Page 73 of Hard to Hold

I take a step back and clear my throat to rid it of the emotions clogging it. “Make me understand. I need to understand.”

“I can’t make you understand, Rush. I can’t let you walk in my shoes nor understand what’s in my head. I can’t explain the daily grind I felt just to wake up, put clothes on, and pretend everything was normal when I was silently dying inside. All I can do is tell you I was a day or two away from doing it—my plans were made, my letters were written—when Esme walked into my life.”

Scrubbing a hand over my face, I head toward his kitchen and help myself to a drink. I need something to help me process this.

“How’d that happen?” I ask and then wince as the whiskey burns when it goes down.

“It was after a training session about five months ago. I was sitting in my car after I’d been told the club was considering cutting me for poor performance and fuck, mate, I was in a bad state. I was just about to pop some Oxycodone to take the edge off—”

“Bloody hell, Ror. How can you take that shit—”

“I’m off it now. I swear I am. But I saw Seth . . . saw Seth and Esme arguing. It was dark out, but they were beneath the lights while my car was in the shadows near a tree. He fucking hit her, mate. Hauled off and clocked her, and I just watched—stunned. She’s Esme, pop princess and wife of Liverpool’s captain, and he punched her in the stomach like it was something he did every day.”

What a fucking arsehole.

“Ror—”

“I’m not kidding, mate. The wanker hit her and then strolled to their car, got behind the wheel as if nothing had happened, and waited impatiently for her to get in. As they drove out of the car park, she looked my way—tears on her cheeks, and shame, so much shame in her eyes as they passed by.”

“You didn’t get out? You didn’t say anything?”

“No. I wish I had, but I was halfway to being high and the last thing I needed was our captain to let the club know he’d seen me using.”

“So what happened next?”

“I fell down the rabbit hole. Remember that week I was sick and missed training?”

“You weren’t sick?”

“No. I was drunk and high and one day in the middle of it all there was a knock on the door at about eleven o’clock at night and there she was, Esme. She had a black eye and had been roughed up. She told me I was the only one who knew anything about it, that she’d seen me that night so she knew I knew, and she needed a place to stay until Seth calmed down some. And that’s how it all started.”

“Fucking hell, mate.”

“I know it sounds like bullshit, but it’s true. She helped me get counseling and pulled me from the depths, and I was there for her because she didn’t want the press to know and somehow . . . we fell in love. She helped me turn my life around, Rush. I’m fitter than I have been in years, my head is clear, and I’m going to therapy regularly to learn strategies to live with the depression. I have my bad days, but how can I not love my life now?”

“Why didn’t you go to the police? Your dad? Why—”

“She begged me not to.”

“You could have at least gone to your mum. Helen would have helped you. You’re her everything.”

“I’ve fucked up so many times, Rush, I couldn’t stand to tell her I was using again. I couldn’t crush her like that when she’s been the only one who has ever had faith in me. When she’s helped me too many times before.” Tears well in his eyes and between the sight of them and his words, I feel like I’ve been hit with a knife in the chest. “I couldn’t disappoint her when I feel like that’s all she’s been when it comes to me as of late.”

“That’s crap. She loves you.”

“Yes, but love doesn’t fix the hurt you’ve caused. It just makes it ache a little less.”

His words are so very true.

“And now? Now what are you going to do?”

He sighs as he stares at me. “She keeps telling me she’s going to leave him but the timing has to be right. She’s busy getting her legal matters in order so that when they split, she doesn’t get screwed.”

“And if she doesn’t leave him? How are you going to handle that?”

“She will. I know she will.”

I stare at my oldest friend and know he believes it.