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“Actually, no.”
“So, you don't want to explain this?” he asked, placing his phone in front of me, the image of McCoy and me piercing another hole in my chest.
“Again, no.”
“Are you dating him?”
“No,” I said. “I don't think there is anything more to say.”
“How about telling me how you came to be photographed with him early this morning.”
“We stayed in the same hotel last night. This morning, when that photo was taken, he’d just said goodbye to my family. There’s nothing more to it than that.”
Richard’s eyebrows almost shot off his forehead. “You introduced him to your family?”
“My nephew is a fan. Radleigh was just being nice.”
“There was a time when you wouldn't have thought that was possible,” Richard pointed out.
That seemed like an eternity ago.
“Things change.”
“Leah, if you and Radleigh are-”
“We're not!” I erupted. “We're not a couple, we aren't anything!”
“Leah -”
“Don't tell me to calm down! I’ve been branded as the team slut and I haven’t even done anything wrong. I’m tired, okay? I’m tired of fighting to get people to respect me, and I’m tired of wondering how long it will take before people forgive me for making one mistake! It's like being back in high school! I'm sick of it!”
All the anger and pain flooded out of me. I couldn't seem to stop it. I didn't want to. I wanted to yell in rage at how hurt I was. As the tears began to fall from my eyes, I said, “I didn't deserve any of this.”
Richard watched me for a moment and I wiped my eyes as he stood up and walked around the desk towards me. I looked up at him defiantly and he said, “You knew how people viewed McCoy before you started hanging out with him. Whatever kind of relationship you have with him, people were always going to talk.”
“How they view him is one thing. Making rash judgements about me based only on circumstance and rumours is quite another.”
There was a long, desperately uncomfortable pause, then Richard said, “We need to talk about your future here. I understand that you didn’t ask to be placed in a situation that made you sacrifice your own reputation to get McCoy out of trouble, and as angry and disappointed as I was with your actions, I always respected the fact that you saved his career. But this can’t keep happening. I don’t care that McCoy’s photo is all over the internet because he gets photographed with women all the time. It’s the fact that it’s you, the team physiotherapist that makes it a problem.”
“You know what,” I said, my eyes burning with tears. “I can save you the trouble of firing me. First thing tomorrow morning, I’ll be handing in my notice.”
Chapter 18: Numb
The decision to leave the Warriors was a spur of the moment one, made while over-emotional and angry. After leaving Richard's office and getting on with the rest of my day, I knew it was right.
I didn't care what anyone would think, I just wanted to be away from all the drama. Working at Westberg seemed like the perfect job on the surface, but I hadn’t signed on to deal with media speculation and psychotic stalkers.
The one thing resounding in my head was Radleigh saying he was happy with the way things were between us. That he didn't want anything more. If it had hurt at the time, it was nothing compared to how excruciating it got as the day wore on. Like a spider spinning a web of misery inside me, it grew bigger and stronger, trapping every negative thought and letting them hang there, ugly and painful until they were all I could see.
How stupid of me to think he cared.
It's not so easy to tame a ladies' man, and Radleigh was never going to be tamed.
Or maybe I just wasn't good enough.
As predicted, the photographs made it into the newspapers and I was only saved from the gossip-hungry journalists outside the stadium by Freya, who parked directly by the stadium entrance and bundled me into her car in a blur of blinding, flashing lights.
She drove me home in silence. We hadn’t had a chance to talk much that afternoon but I knew she’d seen the photos too. I could tell by the disappointment in her eyes. It made me furious that she didn’t even ask me about it. Like everyone else, she assumed the worst.
