Page 109 of Play the Last Card

But now as our eyes meet, it all reverts.

“You’re okay,” I mutter, speaking quietly to him knowing he knows without needing to hear me. I take a hesitant step toward him. Scott moves at the same time, gingerly pushing off the bed, shaking off the doctor’s hands gently.

The doors to the corridor open with a bang.

Noise from the reporters in the lobby muddles with the noise from the members of staff. Camera’s flash and questions are thrown from all directions. Uncle Jeff strides down the hall, eyes so fixated on Scott that he doesn’t notice me. Flynn is next, uniform still covered in dirt and sweat. Connors limps behind him, shaking off the defensive team’s physio as all three men make their way towards Scott.

Back flat against the corridor again, our eyes stay connected.

It’s as if he is my lifeline.

Everything feels richer, deeper, brighter again now that he’s looking at me.

I don’t want to blink in case the connection breaks and I am shoved back into the depths of the dark world I’ve been living in lately; a world without the green I so desperately crave.

I’m shoved back anyway.

Scott glances at Jeff and his teammates and the connection is broken. Everything dulls again and the pain in my chest throbs. Again I press a hand into my chest, watching him for only a moment more before I turn away. Slipping through the door, eyes watching the floor as I weave through reporters, and cameramen, and hospital staff alike. It’s the least I can do to keep the tears from clouding my vision.

I fail and hot, sticky tears spill down my cheeks in quick succession.

My sneakers slip over the ice-covered parking lot. The last of the air that had refilled my lungs when I’d been looking into his eyes escapes me as my arms shoot out, attempting to catch my balance. A few more feet and I’m pulling the driver’s side door closed and engulfing myself in the silence of my car.

I attempt to control my breathing as best I can but, as I should have expected, my phone chimes and cuts through the silence.

Scott:Don’t Leave.

My resolve completely crumbles and I let the sobs take over, wracking through my body, taking me over as the waves wash over me one at a time.

Scott:Ivy?

Pain slashes through my body.

My parents. Pops. All of it.

I lost all of them and I thought tonight I was going to lose Scott too. Weaved amongst it all is this fucking game, and the fucking attention, and all the goddamn, fucking press. But as the sobs wreck me and my tears run hot and salty down my cheeks, the locked box I have been keeping buried away bursts open and I feel as if I might pass out.

I was safe in my world before him.

Safe from the heartbreak, and the time lost, and the worry, and the spotlight.

Safe from grief.

It would be so much easier if I wasn’t completely and utterly in love with him. Maybe then I could just go back to the way it was but now? Now, no matter how much it hurts, I want him more than I want to hide away from dealing with my past.

Ivy:I needed to see you were okay with my own eyes.

Scott:Come back inside, baby.

Not yet.

First, even though I can’t be sure I’ll even survive it, I have to deal with my shit.

***

“Ives, are you sure you’re okay?” Katie sets a cup of tea on the coffee table in front of me. My phone lights up again, buzzing as it rings next to the tea. “And are you sure you don’t want to answer him?”

Thehimshe is referring to is Scott. He hasn’t stopped calling since I left the hospital last night. Katie was waiting for me when I got home. I hadn’t been able to explain anything, my body tired and my nerves shot from driving in the snow, but she’d stayed and was still here when I woke up this morning. I didn’t deserve her.