45. Robbie
ROBBIE
My head fucking hurts.
I squish my eyes closed to see if it changes the pain at all, but the stubborn light behind my lids causes me to slowly them open.
A bright white light is all I can see, and I have a fleeting thought that I have died, but I can smell berry shampoo so maybe heaven just smells like Cassie.
Just slightly out of reach for an eternal purgatory.
“He’s waking up.” I swear that’s her voice and her hand sliding into mine. “Robbie?”
I squeeze my eyes closed again.
“Let me kill the lights,” a different voice says now, distinctly male.
The lights dim, and I can finally peel my eyes apart.
There she is. Sat at my bedside, her hair in a familiar bun, and a distinctly glassy look in her eyes. Her cheeks are pale, and her eyes are red as if she’s been crying. I’m glad I’m lying down, because otherwise the sight of her would have knocked my knees out from under me.
“Hi,” she says softly, squeezing my fingers in between hers.
“Are you with us yet?” Santi asks from the other side of my bed, settled into the chair he’s pulled up by my hip. “You’ve been in and out of it for ages. The meds they have you on… jeez.” He shoots me a grin, and I let my head fall back with a groan.
Vague memories wash over me, of doctors and nurses and saying something before unconsciousness thankfully took hold.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, my voice croaky.
“Oh I—” Santi starts but I interrupt him.
“No,” I say. I turn my head fully to Cassie, who’s still holding my hand. “You.”
She pulls away from me, and I fight the urge to clasp my hand back in hers.
“Oh,” she says in a quiet voice. She takes a steeling breath and glances at my teammate. “I was there.”
She was at the game? “Why?”
“I uh—” Her throat bobs as she swallows, and she glances at Santi. “It’s a long story,” she finishes softly.
I turn my head back, blinking at the ceiling. It’s a side effect of the concussion the way my eyes feel wetter than they did when I woke up.
“Mr King, you’re awake.” A nurse pops her head in the door. “We just need to run some minor tests. Your friends can wait outside.”
Santi gently pats my arm as he skirts his way around the end of the bed. Cassie stands, wiping beneath her eye gently. “I’ll see you later,” she says softly.
I busy myself with the thin blanket covering my lap. I don’t look up as the door closes behind them.
The nurse prods and pokes at me, asking me questions and taking vitals and whatever else she needs to do. I lay there patiently, flexing my legs just to make sure they’re still both working.
Furious anger clenches in my gut at the sight of the scar on my knee, even as relief threatens to buckle it. All this time I’ve been so worried about my fucking leg, and a boot to the head knocks me for six.
And Cassie saw. I guess most of the world saw.
I barely remember getting off the pitch, which indicates I was likely carried off.
Great. What is she doing here? Why did she come to this game after not even sending a single text?
Why would she break up with me and then fly across the country just to sit in the stands?
“What time is it?” I ask the nurse.
“Just after ten. We’ll be keeping you in overnight for observation, but we can let your guests stay past visiting hours.” She shoots me a wink.
“No, it’s okay, they don’t have to stay,” I tell her. “I’m probably just going to sleep, they don’t have to be here for that.”
“Okay,” the nurse tells me with a comforting smile. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours to check on you. Try to rest for now.”
“Thanks.” The door closes behind her, and I stare at it until my eyes burn and sleep takes me once more.
When I open my eyes this time, the headache has significantly eased. The nurse came by multiple times overnight to rudely disturb me from my sleep, but I guess it’s necessary or whatever so I don’t lose my brain function blah blah blah.
I turn, expecting Cassie to be beside me. Instead, it’s my mother and Iwan.
“Mum?”
She reaches forward and brushes my hair out of my eyes, taking in the bump on my head like she did when I was a child and ran head first into the goal post.
“What are you doing here?”
Mum glances at Iwan as she settles back down. “My son gets knocked unconscious for three minutes in the middle of a game and you think I shouldn't be here?”
“No it’s just…”
“I got a flight.”
“To North Carolina?”
Mum and Iwan exchange a loaded glance over my bed. “What is it?”
Mum huffs and rests both hands on the arms of her chair, clasping the wood firmly. Her lips are pressed together tightly. “Cassie lent us her jet.”
My eyebrows scrunch. Cassie hates the jet. She would rather walk to New York than charter a plane, but she sends it to Wales and back to pick up my mother? “She what?”
Mum folds her arms. “And you told her to fuck off.”
“I didn’t—”
“You might as well have, mate.” Iwan mutters from beside me. “Fucking brutal.”
“Hey,” I snap. “She—”
“She what, Robbie?” Mum snaps. “She stayed with you the whole way from the pitch, sat by your bedside whilst you were unconscious and no one knew if you were going to be okay. And then you finally come round and you say ‘I don’t want you here, fuck off and leave me alone’.”
My teeth clench, and I would roll my eyes at her creative embellishment if it didn’t make my brain hurt so much. Instead, I let them fall closed. “I didn’t say that.”
“What kind of man does that?” Mum crosses her arms and leans back in her chair. “Not my son, I’ll tell you that much.”
“Oh my god.” I lift my hand to my forehead and nearly poke my eye out with the heart rate monitor on my finger.
“Even after,” Mum continues, “she’s flown your entire family out, sparing no expense.”
“I didn’t ask her to do any of that.”
“You don’t even say thank you.”
“Mum,” I snap finally. “Enough!”
She holds her hands up as she leans back in her seat.
“She—” I break off. “She broke up with me.”
Mum waves her hand. “She didn’t mean it.”
I laugh, but it comes out kind of like a sob. “I’m pretty sure she did.”
“Well, from where I’m sitting, it looks to me like she came to win you back.”
“I can’t believe this. Aren’t you supposed to be on my side in a break up?”
She blinks at me. “No.”
I cover my head with my eyes, my fingers brushing at the sensitive side of my head. It’s dark behind my hands, and I feel like I can finally breath for the first time since that fucker’s boot hit my head.
One thought rolls through my jumbled thoughts. “She was at the game?” I ask, still hidden in the palm of my hands. She can’t have been. I saw the box and it was empty. She wasn’t there.
“She was,” Iwan says quietly. “Got a last minute ticket, apparently. Sat way up in the back of the stands.”
It doesn’t make sense. She never travels with the team, her father doesn’t need her to. He wants her in the crowd for the home games, he doesn’t fly her out so other teams can take advantage of her presence in their stands.
The only reason she’d do that is…
Cassie was here. She flew across the country to sit in the worst seats in the stadium to watch a game she barely takes an interest in, for no other reason than to see me.
“I love her.”
“We know.”
“Tell me she’s still here,” I implore my brother.
“No,” Iwan tells me. “She went home this morning. The nurse told us you didn’t want visitors. She said she didn’t want to make your recovery any more difficult.”
Fuck. I grab my blanket and attempt to swing my legs off the bed, but my mother stops me. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
I look at her incredulously. “You literally just ripped the shit out of me for letting Cassie go, and now you want to stop me from getting her back?”
She rolls her eyes. “I didn’t mean right now! You have a concussion.” She yanks the blanket from my hands and nudges at my shoulder until I lie back down. “Get back in that bed.”