Page 118 of Play the Last Card
My eyes sting and my throat feels scratchy. My stomach twists and turns.
But no tears so instead, I close my eyes.
***
I must have fallen asleep.
I wake up with my body tucked under the heavy covers of my bed and my arms circled tightly around a pillow. My bedroom is dark, the only light coming from the lit hallway lamps where the door has been left open. I sit up, letting the covers fall off my body.
Scott changed my clothes. I’m no longer wearing the jeans or the jersey I’d picked out. Instead, just an oversized Broncos t-shirt. I run my fingers through my hair, pushing the strands out of my face as I yawn. My body still hurts but my headache has gone and the pain in my chest has eased, if only a little.
This morning I left my bedroom in a state. Clothes everywhere, video tapes scattered all over my dresser, the box of football memorabilia open in the center of the room. It’s not a mess anymore. The clothes are gone, the tapes are stacked neatly on the dresser alongside the sealed box. The jersey I wore today is hanging from the curtain rod over my window.
I look at it and I think of my dad.
He would approve of Scott. I know deep down that he would.
Throughout the years, there've been so many times when Pops would try to tell me that my dad would’ve wanted me to love football like he did. To enjoy the game and the connection to him it gave me. I ignored him. Stupidly. I’d ignored a whole part of my dad that I could’ve had before now and even though I know that it’s ridiculous, part of me still hates football.
Still hates that it got him first.
My chest squeezes tightly as the push pull continues inside my head. I can’t move forward and I can’t go back. I know that it’s something I need to work through. Considering the man that’s downstairs probably sleeping on the couch. I can’t let him go, even if I really wanted to. He is a part of me now.
I lean over, opening my bedside drawer and fish out the card Katie gave me last week.
A therapist's office number is printed neatly under a picture of the older woman with gray hair and a kind smile. I turn the card over in my hands and practice taking some steady breaths.
I pull out my phone and set a reminder to call the number first thing on Monday morning.
Just as I’m placing the card back on the bedside, a small knock comes from my open bedroom door. Scott stands there, hair messy and black t-shirt wrinkled. He’s also changed from the suit he wore today. He holds a mug, steam drifting from the top.
“Hi.” I smile shyly at him.
“Hi, yourself.” He moves toward me, placing the mug on the bedside table next to the business card.
“What time is it?” I ask, reaching for my phone realizing when I picked it up before I hadn’t even glanced at the time.
“Just after six. Not late.” He rounds the bed and gets in next to me. As if my body is on autopilot; when he holds an arm out, I crawl into his lap. “You were only asleep for a couple of hours,” he finishes.
“Oh.” He finds a strand of my hair and begins to twirl it around his fingers.
“I made you some tea but if you’re hungry, we can order some dinner.”
“Okay,” I whisper. My heart hammers in my chest.
“What do you feel like? Pizza?” Around and around, my hair is twirled and twisted before he lets it go loose just to repeat the process.
“I don’t know.”
“Are you hungry?” My stomach answers for me with a growl. Scott chuckles and the sound seeps into my skin, chasing away some of the chill I’ve been feeling for weeks now.
“Ivy?” he asks. I hum in response but don’t look up at him. Gently he asks, “What’s the business card for?”
“Oh. A therapist,” I say. I push away from his chest and the strand of hair he’s holding drops around my face. “I’m going to go and talk to someone. A professional someone.”
“If that’s what you want to do, I think that’s a great idea,” he says softly. No judgment. No curiosity. No further questions. Just unwavering and unquestioned support.
I stare at his handsome face. There are questions I wanted to ask him before Pops passed. After I went to the hospital the night Scott got injured and then he wouldn’t stop blowing up my phone, I made a list of all the things that were still unsettling me.