Chapter 43
COOPER
Ever since we got home from Rehoboth, Amara has retreated a little, and I’m not sure why.
While before we left, she slept in my bed every single night, she’s spent a few nights in her room. She said she hasn’t been feeling well.
Fluffernutter sits on the back of the couch, watching me as I clean up the kitchen from meal prepping.
The show is coming to an end soon. We’re going to be forced to either sign real marriage papers or go our separate ways. And while I’d like to think that I know which way this was going, the truth is I don’t.
Amara had no idea what I was thinking when I stopped speaking to her. Stopped responding to her. She thought she meant nothing when she really meant the world.
What if all of this boils down to nothing, and we lose each other again? What if she moves away? Or what if I get traded one day when my new contract is up?
Would she ever come with me?
It’s a lot to think about and consider, and I’m terrified that someone asked her about it and she’s decided it’s not worth it.
That she’s putting distance between us to let me down easy.
I was telling the truth months ago when I said I would accept her in any capacity she would give me. If she decides she wants to walk away, I’ll accept it.
But that doesn’t mean that I’m going to be happy about it. It doesn’t mean it won't break my heart.
The team has been doing really well this season, and we have an honest chance at the Super Bowl.
Coach, clearly having no faith in my ability to hold a relationship, has been growing more and more concerned as the show draws to a close.
While before, he wouldn’t even acknowledge it, even if cameras were in his face, he’s brought it up to me on more than one occasion in the last week, asking when the last day is and what I think is going to happen.
I watch the rain come down on the inner harbor, the boats across the way rocking.
Hearing Amara’s feet padding down the hall, I turn, only to find her frowning.
Alarm bells immediately sound in my head as I examine her expression. “Are you okay?” I ask.
She nods, sitting down. “We just have a really big decision to make here soon.” We do. I let her continue. “I’m just nervous, Cooper. This is a really big commitment, and I just—I don’t know. I want you to want it just as much as I do.”
I’m confused. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t even know.” She tosses her hands up, and they land at her sides with a thump. “I just don’t want to feel like I did before ever again.”
I can see the anxiety swirling in her brain, and I want nothing more than to kiss it all away.
But I can’t.
I also just don’t know how to explain—
“I was just thinking back to when I saw the obituary. And how hurt I was that you didn’t even call. You gave me no warning. And I didn’t even know that you were officially going to college. And I didn’t even know that you were drafted here until you were, well, here.”
Her voice grows louder as her thoughts become more jumbled. Unfortunately, mine do too.
“I just think—” I start, but she continues on, the same old talking points we’ve been discussing forever.
I don’t think I’ve explained it well enough, and part of me is angry that it’s even a question in her mind. But I remind myself that this is a legally binding agreement.
She’s entrusting me with a part of her. It’s a big decision that shouldn’t be taken lightly.
And through all of our history, I get that a good portion of it was soured.
My thoughts spin in my head as she talks, and I eventually can’t hear anything but a loud rushing in my ears, my thoughts screaming in my head. All of them come at me at the same exact time.
“I just think—”
I hold up my hand, immediately regretting it as her face flashes with hurt.
I run to the door, grabbing my running shoes. I don’t grab a jacket, not even thinking about how cold the rain is as I head down the building.
The ice-cold air hits me like a wrecking ball, and yet somehow, I can breathe better.
I just need to get my mind right.
I jog around the harbor slowly before heading up Federal Hill, running along the path Leo and I usually take.
There’s something about looking over the harbor that calms my nerves and quiets the world.
When everything is too loud, I have this little spot.
But there comes a time when the cold air starts to suffocate you. My shirt is soaking wet, and I know for a fact I’m going to be sick tomorrow. Coach is going to be pissed as hell.
I stop, my hands on my knees as the rain crashes down around me.
“Cooper!” a voice calls.
I turn slowly, watching as Amara runs over to me with a new shirt and my heavy coat. “Do you have a death wish?”
All I can hear is the rain, my head still rushing. But the second her warm skin grabs my hand, it all vanishes.
“Cooper, what’s going on?”
A tear rolls down my face, quickly washed away.
“Not responding to you is one of my single biggest regrets in this life, Amara. I just—” I look around, threading my fingers through my hair and pulling with frustration.
“I was so overwhelmed with shame. I didn’t know how to make anyone happy.
Grandpa was withering away by the month.
He wanted me to play football. That was it.
He just wanted to watch me play, but he was dying little by little every day.
We were losing him, and there was so much pressure to keep going with my academics and with football and Natalia—” My eyes squeeze shut as I look up at the sky.
“Natalia was taking care of him, and I felt so god damn guilty. It was too much. I saw her wither away, too. She was miserable. Watching him like that every day. Dealing with every emergency. Having to make decisions that no one should have to make because he wanted to be home.” I sob.
“I’m her big brother. I’m supposed to be fixing everything.
But she put her whole life on pause so that I could go to college and play football.
So that I could make my grandfather proud, and he didn’t even make it. ”
“She wanted—”
“It doesn’t matter what she said she wanted,” I cry. “She wasn’t supposed to do that on her own. And I was off running around, trying to figure out how to make it all work. I read every single letter of yours, do you know that?”
She shakes her head.
“I read every single letter, over and over, reminding myself of how much I fucked up. I wouldn’t let myself forget it. But the longer I went on without answering you, the more I felt like I couldn’t. I wanted to so badly, and for whatever fucking reason, I couldn’t make myself do it.”
I let the rain wash the saltwater from my face.
Amara’s face twists with emotion, her eyes shiny with tears.
“Life got so much more complicated, so much quicker, and I fucked up, and I’m serious when I say that I will spend the rest of my fucking sad life making up for it. If that’s what it takes, that’s what I’m going to do.”
She opens her mouth, but no words come out.
“Adding something else to the list of things I had to do, no matter how small, no matter how important, felt like I was being crushed under a mountain. It felt impossible. And that only made me feel worse about myself. The crushing realization of what a piece of shit I was and how disappointed I made you.”
“Cooper,” she says steadily. “As much as I wish that you had opened up to me sooner, I get it.” She squeezes my hand.
“I should have talked to you. I should have forced you to listen to me so much sooner, Amara. When I saw you here for the first time, I panicked. You looked like you hated me. And you did.”
“Why didn’t you?” she whispers, and I barely hear it.
“Because I thought that I had caused enough harm,” I confess, lifting her hand and kissing it.
“It was clear that you were upset, and that I had made your life worse. I didn’t want to make it even more complicated.
You settled here and made this beautiful life for yourself.
I wasn’t going to come in and wreck it.”
“I would have—”
I cock my head. “Would you have?”
She closes her mouth, her words lost. “No,” she shakes her head. “I probably wouldn’t have listened.”
The rain continues to beat around us as my breathing slows, and I take a step closer to her, resting my wet, freezing cold forehead on hers.
“Amara, I would do literally anything in this life to deserve you, and I hope that one day, you believe that.”
Amara sucks at her lip, her eyes squeezing shut. “I have accepted it,” she whispers. “I think I accepted it the day we got married.”
My heart squeezes, and I lift her in the air, spinning, the smile on her face giving me more life than anything ever has.
I set her down, pulling her face to mine. “Please marry me for real,” I whisper against her lips.
She kisses me, the taste of tears and freezing rain shared between us until she pulls away.
“For the love of god, please put the coat on.”