Chasing Football Dreams (Diner Girl #2)

Chapter Nineteen

I knocked on Coach’s Shane office door and pushed it open, pausing when I saw that his wife had reserved his seat.

I stood outside his office for a few minutes, contemplating my next move. This morning, meeting Eliza’s mother rattled me and I wanted to just talk to him. I don’t know about what. I just wanted to embrace that I was lucky enough to have a slight chance at being his daughter and that he didn’t throw me away.

“Oh, I am sorry. I thought Coach Shane was here,” I went to close the door but she stopped me when she got to her feet.

“No, wait, Zoey,” I watched her shuffle out from behind his desk.

“Shane told me about the possibility of you being our daughter,” I look at this beautiful woman who can be my mother and I wonder if I will ever match her beauty.

She eyed the locker room where the guys were talking loudly and making jokes while getting dressed. Their modesty doesn’t make me shy away anymore but out of respect— I don’t ogle anyone but Duncan.

“Don’t worry. They know,” I assured her when she almost looked like she was going to beat herself up. “I never thought I would find myself in a family who is nosy but caring as hell,”

She smiled at me. “I know what you mean. When you were taken, there wasn’t a person on the team who didn’t look for you that night. Your team is not only a trust system but you get a family for life,” She noted, her smile not falling away.

“You believe that I am your…daughter?” I asked when I noticed she spoke of me and not of Zoey.

She shrugged. “I suspected it from the first time Shane mentioned you and when I saw you, my suspicion was proven right,”

She came over to me, stopping a few meters away from me. “But there is a way we could confirm this,”

“I know blood tests. Coach Shane already mentioned it,” I confirmed, finding it weird to call him my dad while he is my coach and I wasn’t sure if he was really my dad.

Angela shook her head, her smile shaping into a small but sad look in her eye. “My daughter has a unique birthmark on her left shoulder,”

I blinked at her acknowledgement. “In the shape of a heart?” I blurted, touching my shoulder.

She stared at me with round eyes and nodded after some time.

I placed my helmet on the desk, pulled my gear over my head and tugged the collar of my shirt aside to show her my heart-shaped birthmark. “Like this?”

I heard her gasp before I felt her arms wrapped around me, squashing me against her. “Yes,” She cried out with a shaky breath. “You are her—you are Zoey—my Zoey,”

I let a few tears fall when I accepted the concept that this was my mother. I was the kidnapped daughter of a man I looked up to and who helped me without knowing. I didn’t give up on my dream of becoming like him, unaware my idol is my father.

“What’s going on?” Coach Shane asked entering the office and finding us wrapped in each other’s arms crying.

“Oh, Shane,” Angela muttered with tears in her eyes. “I know you told me not to approach this until we were certain but she is—she is our daughter. Just look,” Angela rambled not giving Shane a chance to get in a word. She drew my sleeve down, showing him the birthmark on my shoulder.

I thought he was going to deny me but he sunk on the nearest chair, cradling his head and I watched his shoulders jerk. I stood there thinking he was laughing but when Angela crouched down in front of him on her knees, taking his head in her hands I saw the tears.

“Oh, honey,” Angela, my mother whispered taking his hands in her and kissing his knuckles. “I told you it wasn’t your fault,”

“I let her grow up in that place because I didn’t take her with me,”

The truth of his words sunk like stones in my stomach. He was blaming himself for my kidnapping and has been since I was taken. I stood aside not knowing what to do. I was never familiar with this feeling. How do I assure him that nothing about this was any of their faults and they couldn’t know about me?

I didn’t want to do this. Not today. Not with Eliza’s whose heart is broken into pieces. It felt unfair to get a family who loves me while she gets used as a donor.

“Zoey,” I raised my head, not realizing that I was crying or clenching my hands into fists at my sides.

Coach Shane was standing a foot away from me, his face stained red with tears and it took everything in me not to break down in front of him. “For seventeen years I believed that I had no one,” I stammered through tears with a quivering voice. “I never believed in fate,”

I couldn’t hold my strength to fight back the tears when he took me in his arms, cradling me against his chest. There had to be a reason why I always looked up to him and no one else. I subconsciously must have known that he was my father.

“I do,” He muttered. “I knew deep down you were still alive while everyone thought I was nuts. I knew I would find you one day,”

I pinched my eyes shut, hugging him tighter. He sunk to his knees with me cradled in his arms, not letting go as we cried together. My mother joined us as she threw her arms around us. It must have looked ridiculous, but I didn’t care. We’ve lost seventeen years of our lives as a family. While I thought I had no one. They were grieving the loss of their dead daughter who hadn’t been dead all this time.

It took a while for us to regain our composure and once I got to my feet, I saw Duncan standing at the doorway, battling his own tears and then I saw Eliza standing beside him, not caring that she was a crying mess.

I felt sick to my stomach that I got a family, something she always wished for. “Eliza…”

“Don’t you dare feel sorry for me or apologize,” She demanded, taking a step towards me. “You deserve this. Just because my mother and father are selfish people, doesn’t mean you have to take pity on me. Be happy. Enjoy this,” She sniffled, wiping her tears angrily away.

“But we are sisters, as you said,” I protested with tears welling up in my eyes.

She nodded. “And we will forever be,”

“What do you mean your parents are selfish?” My mother asked her with a dead serious look on her face even my father demanded to know what she meant.

“They didn’t want me,”

I lowered my head, hating her mother for coming into her life like that and demanding that she help her brother.

“They wanted a son. And now that they have one who is on the brink of dying, they want my help,” She shook her head, my guess is to get rid of the silly thoughts of her mother.

“Well,” My mother took a step forward. “As Zoey said, you are her sister and, in this case, we are her parents which makes us your parents as well,”

“What? You don’t have to do that,”

My mother nodded. “We don’t have to but we want to. You mean a lot to our Zoey. Which means you mean a lot to us,”

“Really?” The small, insecure Eliza presented herself. “I would love that,” Her voice was so small it was barely recognizable.

“Yes, darling,” My mother hugged her tightly and I saw my father nod his head sending me a wink.

I looked at the doorway, doing almost a flip when my whole team stood behind Duncan wiping away their tears.

Duncan rolled his eyes at them but I saw him secretly wiping wetness from his eyes. “Don’t you guys have better stuff to do?” He asked, his voice making them shuffle away.

I chuckled softly knowing he was only being this mean man to protect my modesty. I know when I fell in love with that, I won the lottery. I walked over to him, uncaring that I was breaking the rule of hiding our relationship. I could finally hug him as I wanted to since we got back from the coffee shop.

He opened his arms and took me in without question and held me there. He had seen the devastating look on my face when we showed up but we couldn’t talk about it much now he knew and he didn’t look thrilled with Eliza’s mother but he didn’t say anything but hold me. No questions asked. No judgement. Just the beat of his steady heart against my ear. I was surrounded by his strength and it’s all I needed. His love and care.