32. Everybody Is A Little Broken #2
He plops me upright with his big, strong arms, hair trussed and chest heaving because he must’ve just gotten off the ice.
Holy shit. Did I seriously miss the end of the game? I came here to support him, and I didn’t even give him all the attention he deserved.
Surprisingly, though, he doesn’t seem annoyed to see me. The corners of his eyes are pleated with crinkles, and there’s a genuine, dopey smile looming over his lips. “You’re here.”
He’s not looking at me like the catastrophe that ruined his life—like the pitiful girl sewn together by scars and secrets that have spelled trouble for him from the moment we met. There’s an unspoken forgiveness warming his expression, wresting the despondency right out of my heart’s greedy grasp.
A mass exodus of fans begins to bottleneck the nearby passageways—some with their heads lodged into their phones, others casting what could be judgmental glares at me and Sutton.
I wish I could rejoice in our reunion, but my regret is harrowing, punching in all the pressure points of my very volatile temperament.
As tears blot my vision, a disorganized parade of words flakes off my tongue. “The article…something happened. I didn’t—I swear it wasn’t—”
Sutton rubs his hands down my arms, ferrying me off to the sidelines so we don’t get flattened by the stampede of egressors. His touch feels so nice. I was worried I’d never experience it again.
“Slow down. What’s going on?”
Sutton has always made it easier for me to breathe, but right now, I can’t stop my pulse from galloping. Flighty, like the compulsions of prey that’s lived its life in the shadows of outstretched talons.
“The article is live, but I swear I didn’t publish it. I don’t know how—"
“I published the article,” he says flatly.
Four words that nick me with the accuracy of an arrowhead.
My world stops spinning, and my ludicrous thoughts stop reproducing at an ungodly rate.
The unbearable ambience of the space suddenly dies a swift and painless death.
It’s just me and Sutton, back to square one, where we know nothing about each other.
Why would he do that? Why would he risk everything his team has worked so hard for?
“What are you talking about?” I exclaim, wiping at my eyes with the sleeve of my sweatshirt. Fear and its blood-drawing prongs—with a license to kill—snap around me, clamping down until I can feel them in every short-winded breath and minuscule twitch of my body.
Sutton shrinks in on himself, severing our contact so he can slide his hand down his sweaty nape. A spectrum of sorrow and self-directed anger slashes across his expression. “Last night, you left your computer, and I emailed a copy of your article to myself before sending it to Tammy anonymously.”
“Why…why would you do that?”
A muscle in his jaw shifts, and his white-knuckled conviction ricochets off the skyscraping walls to shatter into a thousand pieces right in front of me.
“You were right, Lake. About everything. I’ve spent my whole life trying to please everyone, but when it mattered, I let down the one person I should’ve protected.
I’m so sorry for how I treated you. I’m so sorry for not doing the right thing the moment you came to me with this information.
All I wanted to do was defend the team, but not at the cost of losing you.
That’s something I could never come back from,” Sutton explains.
“When the police hear about this…”
“They’ll open an investigation, and we both know what they’ll find,” he finishes with a nod, stone-faced.
“But Crew—the guys—you all worked so hard to build this team. You don’t deserve to be punished for what Buford did. The public will crucify you,” I argue, clinging to his jersey as if he’ll slip between my fingers at a moment’s notice.
“I don’t care. I told Crew about everything last night, and he was in agreement that we wouldn’t want someone like Buford on the Mustangs anyways. In fact, he should’ve been kicked off the team a long time ago for that tasteless cheating shit he pulled on you.”
Lachrymose, I stop trying to catch the tears as they come, because I know that Sutton’s thumb will be there to wipe them away.
“The second I walked out that door, I wanted to run right back into your arms. I didn’t mean anything I said.
You’re the best person I’ve ever met, Sutton.
You’re good, genuine, the kind of person I strive to be.
I hurt you. I’ll never forgive myself for that.
I’ll carry that for the rest of my life. ”
I refuse to ever hurt him again; I have to hold myself accountable. If that means I welcome remorse as a long-term resident instead of a passing visitor, then so be it.
His lips reshape into a frown, the lower one quivering uncontrollably.
“You have nothing to apologize for. I hurt you too. So badly. I wish I could take it all back. I can’t believe I weaponized the things you told me in confidence.
I can’t believe I reprimanded you for wanting to do the right thing. ”
“But I was willing to betray the people who meant the most to me. You were just defending your family. I’ve—I’ve never had a bond like that. The team, Merit, Staten, Irelyn—they all mean so much more to me than I ever thought was possible.”
For a long time, I was only one half of my family. Max was the other, and my mother—well, I’d grown convinced that she didn’t love me enough to fit into the picture.
But my world is so much larger now—a small, dilapidated, weed-infested building that’s been upgraded to the nicest plot on a busy street. Rebuilt from the ground up, broken holes that have been eating away at the uninhabitable infrastructure for years now permanently patched.