Page 161 of Slapshot Bride

I don’t open it yet.

I just sit there, and a wave of sadness crashes into me.

For the first time in six years, I’m about to truly live the life I’ve dreamed, but the man who renewed my vision won’t be in it.

His life is breaking apart, and there’s nothing I can do to help him.

Maybe I should have never gotten into that car three months ago.

35

EASTON

Lasagna

Istill make two cups of coffee.

A little habit I picked up from the first day she moved in, that has now become a part of me, and I find it difficult to drop.

I come down at ten past six because my body doesn’t know the season’s been taken away from it, and I pull one shot. I reach for the second cup before my brain catches up, and then I stand there in the quiet kitchen with a cup in each hand like an idiot.

It’s been fourteen mornings since she left, and I’ve done this.

I pour it out, and I don’t look at the sink while I’m doing it.

I drink the coffee with milk just like hers. I don’t taste it, but I don’t care. It’s the smallest thing that keeps her in me.

Soon, her scent will fade from the house, but I’ll always remember she has her coffee with milk.

My phone beeps beside me. I glance at it.

Another news headline that I ignore.

My story broke the internet six days ago. The confession, then the league statement, then the think pieces, then a man on a morning show explaining to the world that cocaine isn't a performance enhancer, which turns out to be the single most useful sentence anyone has said about my life.

I take another sip of the coffee, and the sweet taste fills my mouth.

Fuck! I can almost taste her.

My fingers wrap tightly around the mug, the familiar ache in my chest returning.

It has gotten better since the news of her separation from Preston broke out.

The bastard. A sad part of me was happy. I don’t get her, and he doesn’t fucking have her either.

A little win.

Footage of Richard Brooks, Riley’s dad, taking him apart in the middle of his own front room has been circulating the media for the past week.

There’s a photograph of her from two days ago. Coming out of a building downtown with a camera bag on her shoulder and her hair down. No ring. Nobody’s hand at her back. Walking like she’s got the world at her feet, and damn right she does.

I’ve looked at it more times than I'm going to admit to anyone.

God! I want her badly. Want her with me. In my arms. In my bed. Forever.

I should be relieved. Everything I wanted for her, she has. But every time I see a picture of her, or even stalk her social media pages, it’s like there’s a rock lodged in my throat that won’t go.

And I have never in my life felt worse.