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Hayden looks across his pillow at me. He’s tired again. I can see it. So am I.
I fight sleep, doing my best to soak up everything I’ll need to draw before my time here is up.
At some point in the river, he must have crashed into one of those boulders. Most likely while stopping me from braining myself to death. A bruise darkens just below his clavicle.
It could be a shadow.
I go up on one elbow to check, touching it lightly, and he mistakes the reason. His own hand rises to his collarbone where, now I’m paying more attention, I see his fingertips trace an uneven pathway.
He touches a lump. “Fractured this side twice.”
“How.”
“Trying to make the first team.” He closes his eyes. “Stupid enough of me to do it once. Twice should have been a sign I was pushing too hard. So was me dislocating these more than once.” He touches each shoulder where those scars have had years to lighten from raw to faded. “My reactions were too slow, my balance off.” His hand next drifts to his forehead. “Blame it on the concussions.”
“Concussions, plural?”
He shrugs. “Occupational hazard.”
So that’s why he didn’t get to play in his big game. Failing a concussion test had to suck hard, especially after I’ve seen how much the game meant to him. I saw his reaction to those old goalposts. Now I get to see another reaction.
To me.
His eyes are the softest I’ve ever seen them. So is his voice.
“Worth playing through the pain.”
“Yeah?” I don’t see how it can be. Not after catching a glimpse of a family home and hearing how everyone he cares for could still live there if he hadn’t been scouted. How the fuck can any of that pain be worth it? “Really?”
I must sound disbelieving.
He nods more firmly.
“To end up here? Definitely.”
I almost ask, “At Glynn Harber?”
Hayden’s eyes drift closed again. This time they don’t open. He still finds my hand without looking and threads his fingers through mine in a silent and devastating answer.
My heart doesn’t only thunder all over again. It swells, close to exploding, as I guess his real reason to be grateful.
Because he ended up right here with me.
16
HAYDEN
It’s unreal to wake up for days with the same mental image, but that’s what happens all week long, even when I need to roll out of bed early to go and make hay. I still see Rae up on one elbow, exploring everywhere I hurt and not seeming to notice any weakness.
He looked at me like I was man of the match instead of someone who failed with the whole world watching, and I had no idea that him touching me where I was bruised would matter this much to me. Or that letting him see where I broke before time in a forest healed me would matter to him.
And who knew that my housemate’s happy humming was contagious?
Not me, but that’s what Rowan mentions over an early morning cuppa at the end of the week.
“I didn’t know you were a Disney fan.”
“Me?”
