Page 125 of How to Prevent a Fumble

This pain fucking sucks.

“You okay mom?” Elara says, standing at my door. I’ve been spending more and more time in bed, when I should be spending more time with my daughter. Having Leo home all the time isn’t something I enjoy. If he wasn’t hurt, and we were getting along then sure, it would maybe be fun having him around. He would hang out with Elara and take Champ for walks, and I would do anything he needed done.

We would show the world that we were dating, and on some level, we would both almost believe it ourselves.

But that’s the thing about fake things. At some point, you talk yourself into believing that they’re real. The closeness starts to feel a little too much like home, and then, one day, it’s over. It’s done, and you’re left with nothing.

Absolutely fucking nothing.

“I’m okay Bub, thank you.”

“Do you want to go for a walk?” She looks at me with hope in her pretty brown eyes, her hands twisting her shirt in front of her.

I debate saying no.

“Yeah, that sounds really nice Bub. I’ll be ready in about five minutes, okay?”

She smiles, nodding enthusiastically before running back to her room.

It’s been four weeks since Leo’s injury.

The team has won three games since that day with the help of Dirwin, who’s been an absolute ace.

Leo always said that he was surprised that Dirwin was a backup. He could throw better than half the quarterbacks in the league, and although Leo has begrudgingly watched the games from his TV upstairs, I know that he’s happy to watch his friend succeed.

His attitude hasn’t gotten much better, but I’ve adjusted to it. At some point you learn to take things less seriously.

It’s about a week until Christmas now, and we still don’t have any real plans. Leo thought his parents were going to fly in, but there was apparently some emergency involving a cow and they couldn’t. That, reasonably, pissed him off a little more than well, everything else.

As for me, I’m just trying to get through my days without passing out.

“Where’s my pills?” Leo calls from the kitchen. He was put in a boot a couple days ago, and although he was told he could put some weight on it, he’s been a little too generouswhen it comes to the amount of time he’s been spending walking around. Hopefully in about four more weeks, he’ll be okay to start a more vigorous physical therapy routine.

Anything to get him in better spirits, because this version of Leo is a brat.

“In the usual drawer,” I call over to him as I sit on the couch with my laptop, going over my new recipes I came up with for my cookbook.

“I looked there,” he snaps, setting his cup down loudly.

I turn, watching him rip through other drawers. “Are you okay?” I ask, my eyebrow arched.

“I just need shit to be where they’re supposed to fucking be,” he hisses angrily, smacking the counter.

I flinch, and a look of regret flashes in his eyes, but he doesn’t say sorry.

“Okay,” I say as I get up, closing my computer and heading to my room.

Elara is at school, and I’ve been trying to get as much work done on my cookbook as I can during the day. That means recipe testing, photographing, and coming up with the perfect thing to say about each. Formatting a cookbook is also super hard, and it’s taken a lot out of me.

I miss when Leo was sequestered upstairs. It was peaceful down here, at the very least.

“Briar!” he calls out, but I’m not having it.

Safe in my room, I sit on my bed, thinking about what the next steps are. I can’t be here forever. Leo is clearly spiraling, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

There’s nothing anyone can do about it. Owen has come over numerous times, but Leo has seemingly regressed and is holding a grudge against him for what happened with Isla again.

I know he doesn’t really care anymore. Iknowthis.

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