years I’ve been holding on to the most precious parts of Noah. I always let him go chase his dream, but he never really left. He was in my heart. In my mind. He was softness at the end of my fingertips when I closed my eyes. A brush of lips against my temple when I let myself remember.
I’ve been the one letting him go. Not this time. That makes it so much worse. He quit the team. He’s going back to Atlanta.
He let me go.
