Chapter 5
Chapter Five
ISA
By the time they finally release me, the pain meds have blurred the edges off everything except the part that hurts most.
My leg.
My pride.
And the kiss.
Not in that order.
I’m back in my dorm room with my left leg propped on three pillows, an industrial-sized ice pack strapped over my hamstring, and my whole body wrapped in the specific misery that comes after adrenaline leaves and reality clocks back in.
It is quiet in here.
Too quiet.
The kind of quiet that lets thoughts get mean.
The curtains are half drawn against the dark. My desk lamp is on, throwing a warm little circle of light over textbooks I’m not touching and a half-empty water bottle and the packet of discharge papers folded like they’re somehow less real if I don’t spread them out.
Partial tear.
Further imaging tomorrow.
Out indefinitely.
Those are the words the doctor used.
Not season over.
Not yet.
But close enough that the phrase keeps circling anyway, sharp as broken glass.
I lie there in Stanford sweats and one of my oldest sleep shirts, hair in a wrecked knot, face scrubbed bare of everything except the remains of mascara and self-control, and stare at the ceiling.
My roommate, Becca, had gone out to get me more ice and some actual food because apparently athletes are biologically incapable of keeping proper sick-person snacks on hand.
So it’s just me.
Me, the hum of the mini fridge, the cold bite sinking through the back of my leg, and the dangerous warmth of one thought I absolutely should not be holding this tightly.
Tristan came.
He vaulted a fence.
He got in the ambulance.
He stayed at the hospital.
He let me kiss him.
No matter how many times I replay it, that part glows.
Maybe not like fireworks.
Maybe not like the kind of kiss girls write songs about.
But warm.
Steady.
Careful.
Real.
And right now, in the dark with my leg throbbing and my season hanging by a thread, steady feels like something I could build a whole fantasy on.
Maybe I already am.
I hear the door swing open and start to sit up too fast.
Pain lances through my hamstring so hard I suck in a breath and drop back against the pillows.
Becca comes in backward first, shoulder pushing the door wider.
“Oh my God.”
I blink at her.
“What?”
Then she turns.
And behind her is a delivery guy carrying enough flowers to suggest either I’m dying or someone in my life has completely lost all sense.
I stare.
Roses.
Every color.
Red.
White.
Blush.
Peach.
Soft yellow.
Even those deep wine-colored ones that look almost black at the center.
There are two teddy bears.
Two.
And a giant white box tied with satin ribbon that can only be obscene amounts of chocolate.
For one suspended second, my whole chest lights up.
Tristan.
Of course it’s Tristan.
The hospital.
The kiss.
The way he looked at me like I was breakable and worth protecting anyway.
He sent flowers.
Not just flowers.
An entire over-the-top, rich-boy apology bouquet for life hurting me.
My stomach flips.
Becca turns back to me with wild eyes.
“Who did you save in a past life?”
The delivery guy sets everything carefully on my desk and asks for a signature.
I scribble something that barely qualifies as handwriting because my brain is too busy constructing the exact look on Tristan’s face when he ordered all this. Calm. Slightly irritated at having to explain that no, the biggest arrangement, and yes, all the colors.
Something stupidly sweet and expensive.
The kind of gesture girls pretend they don’t want until it lands in their room and suddenly oxygen gets involved.
The delivery guy leaves.
The door shuts.
Silence.
Then Becca turns to the flowers like they’ve personally insulted her by being prettier than she is.
“Isa.”
I’m smiling.
I can feel it.
I can’t stop.
“I know.”
“Oh my God.”
“I know.”
She points at the roses.
“Those are not normal-boy flowers.”
I laugh softly, already reaching toward the card tucked between cream tissue and one ridiculous velvet ribbon.
“No.”
“They’re romantic-comedy flowers.”
“That’s dramatic.”
“There are two teddy bears.”
I pause.
Fair.
The card is thick white stock with my name written across the envelope in a dark, slanted, unmistakably masculine hand.
That alone does something treacherous to me.
Because there’s something intimate about a man writing your name by hand. Something old-fashioned and intentional and impossible to skim past.
My fingers slip under the flap.
And for one glowing, humiliating heartbeat, I let myself have it.
The image.
The certainty.
The story.
Tristan sending roses in every color because he couldn’t pick just one.
Tristan sitting in some postgame quiet, maybe still in his hoodie, writing me a card because words come easier on paper than in hospital rooms.
Tristan finally, finally stepping toward me in the language men use when they’re done pretending not to mean things.
I pull out the card.
Read the first line.
And my whole body goes still.
Not Tristan.
Drew.
Because apparently humiliation is a renewable resource in my life.
Becca sees my face change instantly.
“What?”
I blink down at the card once more just to make sure I’m not having a morphine hallucination.
Nope.
Still Drew.
Still that same bold, heavy handwriting that somehow looks exactly like him—too large, too certain, too masculine to be neat but too deliberate to be careless.
I read it again.
Texas,
Figured if you were gonna get taken out, you’d do it in a way dramatic enough to require roses.
The bears looked meaner in the store. The chocolates are probably overpriced. The flowers are to remind you not everything beautiful breaks.
Heal up. Rest mean. Don’t let anybody talk you into feeling small while you’re sidelined.
You’ve been on my mind since the beach. You’re still there.
— Drew
I just stare.
Becca climbs onto the edge of the other bed like she’s watching live theater.
“What does it say?”
I keep staring.
Because that note—that note is not what I expected.
Not from Drew.
Not from a man built like a truck stop fight with broad shoulders and tape around his fingers and a sleeveless hoodie he probably attacked with household scissors.
It should be cruder.
Louder.
Dumber.
Instead it is somehow deeply, infuriatingly him.
Cocky in the first line.
Unexpectedly sweet in the middle.
And that last one—‘You’ve been on my mind since the beach. You’re still there.’
That is not a football-boy line.
That is not a joke.
That is not casual.
That is a man stepping into the room with both boots on.
Becca makes a grabby hand.
“Hand it over.”
I clutch the card to my chest on instinct.
“No.”
Her eyes widen.
“No?”
I blink.
Then realize what I just did.
“I mean—”
“You mean absolutely not, because now I’m interested.” She lunges.
“Give me the note.”
I hold it out of reach, which is unfair because she’s tiny and I am on bed rest but still technically mean.
“It’s from Drew.”
Becca goes silent for a beat.
“Football Drew?”
“Yes.”
“Massive shoulders, Drew? Cut-off hoodie, Drew?”
I close my eyes.
“Yes.”
Becca clutches her own chest.
“I am obsessed with this.”
“I am not.”
She stares at the flowers.
Then at me.
Then at the card.
Then back at me.
“You thought it was from Tristan.”
I don’t answer.
Which is answer enough.
Her face softens instantly.
“Oh.”
I look down at the roses because they’re easier than looking at her.
The room smells like fresh petals and expensive chocolate and the kind of romantic excess that should be making me swoon and instead has left me caught somewhere between annoyance and something far more complicated.
“I just assumed,” I say finally.
Becca, to her credit, does not say obviously or that makes sense or men are trash.
She just says, “Did Tristan send anything?”
I hate how much that question stings.
I glance at my phone on the bed beside me.
Three texts.
All from him.
You home?
Need anything?
How’s the pain?
No flowers.
No grand gesture.
No handwritten card in dark ink.
Just direct concern.
Practical concern.
Athlete concern.
And a warm kiss that turned his cheeks pink after—probably with guilt.
It should feel more real.
And yet—I look back down at the roses.
At the absurdity of them.
The softness of the bears.
The note folded in my hand like something warm.
“You don’t have to answer,” Becca says gently.
I exhale through my nose.
Too late.
I’m already answering it in my own head.
Tristan stayed at the hospital.
Drew sent roses.
Which one means more?
The question is ugly enough to make me furious at myself.
So I do what all emotionally compromised girls do when cornered by conflicting male behavior and an injury—I choose denial with excellent posture.
I hand Becca the card.
She reads.
Her brows climb higher and higher.
Then she looks up slowly and says, “Okay, but that is… annoyingly good.”
I groan and sink lower into the pillows.
“Don’t.”
“I’m serious.” She reads the last line again. “‘You’ve been on my mind since the beach. You’re still there.’ That is not stupid-jock writing.”
“It’s manipulative.”
“It’s hot.”
“It’s manipulative and hot,” I correct.
She nods.
“Fair.”
Then her gaze drops to the flowers.
Then back to me.
“So what are you going to do?”
I look at the roses.
At all those colors.
All that softness.
All that effort from the exact man I least want to be emotionally affected by.
And the truth is, I don’t know.
Because I still feel Tristan’s hand on my face in that hospital room.
Still feel the warmth of that kiss.
Still want that to mean what I need it to mean.
But Drew—Drew did not have to do this.
He didn’t have to send beauty into my room and lace it with a note that sounded like a challenge and a promise and a warning all at once.
He didn’t have to remember the beach.
He didn’t have to let me know I stayed with him.
And somehow, against all logic and taste and basic self-preservation, that lands too.
My phone buzzes again.
Tristan.
Answer me, Texas. You alive?
Becca sees the name over my shoulder and lifts one brow.
I look from the screen to the roses to Drew’s note in her hand.
Then I close my eyes.
Because somewhere in this very stupid mess is the beginning of a disaster.