Page 103 of Hitting the Goal Line
The second that the elevator stops, I’m standing there waiting for the doors to open. When they are open just enough, I wiggle through and follow the room number signs to take me in the right direction.
It takes two whole damn minutes to find the room, and the second that I do, everything goes absolutely silent for me. I can’t hear a single ounce of noise as I look at the door. The door thatis separating me and Sophia. Nothing makes it into my ears. Absolutely nothing.
Not until I hear Sophia’s voice.
Not until I hear Sophia’s cries and her asking Elijah to calm down.
The second I hear her, it’s as if everything is enhanced and nothing in the world matters but her. And right now, it doesn’t.
The only thing that matters right now is Sophia and making sure she is okay before I take her in my arms and get her out of here.
I hear Elijah yell at her to shut up and that’s when I lose it and let the adrenaline in me roam free.
Using the key card that the receptionist gave me, I push the door wide open, slamming it into the wall behind it.
My eyes start to search the second that the door is wide open, and when I see the image before me, I know that I will be seeing it as long as I live.
Sophia is looking at me with eyes wide and fear in every single centimeter of her brown irises and her beautiful face, as she is curled into herself by what looks like the door that leads to the bedroom. All the while, Elijah looks like a rabid animal as he hovers over her.
When he eyes land on me, his hands form into fist and he starts charging at me, but I don’t give a shit.
I charge back as red clouds my vision.
And I don’t stop.
I don’t stop when I hear a crack.
I don’t stop when I feel Sophia yelling at me to stop hitting Elijah.
I don’t stop when she tries to pull me away from him.
I continue to see red until someone slaps handcuffs on me and starts reading me my rights.
I see red until I realize that Sophia is looking at me the same way she was looking at Elijah. Like she was scared of me.
That’s when I realized that I messed up.
Not only am I going to jail, but I just possibly lost the woman who owns my heart because of it.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
SOPHIA
Present day
So many memoriesof me and Blake, run through my head, including the ones from last night.
There have been so many damn turning points in our friendship. There have been so many chances where I could have told my stubbornness to fuck off and told him how I felt. There were so many times where I could have gotten over my fear of losing him and spoken my heart out.
My quinceañera, that party after high school graduation, our first time together, during college, when we moved in together, when he won the cup, our second night together.
So many damn times and yet I didn’t do anything and look where it got us. At a police station in San Francisco of all places, with Blake facing battery charges and me about to press those same charges against my boyfriend.
Or should I say ex-boyfriend? Because no way in hell am I going to be in the same room as Elijah, willingly, ever again. Notafter what he did last night. I’m officially walking away from him and I hate it that it had to get this far for me to finally do it.
I let out a sigh as I lean back in the metal chair I’m currently occupying. I saw a lot of things on my bingo card of life, but this was definitely not one of them.
So many ‘if onlys’ pop into my head and I don’t know how to feel about them. If only I had ended things with Elijah when he first shoved me against the wall in his apartment. If only I had walked away from him at Christmas when he chocked me and basically had me isolated from everyone that I loved. If only I had been truthful to myself and to Blake. If only I could go back in time and make sure that none of this ever happened.
