I relive the pitch, and the gut-churning tear I felt. The weight of my arm as it fell to my side, useless.
When I open my eyes, the sky is gray, and I can’t tell if it’s early morning or evening time. I force myself out of bed, stumbling down the hall to the bathroom as silently as I can. It’s not that I don’t want to see my family, but seeing them means seeing the pitiful looks on their faces. The last thing I need right now is to have to comfort someone else.
I don’t bother turning on the lights as I use the bathroom. I half-ass brush my teeth and splash my face with tepid water, hoping it’ll snap some of the numbness out of me.
When it doesn’t, I return to my room, quickly shutting the door before anyone hears I’m awake. I grimace as I sit on the side of my bed, reaching a trembling hand out to grab the single white pill from the nightstand. I pop it, forcing a dry swallow, not needing to bother with the glass of water or sports drink that’s set out for me.
“You need to eat something,” my mom whispers as she pretends to busy herself by adjusting the sheets. “I’m worried, Lukas.”
“I’m not hungry,” I bite out, but when I open my eyes, the room is pitch black. My mom is nowhere to be seen.
I reach my arm out, my fumbling hand reaching for another little white pill. My fingertips bump it, and it falls—the tinging ping taunting me as it rattles onto the wooden floorboards. I prop myself up on my good elbow, peering over the side of the bed, looking around the floor for my savior. I spy it a few feet away, nestled against the foot of my dresser, but can’t muster the energy to get my pathetic ass out of bed to grab it. So, I lie back down.
The hinges of my bedroom door creak as they open, and quiet rage fills my veins at whoever it is not knocking first.
“I said, I wasn’t hungry,” I bark, not bothering to open my eyes. The soft swish of a bag hits the floor. The crack of toes as someone softly pads across my bedroom floor. I squeeze my eyes shut, feel the burn of tears as they gather. I can smell her before I see her, cherry blossom perfume wafts up from the foot of the bed as she circles to my good side.
“Mags?” I croak out, terrified to open my eyes in case this is nothing but a drug-induced dream.
The dip as she kneels on the bed tugs at the blankets, and I feel it against my skin. I know it’s real. Through blurred vision, I open my eyes as she crawls in next to me.
“I’m here, baby.” Her soft, slender frame lies next to me, perfectly tucking herself to my side. Her arm grazes across the pillow, coming around my head so she can pull me to her.
“Mags,” I croak again, burying my head into her chest. I press my face to her baggy sweater, letting it hide the tears that dare to fall from my eyes.
She pulls me tighter, raking her fingers through the sides of my hair, squeezing me as gently as she can. I wish I could hold her, wish I could pull her underneath me so tightly it fuses our bodies together. “Let it out, baby, I’m here.”
My bottom lip quivers, and I inhale a sharp breath. She presses her lips to the top of my head, and I feel the moment her body relaxes into mine. The tension that had been gripping my limbs, my lungs, finally starts to let up, and it’s enough that I can finally let go. “It’s over…” My voice cracks at the confession. The true realization that my dream has been shattered hits me.
“You don’t know it’s over yet. It’s just a setback.”
I shake my head against her chest. “It’s over, I can feel it.” Something deep inside me knows that I’ll never make it back on the field. Maybe if I hadn’t ignored it for so long. If I hadn’t tried to play tough, to convince myself that I was too young for an injury like this. I could see it on Coach’s face. He says he wants me back, and maybe he truly does, but it doesn’t matter how much he wants it, how badly I want it, my arm is truly and royally fucked. “I’ve lost it all.”
The dam breaks, and I feel the first sob choke from my throat. Magnolia pulls me tighter, cooing softly against my head as I let it all out. I cry quietly into her as she holds me, her strong grip grounding me. We lie like that, our legs entwined until my tears run dry, until my eyelids grow heavy, and I heave in that last shuddering breath, giving into the exhaustion.
CHAPTER 7
Magnolia
The early morning light breaks through the single pane window in Lukas’s bedroom. I’ve already been awake for an hour; my body’s fighting the time change from California to Iowa. I’ve laid still, watching the steady rise and fall of Lukas’s chest while he sleeps. The dark circles under his eyes make him look less like the cocky, happy boy I love, and more like the broken man Grayson described when he called me to tell me the news.
My gaze falls to the bandage over his shoulder, the tape and strap from the sling covering up his newest tattoo. I haven’t been able to see it in person yet, and even though I want him to sleep, my arm reaches out on instinct, my fingertip lightly tracing the border of the Black Water Crows logo that’s now permanently inked on his bicep. The day he turned eighteen, Lukas went to the tattoo shop with his brother, Theo, to get his first tattoo. A swirl of geometric shapes starts by his shoulder; the black ink growing more complex and intricate as it moves down his arm and over his back. He has a half-sleeve for now, with plans to make it a full sleeve some day. The team logo is the only non-geometric one, making it the focal point of his entire arm.
My throat burns, knowing that if he’s right, if he doesn’t get to return, he will have to look at his professional team’s logo in the mirror every day and wonder what could have been. Lukas stirs, and I halt my tracing for a second before I see one of his eyes pop open. He peeks over at me before adjusting himself, and I move so he can pull his good arm out from under me. “How are you feeling?” I whisper. Such an arbitrary question in theory.
Lukas seems to ponder that for a minute as he rubs the sleep from his eyes. Then he turns to face me, his arm falling to rest on my thigh and pull me closer to him. “Better now that you’re here.”
“I could have been here sooner if you had called me.”
He purses his chapped lips together at that, rubbing them over one another as he thinks. “I know. I wanted to, believe me, but I didn’t want you to be distracted during a show. I didn’t want you to refuse to perform so you could sit in a hospital waiting room for hours. And as much as I want you here with me, like you are right now, I didn’t think you could get time away.”
“So, you just weren’t going to tell me?”
“I don’t know. I honestly didn't really think.” He turns to me, and I notice that his normally sparkling blue eyes are muted gray. “I’m sorry, baby. The bottom line is, it wasn’t right, no matter my reason.” His hand squeezes my thigh. “How did you know, anyways?”
“Grayson called me.” And thank goodness that Grayson is the sensible one of the Hart siblings. I won’t tell Lukas that I was standing in the dressing room, hairspraying the crap out of my hair so it would hold for that night’s performance, when I saw a voicemail pop up on my phone from the Hart’s landline. I had expected terrible news, naturally, as I don’t talk to his family regularly, but when I heard Grayson’s baritone voice overthe line telling me that Lukas tore something in his shoulder, had surgery, and was already back home in Copper Ridge wasn’t anything I could have predicted.
“I should’ve been at the hospital with you, Lukas.”
