Chapter 18 #2
“If you’d said it before today. If you’d said it when we were cooking in Miami. If you’d said it on my couch. If you’d said it in the airport when I handed you the word twice and you kept pretending not to hear it.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“I heard you,” I whispered.
His face changed.
“What?”
“At Thanksgiving,” I said. “When you thought I was asleep. I heard you say you weren’t letting me go at midnight.”
Everything in him froze.
For a moment, neither of us moved.
Then his jaw flexed.
“And you still said nothing.”
That was worse.
So much worse.
“I was scared.”
“I know.”
“I am scared.”
“I know that too.”
“Then don’t leave me because I’m scared.”
His eyes shone now.
Just enough.
“Isa,” he said, and my name sounded like goodbye. “I’m leaving because I’m scared, too.”
The words destroyed me.
He stepped around me.
Not touching.
Not brushing my arm.
Careful even in heartbreak.
At the door, he paused.
I turned, crying openly now.
“Drew.”
He looked back once.
His eyes went to the gift on the bed.
Then to me.
“Open it after I’m gone,” he said.
Then he walked out.
I stood there until I heard his footsteps disappear down the hall. Until the front door opened. Until it closed.
Only then did I turn back to the bed.
The box sat there in the middle of all that perfect white bedding, small and bright and awful.
My hands shook when I picked it up.
For a second, I just held it against my chest.
Like an apology.
Like a wound.
Like the last warm thing he had left behind.
Then I pulled the ribbon loose.
Inside was a thin gold bracelet.
Simple.
Delicate.
Not flashy.
So, Drew.
A tiny charm hung from the clasp, shaped like a little star.
Texas.
My vision blurred so badly I almost missed the engraving on the inside of the bracelet.
Four words: You don’t need luck.
I made a sound I didn’t recognize.
Half sob.
Half laugh.
All heartbreak.
Because he had remembered.
Of course he had remembered.
The first night he wished me good luck before my game, and I told him I didn’t need it. The way he had seen my pride, my fear, my ridiculous determination, and turned it into something I could wear.
Not a trophy.
Not a prize.
Not proof I had bagged a better man than Tristan Vale.
A reminder.
That Drew had seen me.
Really seen me.
And I had let him walk out because I was too scared to say the one thing that might have made him stay.
I sank onto the edge of the bed, the bracelet clutched in my palm, and cried until my mother knocked once on the door and called my name like she had any right to enter the ruin she’d helped make.
“Isa, baby?”
I looked at the door through tears.
My voice came out broken.
“Go away.”
A pause.
Then, softer, offended. “Excuse me?”
I stood.
The bracelet dangled from my fingers.
And for the first time all morning, the fear burned clean into something else.
“No,” I said, louder now. “Actually, don’t go away.”
The door opened.
My mother stood there in a silk robe, coffee in hand, mouth already shaped around some polished little reprimand.
I looked at her.
Really looked at her.
And suddenly I understood.
Drew had been right.
I was trained.
But training could be broken.
My fingers closed around the bracelet.
“You and I need to talk,” I said.
“Oh, baby,” she said, sighing like I had inconvenienced her. “Tell me you didn’t let him leave.”
Something inside me went very still.
Not numb.
Clear.
“Let him?” I asked.
“Well.” She came into the room and closed the door behind her. “Men like that require management. Especially young ones. They’re emotional. Proud. You can’t just—”
“Stop.”
Her eyes widened.
She wasn’t used to that word from me.
Not like that.
“Isa.”
“No.” I wiped my cheeks with the heel of my hand. “You don’t get to come in here and talk about Drew like he’s a portfolio.”
Her brows pulled together. “A portfolio?”
“A prize. An upgrade. Something I bagged.”
Her lips parted.
I laughed once.
It was not a nice sound.
“You said it on the patio. He heard you.”
For the first time all morning, my mother looked genuinely caught.
Then she recovered.
Of course she did.
“Oh, baby, I was trying to make you feel better. You were heartbroken over Tristan, and then you brought home someone wonderful. I’m proud of you.”
“No,” I said. “You were proud of yourself.”
Her face hardened slightly. “Careful.”
“There it is.” I looked at her, really looked at her. The perfect robe. The perfect hair. The perfect woman who had taught me to smile when men measured me and call it power. “You were proud because you thought I had finally done what you trained me to do. Turn heartbreak into a better catch.”
“That is not fair.”
“Isn’t it?”
Her hand tightened around the coffee mug.
“You have no idea what it takes for women like us to be safe.”
“Safe,” I repeated.
“Yes. Safe. Protected. Chosen by the kind of men who can build a life instead of destroy one.”
“Drew did build one,” I snapped. “He built it out of pieces no one handed him. He built it without your approval, without Richard’s approval, without my father’s approval, without anyone in this house seeing him as more than a body with money behind it.”
My mother blinked.
I held up the bracelet.
“This is Drew. Not Montgomery. Not Richard’s son.
Not an NFL prospect. Not a richer replacement for Tristan Vale.
Drew. The man who fed me when I was hurt.
The man who slept by the door in Miami because he didn’t trust his brothers.
The man who made Thanksgiving with me in a kitchen that hated joy because he missed his mom.
” My voice cracked, but I kept going. “The man who saw me when I was still stupid enough to look past him.”
My mother’s expression shifted.
A little.
Not enough.
“Isa,” she said carefully. “You’re nineteen. You think everything feels like love when it’s intense.”
“No. That was Tristan.”
She went quiet.
I breathed hard through my nose.
“Tristan was intensity. Pride. A fantasy I turned into a personality flaw. Drew is love.”
The word finally came out.
Love.
And I didn’t explode.
The room didn’t collapse.
My heart did not crawl out of my chest and die from exposure.
It hurt.
But it also felt true.
I pressed the bracelet against my palm.
“I love him,” I said again, softer. “I love Drew Travers. And you helped make him think I didn’t.”
My mother’s mouth trembled around something. Anger. Guilt. Denial.
Maybe all three.
I didn’t wait to see which one won.
I grabbed my phone.
“What are you doing?”
“Fixing it.”
“Baby, he left.”
“I know.”
“You don’t chase men.”
I stopped at the door and looked back.
There she was.
The lesson.
The whole kingdom of my childhood in four words.
You don’t chase men.
I smiled through tears.
“No, Mother. You don’t chase investments.” I slipped the bracelet onto my wrist. “You fight for love.”
Then I walked out before she could answer.
I sat lost in my thoughts, re-living every moment we shared.
From that first beach athlete mixer encounter— to when he found me in the rain—to the kiss in the training room and all the little moments in between.
For the first time my heart broke. It sucked—the all consuming pain of it.
But the worst part was knowing I had done this to the both of us with my stubborn stupid pride.
It took two days for me watching The Great Baking Show in between cry fest to realize what I had to do. I called Jace.
“Hey— I need an address.”
“You calling because you feel guilty, or because you finally got your head out of your ass?”
I closed my eyes.
I deserved that.
“Both.”
“Mm.”
“But mostly because I love him.”
Silence.
Then Jace said, much softer, “Say that again.”
“I love him.”
“Damn.” A muffled voice in the background said something. Jace covered the phone badly and hissed, “Shut up, Mom. It’s the girl.” Then he came back. “Sorry. Family’s nosy.”
“I don’t care.”
“You will.”
“Jace.”
“Okay. Listen. He’s wrecked. Like scary quiet. He hasn’t yelled once, which is how I know it’s bad.”
My throat tightened. “I know.”
“He thinks you only want him now because he left.”
“I know that too.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.” I sat on the edge of the stairs, gripping my phone. “And I can’t fix that with a text. I need to tell him in person. I need him to see me. No mother. No campus. No audience. Just me.”
Jace was quiet for a second.
Then he said, “Book into Denver. Text me the flight. I’ll send someone.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet. He might be an asshole.”
“He’s allowed.”
“Good answer.” He paused. “Texas?”
“Yeah?”
“You hurt my boy.”
My eyes burned again. “I know.”
“So when you come, come honest.”
I looked down at the bracelet on my wrist.
The little gold star glinted under the hall light.
“I will.”
Colorado was rude.
That was my first thought when I stepped out of the airport into air cold enough to slap the Texas out of my lungs.
Cold. White. Sharp. Too beautiful to trust.
By the time Jace’s older sister picked me up in a giant SUV with heated seats and a reusable water bottle covered in ski stickers, my teeth were chattering and my hands were shaking so badly I could barely text.
“You’re Isa,” she said.
“Yes.”
“I’m Hannah.” She looked me over once. Not meanly. Curiously. “You came all the way out here for Drew?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” She put the SUV in gear. “He’s been depressing the men and worrying my mother. Apparently Drew is usually loud. This version is giving everyone seasonal anxiety.”
My heart twisted.
The drive into the mountains took forever and no time at all. Snow piled along the road. Pines rose black and green against the white. Every turn made the sky look bigger, colder, cleaner.
I sat in the passenger seat wearing leggings, boots, one of Drew’s hoodies under my coat, and the bracelet he’d left behind.
In my bag sat two things.
A ring.
And a folded document from my father’s lawyer.
Not because paperwork could prove love.
It couldn’t.
But Drew had asked a question I had not answered fast enough.
If I was just Drew Travers, would you still want me?
I was going to answer with words first.
Then proof.
The cabin wasn’t really a cabin.