Page 103 of Catching My Dreams

The next time she opened her eyes, she was in her bed. She took a second to fill her lungs with air, and then she got moving. Her nose was bleeding, but she didn’t pay it any mind while she picked up Archie and raced down the stairs. She turned off the alarm with trembling hands, grabbed her jacket and keys, and fled into the night.

Ella drove for hours. She counted herself lucky that she wasn’t pulled over by the cops because the pile of blood-soaked tissues on her lap and her blood-spotted pajamas would have raised some eyebrows.

She returned to the house in the early morning when the sun was still low on the horizon and the birds had just started their songs.

She walked into her house like a criminal, her footsteps light and her back to the wall. She only relaxed once she’d gotten to her bedroom and there was no trace of Brett having been there at all. Even then, it was the calm of somebody who was never truly at ease. It was the calm of someone who was always waiting for the next attack.

It was the calm of someone who wasn’t sure if they would be waking up the following morning.

Ella put Archie on the bed and started packing a bag.

29

Noah yanked his helmet off, tossing it to the ground with a shouted swear. He’d messed up another play during practice.

“Warner,” his coach snapped, striding toward him while the rest of the team walked off with shaking heads and scowls like they wanted to distance themselves from him. “When was the last time you studied the playbook?”

“I don’t know, Coach,” Noah answered honestly.

Unsurprisingly, the man clearly didn’t like that answer. “Get off the field,” he barked, his face turning red. “You better go home and study that book because if you pull this shit again tomorrow, you’ll be on the bench for the rest of the season.”

“Yes, Coach,” Noah replied, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care as much as he should have. He should have been devastated at the mere thought of riding the bench, but all he felt was the same buzz of anger and the empty ache of loss he’d been dealing with for the last week.

“What the hell is going on with you, man?” Chris asked, following Noah across the field.

Noah’s jaw tightened at the question. “Nothing.”

“Does this have to do with Ella?”

Of course it does, Noah thought. “Go back to practice.”

“You can tell me what’s going on,” Chris said, ignoring his friend’s command. “It’s obvious you miss her.”

“Stop talking,” Noah growled. He was so goddamned angry every second of every day, and he didn’t need his friend bringing up the person he would do anything to simply talk to again.

“Come on, Noah. You can’t seriously be letting a breakup destroy your future. Whatever happened between you two—”

The rage inside of him grew. Noah stopped walking and turned to his friend, only to shove him back. “I said stop talking,” he bit out.

Chris straightened and skewered Noah with a glare. “You know what? Fuck you. If you want to be a dick, then fine. You already lost Ella and Asher. Why not me, too?”

He put his helmet back on and turned around, leaving Noah to walk off the field alone like the fucking embarrassment he was.

Noah knew he was in the wrong. He’d been such an asshole since he’d broken up with Ella. He was just so goddamned angry.

He was furious at Brett for forcing him to do something he hated, at himself for not finding a way out of this mess, and at Ella and his friends for not realizing that he would never have ended things with her out of his own free will.

But most of all, he was angry at himself for having done things in the past that made it so easy for them to believe that of him.

Noah walked off the field and into the changing rooms with a storm brewing in his body. Since he’d left Ella’s house that day, he always felt just seconds away from snapping, from losing his shit and screaming obscenities while destroying everything in his sight. His bedroom had suffered under that reckless rage, and now, so had Chris.

A cold shower didn’t help to cool the fury burning inside his veins. So, when Noah left the locker room and found Riley waiting for him, his annoyance flared.

“You’re done early,” she said in greeting.

“If you’re here to tell me I’m an asshole, Chris already beat you to it,” he informed her.

“Nice to see you too,” she replied dryly. “It’s a miracle you don’t have more friends with that charming personality of yours.”

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