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“I wouldn’t?—”
“Oaklynn,” I growled.
“Hey,” Damien berated me, arching his eyebrows. “She just wants to help.”
“This wouldn’t help,” I said, sending Oaklynn pleading eyes. “She doesn’t want anything to do with me. She doesn’t want to hear my name. She doesn’t want to hear my name. I hate that, but please… Don’t make it worse. Think aboutherright now.”
“I…” Oaklynn glanced at Damien uncertainly before folding and nodding her head dejectedly. “Okay. Gah. I won’t say anything.”
“Thank you.” Exhaling roughly, I glanced around at the others. “And that goes for all of you. If any of you visit her, you pretend I don’t exist unless she specifically asks something about me.Alright?”
“Jesus, fine,” Parker grumbled, while the others also gave their reluctant agreement.
“None of this fixes your panic attacks, though,” Thane said, circling back around to the issue I would’ve been happy to avoid for the rest of my life.
Huffing out a defeated breath, I said, “Actually, I think I’m going to be okay now. It only happened when I was around her, when she looked at me as if I were a stranger. But since getting to see her is off the table now…”
As my words trailed away and the realization that I was never going to be around her again hit me with renewed torment, I shuddered out an unsteady breath, and my vision darkened.
“Fuck,” I mumbled, gripping my head and sinking back against the couch before closing my eyes. “I’m never going to see her again.”
“Oh, damn,” Oaklynn uttered. “Is he, like, starting an attack right now?”
“Foster?” Thane’s calm, understanding voice came from directly in front of me. And when I opened my eyes, he was right there, kneeling before me.
I shook my head, feeling my face heat and probably turn a dark, tomato red. “What the hell am I going to do if one of these comes on when I’m being interviewed or—fuck—on the field?”
“Hey, don’t think about that,” Thane told me. “Because never once during all the stressful games you’ve played—two of them being national championships—has this ever happened to you on the field. It only has to do with your grieving process. Okay? In your unique situation, only grief causes this. And there’s nothing to grieve about in football or school. Right?”
I nodded because that made sense. “True. But what do I do when I start to think about Raina?”
Thane cringed before answering, “Sounds like you have to start grieving her.”
“But she didn’tdie,” Keene said.
Thane glanced his way sadly. “What theyhadtogether did.” Shrugging, he glanced back at me. “That’s what I had to do after Nova. It—it was the only way to finally move on.”
Tears filled my eyes. Because Keene was right. Raina was still alive; there was still an inkling of a chance to be with her again. It felt wrong to give up hope. And yet there was no way I was going to return to Raina and beg for another chance. It was better forherif I disappeared completely.
“Shit,” I admitted, wiping my cheeks to hide the tears, even though everyone knew I was fucking crying. “I don’t want to mourn her.”
“No one ever wants to mourn a loss,” Damien said quietly.
A sob caught in my throat, and Faith lost it. “Oh, goddammit, Foster. Come here. You need a hug.”
When she wrapped her arms around me, I tucked my face down on her shoulder to hide, and I let her console me. Seconds later, another set of soft feminine arms closed around me, and both of the girls hugged me until I had myself under control.
“Thanks,” I told them as I pulled back, feeling strange and bashful. “Sorry I cried all over you.”
“Don’t you even worry about that,” Oaklynn assured, squeezing my arm. “We’re here for anything you need.”
“Actually,” I started, lifting my eyebrows.
“Oh boy,” I could hear Keene tell Alec. “He’s going to ask for sex, isn’t he?”
As about three different hands smacked him on the back of the head, I sent him a scowl.
“No, dipshit. Jesus.” With a sigh, I turned back to Oaklynn and pulled a set of keys from my pocket to hold them out to her. “The next time you go to visit, do you think you could sneak these back into her bag of personal effects without her noticing?”
