Stadium of Lights: A Second Chance Sports Romance (13 page)

S
he had no business driving
, not in the condition she was in. I ran after her, but it was too late. Damn, my stupid fucking pride. I should have gone after her right way, but no. I had been too busy worrying about how it would look if I did.

“Where is she?” I asked the valet. “Did you give her the car yet?”

“The girl who was just here? The redhead?” Totally oblivious. I wondered if he had ever been punched out by an NFL quarterback before.

“Yes, her. Jesus.
The drunk one
.” I glared at him.

“She didn’t look drunk to me.” He shrugged.

“Get me my fucking car, and hurry! Shit!” I paced for the minute it took for them to bring the vehicle to me, then got behind the wheel. Where the hell would she have gone? It’s not like she was familiar with the area. I tried calling her.

“What?” She snapped. I breathed a sigh of relief. At least she had picked up the phone.

“Where are you? I wanna talk.”

“It’s too late for that, Max. You’ve had your whole fucking life to talk to me, and what did you do? You wasted what we had.” I could tell she was crying—even more reason for her to not be driving. It was late and dark, and she didn’t know where she was.

“Please, just stop where you are and let me meet you. You don’t realize how much you’re scaring me right now, driving when you’re upset, and you’ve been drinking.”

“Stop pretending you care,” she spat. God, there was so much resentment in her voice. So much bitterness. It washed over me in a wave. I deserved it. I deserved for her to hate me. As long as she hated me while pulling the car over, I wouldn’t mind.

“Don’t say I don’t care. If I didn’t care, I would have let you go and not done anything about it.” Where could she be? I drove around town, looking for her rental car. It was blue, I remembered. A four-door car, but I didn’t remember the brand. Probably because I didn’t pay attention to anything but myself. She was so right about me in so many ways, but there wasn’t any time to think about that. Not when I had to find her before she killed herself.

“You only care right now because it makes you look bad that I ran out on you,” she said.

“That’s not true! Is that what you think of me?” Traffic. Fuck. Well, maybe it wasn’t so bad. If she was stuck in it, too, then she wasn’t speeding down some dark road. Who the hell booked a hotel in the middle of nowhere?

“Yes, that’s what I think of you, and that’s the nice stuff. Just wait until you hear the other stuff.”

“Fine, tell me the other stuff, but tell me outside the car. Come on. Just stop somewhere and we’ll talk. Or you’ll talk, or yell, or throw things at me. Whatever you wanna do, only let’s do it outside of the car. Okay?”

“Fuck you, Max. I don’t want to play these games. You don’t get to tell me what to do anymore.” She hung up. I screamed out loud, banging my hands against the steering wheel. I tried calling back on the hands-free, but no luck. She wouldn’t answer anymore.

From my vantage point in the SUV, I could see a little further ahead than I would in a lower car. There weren’t many cars ahead of me, waiting for the light. I tried to make out the color of the cars, hoping that one of them was hers. I was losing hope when, four cars up, I saw a blue four-door make a left turn and swerve a bit when it did. Abby. And she had almost gotten into an accident.

I didn’t have a choice but to jump the line, flooring the gas pedal as I drove into the oncoming lane—luckily the turning lane had an extended green, and the oncoming traffic had just started coming toward me. I leaned on the horn, waving my arms to signal them to stay out of my way. The sound of blaring can horns rang in my ears as I made the left turn onto a dark road. I breathed a sigh of deep relief once the turn was made and I was on my way. At least I hadn’t hurt anybody.

Abby. I sped up, praying I could catch her car. If only she weren't driving too fast, but I knew her and the mood she was in. Anything to get far away from me, anything to show me that she could do what she wanted.

The road was a winding one. My eyes cut back and forth in the dark, looking to the sides of the road, waiting to find her car parked on the side of the road. I tried calling her again, desperate to hear her voice. I didn’t even know if I was behind her or some other driver in a blue car.

“Leave me the fuck along!” she screamed.

“Where are you? Is it a dark road with almost no lights and these roads are curvy.”

Pause. “How did you know that?”

“I’m behind you. Please, slow down and pull over. Let’s talk this out.” I thought I saw a blink of red upon the horizon, just at the top of a hill. They disappeared as the car went over.

“Just let me go, Max. I’m done.”

“Fine, fine. If that’s what you truly want then I won’t bother you again. All I ask from you is to just take care of yourself. That’s all I want you to do. Okay?”

She didn’t answer right away.

“Hello? You can ignore me, Abby all you want. I just wish you would have listened to me for a few seconds. But I get it. You’re done.”

Still no answer.

“Hello?”

Just then I heard a scream. An ear-shattering crash. It was enough to make me swerve. Had it come from over the phone or somewhere around me?

Then, silence.

“Hello? Abby?” The call was still connected. The time was still counting down on the dashboard display. “Abby? Talk to me!” My heart raced, panic flooding me with adrenaline. She had screamed. Why had she screamed?

I went over the hill I had seen her go over—and I saw why. A car, wrapped around a tree. Crumpled metal, broken glass, the smell of gasoline and smoke. Flames coming out from under the hood. My entire life flashed before my eyes at that moment, but not because I was about to die. Because she was my life, and she could be dead. Everything was so fucking clear in that one split second between seeing the car and knowing it was her, and pulling over to the side of the road.

There were houses on either side—we were in front of one. I saw lights go on in there while I leapt from the SUV and dashed to Abby’s car. She was still inside, buckled in, unconscious. The flames were getting bigger, closer.

“Abby! Abby, wake up!” I tried the door, but it was jammed shut from the force of the impact. I threw myself against it a few times, hoping to jar it, but it wouldn’t work. In my panic, I didn’t know what to do. She was out cold. Maybe dead for all I knew. A thick trickle of blood ran down the side of her head.

The people who owned the house came out. “Call 911! Now!” I screamed. “There’s a woman in here!” One of them ran back to the house while the other, a man, came over to help me. “Do you have a fire extinguisher?” I asked, running around to the other side of the car to try the passenger side. Nothing there, either.

“Yes, in the kitchen. I’ll go get it.” He ran inside. Meanwhile, I couldn’t open the back doors, as they were locked. I pulled off my shirt and wrapped it around my arm, then slammed my elbow against the glass once, twice. On the third try, the glass shattered. I opened the back passenger side door. The flames had grown higher, thick black smoke coming from under the hood and seeing into the car.

“Baby, wake up! Please, wake up!” I unlocked the door with shaking fingers, then climbed inside. She was still immobile. The fire was spreading further every second. Pretty soon the inside of the car would start to burn. I had to get her out. Adrenaline surged through me as I leaned over her seat to unbuckle her belt, only I couldn’t quite get to it at first. The way she had slumped over made it almost impossible to reach.

The homeowner came running with the extinguisher, but it was pretty useless compared to the fire that had started lapping at the console. Smoke started filling the car, a thick black smoke that choked me. I opened the other back door in the hopes of it leaving the car before going back to the buckle. “Come on!” I screamed. It was jammed. I pressed the button again and again. It was getting hot in there. So hot. “Help me!” I didn’t know who I was asking for help. Not Abby. She might have been dead, she was so still. I saw her chest rise and fall. No, she was alive, but breathing in the smoke.

There were more people around the car now, talking and pointing. The fire was almost too much to bear by then. Flames touched the seat next to Abby. I felt the hair on my arm burn as I struggled to get her out of the car.

Finally, at last, the belt released. I pulled her, knowing she could have a neck or spinal injury but also knowing I couldn’t leave her in a burning car. Her body started moving, but not enough—her legs were pinned. I climbed almost all the way over her to access the seat controls, and when I found the bar under the seat I pulled it up. The seat slid back. The metal scorched my hand, but I hardly felt it.

That gave me enough room to slide her body out of the front seat. She was on fire, her dress starting to burn up. I beat the flames out with my hands. I sensed rather than saw two people behind me—the smoke was too thick to see through. “Help me!” I coughed, and they reached in to take Abby by the shoulders and pull her out along with me. I took her feet, which had been burned. The soles of her shoes were half-melted.

They laid her on the grass, but that was too close. “Move! Move!” I yelled, then lifted her and carried her further away, closer to where I had parked. The fire trucks showed up just as flames engulfed the car. I sat with her body over my legs, holding her close to my chest. I rocked her back and forth, talking to her, saying whatever came to mind. None of it made sense, but nothing made sense in my head. Why wasn’t she waking up? Her face was sooty from the smoke, her eyes still closed. She was so still. I brushed her hair back, noticing how some of it had burned off. She had come so close.

“Please come back to me. Please. I need you.” I held her face close to mine, almost willing her to wake up. Demanding that she open her eyes to look at me. “Even if you wanna tell me off, just wake up and do it. Please, baby, please.”

“Sir? Sir, you have to let go of her now. We need to take her. Sir, let go now!” I realized two EMTs were trying to pry her away from me. I didn’t want to let her go, but I had to. They had to help her. They were gentle, at least, as they put her on a stretcher and stabilized her head. I wouldn’t leave her side, talking the whole time. Babbling. I wasn’t even making sense. I needed her to hear me, to know I was there. Why wasn’t she moving?

“Blood pressure’s dropping,” one of the EMTs said. “Come on! We have to go, now!”

“Let me come, too!” I begged, running after them.

“Sir, you need treatment as well.” They tried to shove me out of the way, but I fought, screaming her name. Someone in the ambulance put an oxygen mask over her face while another started an IV.

“Abby! Abby!” It took three bulky EMTs and a firefighter to hold me back as the doors to the ambulance closed. I watched helplessly as it pulled away, lights and siren going.

Then everything went black.

A
cool breeze
ruffled my hair and made the tears on my cheeks feel icy cold. I only noticed in the back of my mind, unable to care too much about what was happening around me. All I saw was what was directly in front of me. A big pile of fresh flowers, and the wooden casket underneath them.

“Why did you do that?” I whispered, my words carried away on the breeze. “Why did you run away from me? I wasn’t going to hurt you. I wanted to make everything right.”

I knew why she had run away. I had pushed her away. No matter how I had tried to save her, it wasn’t enough. If I hadn’t pushed, it wouldn’t have happened. She would still be with me.

“You only ever wanted to love me,” I whispered, and the tears welled up in my eyes. They were no comfort—I should have known well enough since I’d already cried so many of them. Until I was sure there were no more tears left in me. It wasn’t easy. I wasn’t used to crying, but then I wasn’t used to losing the only person I had ever loved, either.

I would never get the chance to tell her. I should have told her a hundred times, from all the way back when we were kids. I had loved her since then since we were young, but I was always too much of a coward to admit it. It didn’t make any sense. It all seemed ridiculous, looking back. I couldn’t remember what I was so afraid of anymore. But it was too late.

She was all alone in that casket. Everybody else had left. Her family. My family. The team and colleagues. Just the two of us, again. Only it wouldn’t be for long. They would make me leave while they lowered her down to the ground. I couldn’t watch them do that. Not to her. Not to my Abby.

My Abby. She had always been mine. I thought back to the time we’d been together, and all the memories hit me at once, almost hard enough to knock me down. I wished they would. I wished they’d knock me down so hard I would never get up. Because it was all my fault. She was gone, and it was my fault she was gone, and I wanted to go with her.

“I never deserved you. And this is my punishment. I have to live the rest of my life without you in it. I just wish I could have told you that I always loved you. Why didn’t I tell you? You deserved somebody who had the guts to tell you and to love you the way you needed to be loved. You deserved so much better than me.”

I looked up at the sky. How could it be so blue when the world was over? There was nothing left anymore. I could throw myself into the hole they’d dug for her, and it wouldn’t matter because I would be leaving nothing. “Why did you do this?” I asked no one in particular. God, maybe, only I didn’t believe in God anymore. Not when he could take away the life of somebody like her. No matter how hard I wished and prayed, he wouldn’t take me in her place. So why should I believe in him?

“I would do anything.” I looked back at that shiny casket. “I would do anything.”

“I would do anything.” I opened my eyes to the sound of beeping. A slow, steady rhythm. It was dark. Cool. The ceiling in front of my eyes.

What had happened? Did I have an accident outside the cemetery? Did I throw myself into the grave like I had wanted to? I had to be in the hospital. It was the only place in the world with that steady beeping noise.

I tried to move, but it wasn’t easy. My muscles were sorer than after the toughest game. And there was a tightness in my right arm. I turned my head, looking down. A line going in, tape over it. I moved my arm and felt the line pull a little.

“Where am I?” I was barely a whisper.

I heard a noise next to me. A tiny little woman. A nurse? She wore scrubs, her hair pulled back in a tight ponytail.

“You’re in the hospital, Mr. Anderson. But you’ll be all right.”

I cleared my throat. Why couldn’t I talk? I whispered, “Where did you find me? At the cemetery?”

“Cemetery? No, but you would have been if you’d stayed by that car much longer, from what I heard. You’re a crazy man, running to a burning car like that. They had to sedate you to even get you to the hospital.”

Running to a burning car? Then it was a dream, being at the cemetery? That meant …

“Where is she?” My throat felt scratchy like I’d swallowed sand. I cleared it and spoke again. “Where is she?”

“Who is
she
, Mr. Anderson?” The nurse wasn’t looking at me. She was too busy doing something with the line going into my arm. What the hell did I need a line in my arm for? What was I even doing in a hospital?

“She. Her. Abby. Where is she?” I looked around, confused. My head felt foggy. But it had been a dream. It had to be a dream. She couldn’t be dead.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know who you’re talking about. Just get some rest now, Mr. Anderson.”

“No.” I sat up, ignoring the way my head spun. “I need her. Where is she? Tell me!” My throat felt like it was on fire. Fire? I looked down at my hands. Bandaged. The fire.

I struggled to stand. The nurse ran around to the side of the bed, calling for help. It didn’t matter—she was nothing, nobody. I’d faced three-hundred-fifty-pound linebackers and brushed her off like she was a fly on my arm.

“Tell me where she is!” I disconnected the tube from the port in my arm and pulled the monitors from my chest. I yanked the tubes from my nose, ranting the entire time. “Tell me! Where is Abby?”

“I don’t know who you mean, Mr. Anderson. That’s the truth. Please, stop this. Get back into bed!” I heard an alarm going off in the hall. I brushed the nurse off again and pushed my way out the door, where two more nurses were running into the room.

“Abby Morrison. Where is Abby Morrison?” I took one of the women by the shoulders, screaming into her face, shaking her.

“I don’t know! Let go of me!” I did, disgusted.

I ran down the hall, looking into every open door. “Abby? Abby?” I was shouting, almost screaming. She had to be somewhere around there. Nothing mattered more than finding her. I could hardly walk a straight line, but I pushed through and called for her. She would hear me and know I needed her.

A burly male orderly was heading for me, reminding me of a player on the field. He wanted to sack me. I tried to feint left, but he read my moves and wrapped thick arms around my waist. I screamed for him to let me go, but his arms were steel bands.

“Come on, Mr. Anderson. Back to your room. You’ve been injured.” It was chaos—beeping alarms, people all around me. Yelling at me, pulling my arms, trying to get me back to the room. And my screams over theirs. Why didn’t they understand? I needed her. I had to find her. Why weren’t they listening? Was I still dreaming?

“Is she dead? Tell me! Where is she?” I looked from one of them to the other and back again, all around me. The had me surrounded. “Abby!”

“Mr. Anderson, we’re going to have to sedate you again.” I looked around and saw a doctor standing there, looking pretty pissed.

“No, please, don’t do that. Please.” I looked him in the eye. “I don’t need that. I’ll be calm. I just have to see her. I have to talk to Abby.”

His face fell a little, and my heart sank. “I need to see her no matter what’s wrong with her. Don’t you get it? I don’t care how bad she is or how long I have to wait. Please, just tell me where I can find her. Please.” I was close to tears, I realized. I just needed somebody to listen to me. Why didn’t they care?

He made a motion for the orderly to let me go, and I took him by the lapels of his white coat. “Tell me. Where is she? Is she dead?”

“I’ll take you to her,” he said. “She’s on another floor. I need you to do something for me, please.”

“What? Anything.” He needed to hurry so I could get to her. She had to know how I felt.

“You have to get into a wheelchair, and you have to promise you’ll get back to bed and listen to the nurses when you’re finished.”

“Fine, fine. Just please.” An orderly brought a wheelchair out for me, and the doctor escorted me into the elevator, then two floors down. More of the accident was coming back to me. The fire. It was so hot. And Abby. She was unconscious. Did she wake up? Was she badly burned? I couldn’t feel pain in my hands, which could have been painkillers or might have been adrenaline.

“Room four-oh-nine,” the doctor murmured. I got out of the wheelchair even though I heard the two of them telling me to come back and ran to room four-oh-nine. The door was closed—when I opened it, my heart was in my throat.

I heard the beeping first. Like the beeping I heard when I first woke up. Monitors. And there she was. Bandages on her face, her hands and head. My knees went a little weak, my chest felt like somebody was sitting on it. I couldn’t breathe.

But she was there. She was real, and she was breathing, and she was alive, and I had a chance to tell her how I felt.

“Baby?” I fell to my knees beside the bed, taking one of her bandaged hands in one of mine. Her eyes were closed. She didn’t flinch when she heard me speaking. “Can you hear me, Abby? Please, let me know if you can hear me.”

Her eyelids fluttered but didn’t open. Still, I took it as a good sign.

“Baby, you’re gonna be fine. I’m here with you, okay? I won’t leave you. I’ll never leave you again. Please, please, tell me you can hear me. I love you. Tell me you know I love you.”

Another flutter of her eyelids. Then, like a miracle from Heaven, they slowly slid open. I could hardly see her through the tears streaming down my face. She turned her head to look at me, and a small smile touched her lips.

“Max?”

“Yes, baby. It’s me. I’m right here.” I cried.

“You love me?” She mouthed it. I could make out the movement of her chapped, cracked lips.

“Yes. I love you. I’ve always loved you. You should have been mine since we were kids. I’ve loved you my whole life, but I was too damned stupid and blind to see it, and I almost ruined everything for us. Can you ever forgive me? Please? I’ll do anything to make it up to you. I’ll work for the rest of my life to make you happy, every day. I swear it. Please, forgive me.”

She smiled again, a tear trickling down her bandaged face. There were burns there, but I remembered the way she looked when I pulled her from the car. It was all coming back. There was nothing too bad. She would just need time to heal and get better.

“I love you,” she mouthed. I knew men like me didn’t get second chances all the time—sometimes they never did—so when she said those three words I couldn’t believe my luck. I would spend the rest of my life earning her trust, but it would be time well spent. And I would probably never deserve her, not all the way, because she was just too special. That didn’t mean I wouldn’t keep trying.

I spent hours sitting there with her until the doctors knew it was no use trying to keep us apart. Eventually, they moved a hospital bed into the room with her so we could be together until it was time to go home. I would never leave her again.