White twinkling lights hang from the wall, sheer blue curtain woven around them to create a dreamy, winter wonderland type atmosphere. Large pillars span the corners of the walls and at the front, raised on a small stage is a table full of trophies and plaques.
The guys are dressed in sharp suits and the girls in glowing gowns, all but the coaching staff, who opted for their sideline attire.
The music is soft and the food a sampler-style cultural mix.
After the staff has the tables cleared from dinner, champagne flutes are passed around to those with wristbands, sparkling cider for the rest of us. The head coach takes the stage, taps on the mic and begins to welcome everyone to the ninetieth annual winter gala.
“It’s not uncommon to have a good team and a decent season. I’ve been here for twenty-two years and there hasn’t been a single year I couldn’t claim the same, but there is a difference in good and gold, and this year, boys, the Avix U Sharks football team was fucking gold.”
The room erupts with hoots and hollers, Brady’s loud bark heard above each and every one.
The man goes on about his team, giving praise to them as a unit, sharing some of their trials with those of us who were none the wiser, and then he pauses. The man grabs the edge of the small podium he stands in front of and nods his head, a smile forming on his lips.
“You know, as a coach, there’s only so much I can do and I do it as best as I possibly can, but I know many of my boys cuss me out in their heads on a daily basis. A coach is only a coach.” He nods. “The true hero of this season’s success lies in the heart of the captain.”
People whistle and my stomach swirls. I subconsciously lean forward.
“Now, unfortunately, Noah Riley isn’t here tonight, but if he were, I’d take my hat off to the man. He took a team, built on a third of rookies, and led us to the playoffs in a year we were expected to be at the bottom of our division. He pulled many of you under his wing, and you all might not know this, ‘cause he surely never said a word, but that young man shifted his entire schedule around to be there to train and mentor every one of you who asked. He made us a family.”
The backs of my eyes sting.
“For that reason, he’s, without a doubt, and unanimous in votes from all thirty-nine of you on this roster, this year’s MVP. I’d like to invite Trey Donavon to the stage to accept this award on Noah’s behalf.”
The room erupts with cheers, and Cameron, his date for the night, screams from her seat beside me.
Trey pushes his sleeves a little higher, and a few guys give catcalls, making him smirk in response.
“Hey now, I got a girl, and she’s the jealous type,” he teases, and I playfully swat at Cameron.
He clears his throat, lifts the small trophy and looks it over. “Noah’s been my best friend for three years now, and I know I’ll be able to say the same thing thirty years from now.”
“Hey,” Chase whispers, and I reluctantly glance his way. “Wanna go get a drink? My buddy’s manning the bar.”
I shake my head, facing the stage once more as Trey continues.
“There ain’t a man out there more hard working and deserving of all the good the world has to offer more than him. I, uh, I know Coach asked me to accept this award, but there’s someone else here I’d like to invite up to do it instead.” Trey looks to Cameron behind me, and a frown builds along my face as he tears the mic from its holder and leaps off the stage, headed right for her. But then he says, “Arianna Johnson,” into the mic, and my spine straightens. Trey smiles. “My butterfly’s bestie, you might be thinking I’m crazy right now, and I sort of am, so that’s fine.” He’s in front of me now, and I look to Cameron when he drops to his knee with a wink. “Accept this award for our boy, Noah?”
“Uh…” My mouth opens, but all that comes out is a nervous chuckle, knowing all eyes are on me.
“Come on, please?” He gives me big puppy dog eyes.
I lift my hands, shrugging. “Sure.” I laugh, taking it from him.
The room cheers, and he laughs as he heads back to the stage, tossing the mic up at his coach.
The coach gives out a few other awards, Brady being the only freshman to receive one, and then the lights dim, the music growing a little louder.
Chase turns to me, extends a hand, and nods toward the dance floor.
“No one is dancing yet.”
“So.” His smile is bright. “I want to dance with you, and I don’t want to wait.”
Warmth spreads through me, and I push to my feet. Chase’s grin widens as he takes my hand, leading me to the center of the floor.
He spins me, making me laugh, and a blush rushes to my cheeks as I peek around to find several sets of eyes on us, some not as friendly as I’d have hoped. My muscles tense a bit, and Chase shakes his head.
He leans in, pressing his cheek to my face as he whispers, “Ignore them.” He pulls back, his palm gliding around my body, his right hand clasped with mine, but drawn in at our sides. His soft green eyes hold mine as his lips part, and he presses them against my knuckles. “You’re beautiful, Arianna. So beautiful.” His tone drops even lower and my chest clenches from the sound.
A few others join us on the dance floor, but I don’t pay them any mind.
I stay focused on the man before me.
“I used to dream of things like this,” I admit. “Dancing with you, holding on to you…”
His forehead falls to mine, and my eyes close.
“It’s all I’ve been thinking about,” he confesses. “I wasn’t sure I’d ever get the chance. I was a fool before, but no more. I’d choose you over anyone, Ari. No matter what. I’d choose you.”
My stomach dips, and I bury my face in his neck, inhaling his scent.
It’s sweet and peppery, subtle.
Where’s the cedar wood and sage, the minty breeze?
My lids open, a frown building along my brow, but then Chase’s hand leaves mine, and his soft palm falls against my cheek.
Where’s the rough texture, the heated skin?
I pull back slightly, and his eyes lock with mine.
“Ari,” he whispers, slipping closer, and my chest seizes.
But I can’t tell if it’s in anticipation or apprehension.
It’s confusing, and it aches, but maybe it aches for him?
For us.
For more.
So when his eyes fall to my lips, I lift my chin in invitation.
Chase’s mouth falls to mine, and my eyes close.
My heartbeat pounds hard against my rib cage, and he presses closer, his hand diving into my hair.
That’s when a sob breaks through me and I tug back, but before I’m forced to look at him, before he can say a word, my brother is there.
Mason slips between us, pulls me into his arms, and buries my head against his chest. He shields my face from the rest of the dance floor. I clutch his suit jacket, and he sways us slowly.
“It’s okay, honey,” he rasps, kissing my head. “It’s okay.”
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I don’t know why I’m crying.” I shudder, and his arms tighten. “I think it’s just overwhelming, you know? I’ve waited so long.”
Mason’s sigh rolls over me. “Yeah, I know.”
The pained frustration in his tone has me lifting my head. I swipe at my eyes and meet his.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Mason, what?” I beg. “What is it?”
His chin falls, and he shakes his head. “It’s really hard to stand back and let you lead. It scares me, that’s all.”
“That’s not all and you know it.” We stop moving. “Does it bother you to see me with him?”
“Not the way you’re used to.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“I know, but you won’t let me tell you what it does mean.” He reaches up, swiping at the edge of my eye and showing me the small black streak on the pad of his thumb. “It’s okay. Just promise me you’ll… move slow. Think things through before… anything.”
Pink darkens my cheeks, and I nod, a low chuckle leaving me. “I should probably go find my date, so he doesn’t think I’m crazy.”
“He knows better than that.” Mason’s lips pull to one side, and he releases me. “Go.”
With a deep breath, I nod, spinning on my heels.
To my surprise, Chase isn’t far, and he isn’t fazed. He waits for me, not fifteen feet away, champagne flutes in hand.
Biting at my lip, I step up to him, accepting the glass when he offers it. He quietly takes my hand, leading me to our table.
“Thank you for coming with me tonight.” He brushes his palm along my arm. “This shouldn’t have been our first dance. I should have taken you to the homecoming dance freshman year, and to every other one after that. I should have shown you how important you were to me a long time ago, and I want to make up for that,” he rasps, pressing a soft kiss to my shoulder. “Let me take you out this weekend. Just us.”
“Are you asking me on a date, Chase Harper?”
A hint of bashfulness washes over him, and he nods. “Yeah, I am. So what do you say? Go out with me?”
My stomach swirls, and I nod, earning a victorious smile from Chase. We face forward after that, sitting comfortably as we listen to the music play.
As I look around at all the smiling faces, our friends only feet away, one spreads across my own.
And for the first time in a long time, a small sense of hope sparks within me.
This feels right.
So why does it take effort to hold my head up?
Later that night, once we get home and settled in, I search for Noah to show him the award he won, but he’s nowhere to be found, so I set his trophy on my dresser and slip out of my dress for a quick shower.
My smile is wide as I step into the warm spray, the evening replaying before my eyes, the promise of tomorrow strong, but just as the excitement builds in my gut, it twists. It twists until it’s painful, and suddenly, I can’t breathe.
The calm from moments ago washes away with the water, swirling down the drain, taking me with it. Before I realize I’ve moved, I’m tucked into the corner, my legs drawn tight, my head buried against my knees.
I begin to cry.
At first, it’s emotionless, confusing tears, but slowly, the ache lets itself be known.
The shame seeps in.
And the guilt is nearly too much.
For weeks now, as I told the doctor, I’ve been silently screaming to remember what I’ve forgotten by blocking out what I knew, because what I knew was too painful and what I didn’t, I was desperate for.
So I pushed it all away, the good, the bad, and the sad.
The precious.
A sob racks through me, and I give into it.
I let it consume me.
Alone in the corner of the shower, I cry for all the things I’ve tried to force from my mind, but ache within me every day, nonetheless.
I cry for the child I lost, who I can hardly bring myself to acknowledge because the agony and loss it brings is unbearable. Downright devastating.
Being a mom is what I want most in the world and here I am, too weak to even think about the little life that’s no more.
The door is thrown open, and Cameron’s wide eyes appear. “Oh, sister…”
Taking the towel off the counter, she quickly turns off the water, drops to her knees beside me and wraps me in it, hugging herself to me.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Today was so much fun but—” I break off in another choked sob.
“But what?”
“I don’t know!” I shout. “I don’t know what the ‘but’ is for, but I feel it. Constantly. It follows me. Every step I take the ‘but’ is right there.”
Something fucking stings and she doesn’t understand.
No one does.
Not even me.
An overwhelming sense of self-hate slips in and my shoulders coil.
“I haven’t allowed myself to think of what I’ve lost in weeks, Cameron. I pushed away the one thing I knew for certain. Who does that?!” Tears pour down my face. “Who pushes away a memory that should be treasured?”
I haven’t spoken of or permitted the smallest hint of remembrance of the child that was growing inside me. My child.
I can’t even bring myself to go near Payton’s, that’s how hard it is.
“It hurts, Cam. My bones literally feel like they’re cracking when I think of him.” I admit. “I think it would have been a him. A boy. I don’t know why.” I shake my head. “But every time I touch my stomach, or accidentally wonder about him, I feel like I’m having a heart attack.”
“It’s okay, Ari,” she murmurs.
A bitter laugh leaves me, and I swipe at my nose. “No, it’s not. You just have no idea what else to say.”
“It is okay—”
“It’s not,” I snap when I don’t mean to. “I’m just pathetic. Completely fucking pathetic.”
Panic flares behind my chest, and it swells, locking off my airway, and I start to sweat. It’s as if my brain starts flashing, all these moving pictures and words, each blurrier than the last.
I might vomit.
“I don’t want to hide from myself anymore, but I can’t do this. Sometimes I want to swallow a handful of sleeping pills and hope when I wake, everything is different.”
“Don’t say that.”
“I feel that, Cam. I won’t, but I want to. I’m helpless. I feel like a fucking fraud, and I don’t know how to fix it.”
My muscles win out and my body hangs like dead weight.
My head falls to the tile, and while my eyes are open, I see nothing.
I think I scream, but I can’t be sure.
I hear nothing.
But a loud bang has me blinking, and I find my brother standing there.
His eyes are wide and his nostrils flared. He bends, scooping me up off the floor. When he speaks, his voice cracks, “Come here, little sister.”
He lowers me to my mattress, and Cameron quickly tosses a blanket over me, dragging the towel off me from under it.
Tears roll down my face, soaking the pillow beneath me. “I can’t do this, Mason.”
My brother’s grip on my hand tightens. He holds my gaze a long moment, his chest inflating with his full breath. He licks his lips, but he doesn’t speak until my lips pull into a small, encouraging smile.
Nerves have him fidgeting, but then he sets his shoulders straight, his eyes trained on mine.
“I know you’re confused and heartbroken in ways I can’t even imagine, but I need you to know something, something I’m dead fucking afraid to say, but that needs saying regardless.” He shifts on his knees, his free hand clasping over our joined ones. “I need you to know that as much as you’re hurting right now, as much as you’ve been, that there is a man out there who is hurting just as fucking much, with every breath he takes.” I suck in a choppy breath, and my brother’s eyes gloss over. “And not for himself, but for you.” His attention falls to my stomach. “For both of you.”
My lips tremble. “There is?”
“Yeah, baby sister.” He blinks, moisture shining along his lash line. “There is.”
My eyes squeeze shut and I nod. Slowly, he leans forward, kissing my temple before he releases me and falls against the wall at his back.
Cameron crawls into bed beside me, facing me on top of the covers.
Slowly, my breathing settles, and a soft smile pulls at her lips.
Tears fall from Cameron’s eyes, and when I reach up, wiping them away, she chuckles.
My eyes close, and a little while later, the sound of my door opening and closing has me stirring. My brother is gone, but Cameron is sound asleep in front of me. Whispers from the hall reach my ears.
“Tell me she’s okay.”
“She’s not. She’s pushing it all away. She’s going to break.”
“I’m going in.”
“I don’t think it’s the best time for that.”
“She’s mine, Mason. I should be the one to hold her. To remind her that she’s stronger than she knows.”
I drift off again, my dream full of a flashing color.
Of blue.
Of a bottomless, brilliant, ocean night blue.
His.
I’m his.
Whose?
Noah
Yesterday was rough. Last night was worse.
That seems to be the downward trend.
I wake wishful, and I go to sleep weak and weighted. I keep waiting for the moment when things will get better, but they don’t. Every day brings a new mountain to climb, and it only gets higher, steeper. It’s as if I’m at the bottom with a broken harness and no rope.
Except there seems to be an invisible one wrapped around my chest, and it tightens every time I look up to see her smiling face, pointed at a man who’s not me.
My mom’s going to realize things are getting worse the moment I’m in front of her, so I make a quick stop in the bathroom, splash some water on my face and take a moment to mask the broken man in the mirror.
It takes a little less effort when I reach her, finding her bed raised to the highest sitting position and a smile on her face.
“Hey, Mom.” I slip closer, my grin feeling a little foreign. I notice the wheelchair beside the bed and then Cathy steps around me.
“Hey, Noah.” She offers a small smile, meeting my eyes for a moment before focusing on my mom. “This young woman here has been watching the clock for you today.”
My mom swats at her playfully, and then she does something I’ve yet to see her accomplish, maneuvers her hips at a ninety-degree angle. On her own.
Her eyes come up to mine and a low chuckle leaves me. “Whoa, now. What’s this?” I rush around, unable to control the smile on my face as she reaches for me.
Taking her right hand in mine, I guide her, ready to support her left side, should she need me to, but she twists, planting right into the seat. Bent at the knee, I look up at her, and I’m almost overcome, but I don’t want to spoil this, so I swallow it back. “Someone has been killing it in therapy, huh?”
My mom laughs gently. “I’m feeling great, son.”
“That’s what I like to hear.” I push to my feet, leaning in to hug her. “So, where we going?”
“Cathy says there’s little cakes in the cafeteria next door. Thought we could try it out, see if it’s anything like mine.”
I chuckle, my knee bouncing. “Doubtful.”
“Well, we’ll just have to see. Besides, the coffee here tastes like used grinds, so I could use one step up.”
“You know I would have brought you something if you’d have asked.”
She waves me off, patting at the wheel, so I slip behind her, gripping the handles. “I wanted to go with you. I hear the decorations are still up in there.”
Smiling, I nod at Cathy and off we go.
Two slices of chocolate cake and an abandoned cup of coffee later, my mom sighs, her eyes on the giant nutcracker outside the long windows. She trails along the lit-up garland to the snowman holding a Christmas book.
“Do you remember the year we spent Christmas in the mountains?” She looks to me. “You said you didn’t want any gifts, but a night in the snow, so we booked that small cabin for one night?”
“And then we got snowed in and got to stay for another night for free.”
My mom laughs, a softness falling over her. “Yeah, we got lucky, didn’t we?”
She turns back to the table, picking at the frosting left on her plate, her eyes roaming the room with such joy, my throat thickens.
I’ve waited for this for so long, to see her up and around and happy to be in the world again, but her body has been too weak. She would try but moving into the chair alone would take so much energy, she’d be too tired for anything other than a short walk around the rehab facility.
The hardest part for me was not knowing the way she felt when she was alone, but I imagine the undeserved guilt she had in the beginning seeps in sometimes, and a wave of helplessness follows, but she still has so much life in her; I see it when I visit her. Every time I step into the room, she’s the mother I’ve always known, kind and loving and selfless.
Today helps prove it.
She’s getting stronger, there’s light in her eyes, and her movements have yet to grow heavy, even though we’ve been sitting here for over an hour now.
I needed this.
My world is so fucked up, but right now, seeing my mother turn to the woman a table over, chatting about the poinsettias and how red is the classic color everyone should stick with, everything feels okay. For the first time in forever, I feel like I can breathe.
A little while later, it’s time to take my mom back.
Inside her room, she ushers for me to sit, so I drop in the chair across from her.
“I had a dream last night,” she whispers softly. “It was Christmas Eve, and you were sitting by a tree with a box in your hand. You opened it and this…” She digs inside the small pocket over her chest. “Was inside.”
A small frown builds along my brow as my mother lowers a wedding band into my palm.
“Do you remember this ring?” she wonders.
Shaking my head, I lift it, eyeing the little diamonds along the side. “You found it when you were six or seven. You saw the neighbor using his metal detector, and he let you borrow it, so we took it down to the pier. We spent hours walking around and didn’t find a thing. Not even a bottle cap. You were about to give up, almost in tears, when suddenly, it beeped.”
A vague memory settles over me as I set the ring in my palm and look to her.
“This is the ring you dug up. You wrapped it and gave it to me for Christmas that year.”
“I do remember,” I rasp, a smile tugging at my lips. “You cried.”
She laughs. “I did. And then I had it properly cleaned and I saved it for you. I almost forgot about it until last night.”
“Your dream?”
She nods. “Yeah, it was sitting there in the box, and your hands started shaking when you pulled it out, but they stopped the moment you slid it on her finger.”
I swallow and my mother’s eyes grow soft. She takes my hand, squeezing.
“Mom…”
She reaches up, cupping my cheek as tears pool in her eyes.
“I am so proud of you, Noah Riley. You have become the man I always hoped you’d be.”
Moisture builds in my gaze, and my jaw flexes. “I had one hell of a woman show me the way.”
“You did, didn’t you.”
My chuckle is laced with emotion, and she smiles. “I love you, honey. With all my heart. Always.”
“I love you, too.”
With a deep breath, she pats my cheek, and I help her into her bed. “Today was a good day,” she whispers, a heaviness growing in her words, and I know it’s time to go.
I step out into the cool January air, and I ignore the moment of reprieve I feel.
Pulling my phone from my pocket, I scroll to the long list of missed calls and hit send.
Trey answers on the first ring. “Well, fuck me, he’s alive.”
I point my smile to the sky. “How about that beer?”
“I’m already headed out the door, my man. See you in twenty?”
“I’ll be there.”
Climbing behind the wheel of my truck, I roll down the windows and turn the music up.
Feeling lighter than I have in a long time, I head toward campus.
