Broken Saint (Seattle Saints #1)

48. Colton

48

COLTON

I stare at the back of the hospital door, wishing that I could get up and walk through it.

I should be able to. I should be able to get to my feet and just walk out. It’s what my body should do. But it can’t.

I’m weak.

Weaker than I’ve ever been in my life. I hate it.

But there is fuck all I can do about it.

The silence is deafening.

It’s my own fault. I told Angie to take Ella down to the cafe for lunch half an hour ago. I couldn’t cope with the look in her eyes any longer.

She wants to help; I know she does. But I fear at this point, it might be impossible.

Right now, I can’t even walk. What fucking good am I to anyone?

As the seconds tick by, the threatening darkness edges that much closer.

When I warned her about what a life with me could be like, I wasn’t expecting to have to endure it quite so soon.

I let out a sigh as I sink deeper into the pillow propping me up.

Closing my eyes, I give in and let the monsters win. Just for a few minutes, I embrace the darkness.

It’s like welcoming home a long-lost friend.

Equally as familiar as it is unknown.

I startle when the door opens and heavy footsteps approach.

Cracking my eyes open to see who it is, I sigh at the sight of my best friend. My captain.

“I knew you were faking being asleep,” he mutters the second he catches the slight movement of my eye.

He lowers his big body into the chair beside me and rests his elbows on his knees.

“Shouldn’t you be at practice?” I grunt, trying and failing to keep the bitterness out of my tone.

“Where do you think I’ve been all day?” he shoots back, reading me well enough to know I don’t need the soft and gentle touch right now.

“Colt, man,” he starts, making me second-guess my previous thought.

“Don’t, okay? Just fucking don’t,” I snap. I don’t need to hear that everything will be okay. I don’t want to hear that I can come back from this. Right now, everything seems too fucking bleak to even consider tomorrow, let alone months and years from now.

A tense silence falls between us.

It’s not the first time, and it won’t be the last.

Luca has been my ride-or-die for years.

We’ve butted heads more times than I can count both on and off the field, but it’s never lasted. One of us eventually figures out that we’re being a stubborn asshole and concedes.

A knock on the door finally breaks the silence before the physical therapist I’ve been working with over the past few days appears with a wheelchair.

“Good evening, are you ready for a session?”

He looks at me before his eyes dart to Luca and then return to me.

“Can’t wait,” I deadpan, pushing myself up so I’m sitting and then swinging my legs over the edge.

It takes more effort than it should.

My limbs feel like dead weights. The thought of running around on a football field seems impossible right now. Hell, walking to the door seems fucking impossible.

With his help, I manage to get into the wheelchair.

Luca stands on the other side of the bed awkwardly.

“You can come,” I offer. Fuck knows if it will do any good, but a friendly face isn’t a bad thing. If Ella were here, she’d come with me. She has over the past couple of days, refusing to allow me to go through any of this alone.

I appreciate the fuck out of it, don’t get me wrong. But also…she shouldn’t have to do it.

She deserves to have a better life than helping me to function again.

She should be out there enjoying everything the world has to offer, not stuck inside these four walls as if she’s serving out a prison sentence.

Luca nods once before stepping behind my physical therapist and following us out of the room.

We’re almost at the end of the corridor when the elevator opens and Ella spills out, Angie hot on her heels.

Her eyes widen when she sees me, and she comes rushing over.

“Where are you going? What’s wrong?” she asks, her eyes checking over my body as if she’s going to find something missing.

“Nothing. Having a PT session.”

“You’re going to walk?”

I nod once, unable to ignore how fucking weird that sounds.

I should be able to walk. I should be able to run around the fucking football field.

“Let me drop my purse in your room and I’ll come with you. Help,” she says softly.

She takes two steps around the wheelchair before I manage to speak.

“No.”

She stills the second my voice hits her ears. Her spine straightens, and her shoulders widen.

I brace myself because I know exactly what I’m going to find when she turns toward me. And not a second later, I discover that I’m right when her watery eyes lock on mine.

“No?” she whispers.

“Luca is going to come. You should go back with your mom. Have a night to yourself. Do something fun.”

“Fun?” she asks as if I’ve made the word up.

“He’s got a point, sweetie,” Angie says. I know she’s worried about Ella; it’s clear as day on her face.

“I’m not leaving you,” she argues.

“Ella,” I warn. “I don’t need you to be here every second of the day.”

She rears back as if I just slapped her.

It hurts, knowing that my words cause her pain. But I don’t know what else to do. I refuse to allow her life to be reduced to being my nurse.

She’s better than that.

She sniffles. “I’m not just going to sit in Mom’s suite while you’re here alone.”

“I’m not alone,” I counter.

She glances up at Luca and then to the therapist, who I can only assume is standing awkwardly behind me.

“Luca is going to come to the sessions with me.”

“I don’t have to. I can?—”

“I want you to do it with me,” I say, cutting him off.

“Oh,” Ella whispers, her entire body sagging as understanding hits her.

Angie steps up to her and puts her arm around her shoulder.

“Call Letty and Peyton. Go out. Enjoy yourself. There’s so much you could be doing instead of sitting in here, rotting with me.”

“No, Colt. That’s not?—”

“We really need to get going. We only have so much time?—”

“It’s okay,” I say to my impatient PT. “We can go.”

Silence floods the corridor as I hold Ella’s eyes.

The sight of her tears rips me apart. But it’s the right thing to do.

She deserves more than this. More than me.

The PT pushes me forward, but Ella refuses to move.

Angie has no choice but to gently tug her back.

“Colt,” Ella whispers. “Please, don’t do this.”

“Go and enjoy life, Ella. One of us has to.”

The PT pushes me faster as Ella’s sobs fill the air.

My chest tightens and I fight to drag in a breath.

“What the fuck was that?” Luca hisses from behind.

“Don’t, Luc. Just…don’t,” I snap back as we move closer to the room we need.

The air is thick as the door slams closed behind us and my PT brings the wheelchair to a stop by some bars.

I stare at them, wondering how my life went so drastically wrong that I have to use bars to fucking walk.

I’m number forty fucking two for the Seattle Saints. This isn’t how my life is meant to go.

Sucking in a deep breath, I wrap my fingers around the armrests of the chair, and with the help of the PT and encouragement from my best friend, I force everything out of my mind apart from this moment.

If I can prove that I can look after myself, they might just let me leave.

And then I can finally be alone to deal with all this bullshit the only way I know how.

“ Y ou fucked up earlier. I hope you know that,” Luca says the second the door slams, leaving us alone.

“You can go now,” I say, resting back on the bed and squeezing my eyes closed.

I’m fucking exhausted. My limbs are still trembling, my muscles aching from just standing.

It’s bullshit. All of it.

“I know what you’re doing,” he warns. “And it’s not going to fucking work.”

“I don’t care, Luc. It’s over. Everything is fucking over.”

“Bullshit,” he spits. “Only a fucking quitter would say that.”

I scoff, not wanting to hear it.

“Okay, yeah. This isn’t fucking ideal right now. But it’s not the end. Not by a long fucking shot. You can come back from this. You fucking know you can.”

I don’t say anything. Everything feels too fucking dire to even consider the possibility that my life could go back to how it was.

“But if you shut us all out? Shut Ella out…” He shakes his head. “She fucking loves you, man. Don’t do this.”

“That’s why I’m doing it. She doesn’t need this,” I bark, pointing at my body. “I’m too fucking broken, Luc.”

A bitter laugh falls from his lips. “That’s not true and you know it. You’re one of the best people I’ve ever met. I guarantee she thinks so too. I mean, hell, after everything you’ve put her through, she came back. She’s here, and she’s fighting for you.”

I shake my head. “Well, she shouldn’t. I don’t deserve it.”

He pushes to his feet, the chair scraping against the floor as he does so. “This is her life just as much as it is yours. You don’t get to decide that for her.”

“It’s the right thing to do,” I state, standing by my decision.

Ella can spend the night with her mom. Angie will keep her together, and so will Letty and Peyton.

A couple of days away and she’ll realize that this is for the best.

“Colt,” he sighs. “You’ve done some real stupid shit in your time, but if you go through with this, it’ll be at the fucking top of that list.”

I shrug, unwilling to listen to his lecture.

He doesn’t know what I’m going through right now. He has no idea how fucking hard this is, watching your dream, your life, your everything slipping through your fingers like grains of sand.

I have two choices: cling onto everything I once had and poison it with the darkness I know is coming, or let it all go.

I might be a selfish motherfucker, but I’m not so selfish I can drag everyone I care about down with me.

“Are you finished?” I grunt, refusing to meet his eyes.

“You’re a fucking asshole, you know that, Rogers?”

My teeth grind as he stalks to the end of my bed, but I don’t respond.

My cell lands on my thigh with a thud. “Call her. Apologize. Tell her you fucking love her.”

His glare burns into my skin, but I still refuse to look up.

I’m done with this. I’ve made my decision.

I knew the day would come, but unlike what I experienced as a kid, I’m doing this alone. No one else deserves to live through what my future holds.

“Call her,” he states again. But when I still don’t give him any kind of response, he marches away, letting my door close softly behind him.

I can’t imagine it was the dramatic exit he was hoping for, but it is what it is.

Finally alone, I let out a groan of frustration.

Pain grips me in a tight hold, darkness flickering at the edges of my psyche.

A life without football.

A life without Ella.