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I looked at her for a moment. I felt angry as hell. “Do you think I give a damn about any of that?”
She looked like a deer in the headlights as she pulled the car out onto the street and started driving south. “I just meant that the test results take time and so hopefully your games will fall in times when you might not have to be here.”
“I’ll be here whenever I need to be. I’ll hit the games if, and when, I can.”
“Won’t you miss practices?”
I shook my head. “Yes, but it doesn’t matter, either way. What happens if I’m a match?”
“She’ll have tests to make sure she is well enough, then they’ll radiate her and your marrow will be administered via IV”
I nodded slowly, my eyes trained on her pained expression. My heart and soul was screaming for all three of us, and for the injustice of it all. I felt as if I were shoved into the past and reliving the pain of how it felt right after she left me. I’d wanted to lie down and die. Literally, I couldn’t breathe and that same type of misery was right in front of me again. “Okay.”
“Listen, Chase.” Teagan reached out and clasped my left hand with her right one. “It means a lot to me that you’re here. Even without knowing why you came.”
I could hear the emotion in her voice and it ripped at me. Why did it have to be so hard? Why couldn’t my heart forget this woman? Why did it hurt so fucking much? I sucked in a breath, filling my lungs to capacity, and against my will, my thumb brushed across the top of her hand. “You knew I’d come,” I said softly after I’d exhaled. “Like I ever had a choice.”
It was a heavy admission, but I wasn’t giving anything away that she didn’t already know. The bond you have with your first, and maybe only love, held you to the fucking ground no matter how much you wanted to be free. It pissed me off and tore my heart out at the same time. She destroyed me, and still, I was unable to choose not to love her. People who think unconditional love is the ultimate gift must be mentally deranged. In reality, it was utter torture; a cage that holds you without mercy, for life.
Teagan sniffed and used her left hand to dash away a tear. “I’m so sorry, Chase. I know how wrong I was.”
“Saying your sorry doesn’t change anything and it won’t erase any of it, Teagan,” I said wearily and then instantly regretted pulling my hand back. “Look, I’m sorry. I’m trying to wrap my head around it and it’s a lot to deal with all at once. Can we just get through this? Dredging up the past won’t do anyone any good. It’s about Remi, and honestly, she’s who I care about right now.”
By now she was pulling into a parking spot in front of the hotel, and left the engine running. “I just want to explain what happened—”
I put up my hand. “Maybe, but I don’t care what you need or want! Don’t you get that? I don’t want to hear it right now. I have to make some calls, and then I need to crash for a few hours before the doctor’s show up. Will you be at the hospital in the morning?”
She nodded. “I’m going back as soon as I run home to shower and change clothes, but I can pick you up about 5:30.”
My eyes narrowed. “You basically live at the hospital, then?”
“Sometimes it feels that way. She sleeps a lot, but I’m there most of the time. I only go home to clean up.”
Fury rose up inside my chest. She didn’t have to work, and he was paying for everything. “Jensen is a real saint.”
Teagan paused and looked at me; I could visibly see her suck in her breath. “He is. You don’t know the whole story.”
My hand reached for the door handle but the auto lock refused to allow me to open it. Pissed; I fumbled with the button and then flung the door open. “Don’t need to know anything more than he stole my whole fucking life. I feel like killing him, so if he wants to keep breathing he will stay the hell away from me.”
Teagan leaned across the seat to look out the window and then back over the front seat into the back when I opened it to pull out my bag and slammed the door. “None of it is his fault, Chase.”
I was half turned to start walking into the hotel then stopped abruptly and turned around, slamming my hand down on the top of her car, so hard it stung. She flinched inside the car, and then I leaned down to talk to her through the open window. “I’m not interested in hearing about my traitor best friend being there for you and Remi when I wasn’t even given a chance to do so. You made your choices; now we’re all paying the bill. You didn’t believe in me at all.” I spat out in disgust.
“I did believe in you! That’s why I didn’t tell you!”
I couldn’t take hearing any excuses and I was livid. I snapped. “I said, fucking save it, Teagan!” I shouted at her. “I don’t need to hear about your little picket fence and knight in shining armor or how he saw my child born and acted like her father, or think about him screwing you behind my back! I don’t need those pictures in my head right now! Just shut up!”
A family heading into the hotel stopped and stared before continuing on inside. “Come on, kids.” The man, obviously their father, ushered his children and his wife through the door.”
I leaned in toward her further after glancing around the parking lot to see if any others were around. “Nothing you can say will ever justify it.” The entire afternoon I’d been able to bottle it up while I was in front of my daughter, but I was seething and now, was on the verge of losing it. “I’m not here to offer you absolution. I’m here to do what I can for Remi… and to make up for the time I lost with her.”
Her face crumpled and she started to cry. As always, my heart allowed her pain to morph mine. I regretted the outburst, but it was the truth and I’d be goddamned if I’d let either of them off the hook after all I’d suffered. Year after year of pain and suffering; and for what? I still didn’t understand how she could think I would ever choose my career over her, let alone the precious, innocent child less than a mile away in that God-forsaken hospital.
Teagan was sobbing by now and I steeled myself to withstand the deep-seated pull to comfort her. I straightened and squared my shoulders, turned, and then stalked into the hotel leaving her behind me to deal with her own emotions.
The part of me that had always taken care of her reared and it was harder than hell to keep walking, but I was angry as fuck. She’d robbed me of so much and I’d be damned if I’d cave at the first sign of weakness from her. I felt like shit; sad, mad, and exhausted. My body was wiped out and my mind was wasted.
I went through the motions of getting a room, and in a sort of daze flipped out a credit card and laid it down. I was thankful that though I was well known in the world of soccer, only a fraction of the population followed the sport. The young man at the desk explained about the free breakfast and then asked how many keys I needed.
