Page 78 of Heartbreaker
I bite down on my bottom lip, tears brimming in my eyes. I’ve never hid things from my family, unless you want to count Crew’s late-night escapades, but those weren’t my stories to tell. Eventually, any secret we had always came out. The Williams family has always been an open book, sometimes a little too open, lacking the boundaries that most people have. Major things become lessons for everyone, minor things become dinner conversation, and for once, I don’t want to be part of the discussion.
“Or you let him go.”
White siding that could use a good power wash covers the exterior of the fourteen-hundred-square-foot farmhouse at the end of the snow-covered drive. I make a mental note to remind her to schedule that for the spring—not that she’ll remember. Her memory has gotten worse over the last year, no matter how much she or my mother wants to deny it. My grandmother was diagnosed with early-stage dementia two years ago, and the disease has not only taken a toll on her, but on us. She refuses to move in with Mom, and Mom refuses to move in with her. With neither willing to bend, I had no choice but to intervene and hire home health care for my ninety-two-year-old grandmother.
This little white house has been a sanctuary in my chaos for as long as I can remember. I’ve taken this route too many times to count in thirty-seven years, but I’ve never dreaded it quite like today.
The front porch steps are semi-cleared of snow, and a thin layer of ice makes the wood slick beneath my boots—nothing like a half-assed attempt. Guess I’ll have to make sure that gets done, too. The wind whips through the open porch, smacking my exposed neck and cheeks with tiny pinpricks of moisture. My only resistance against the single-digit temperature is the thick sweater I threw on this morning before leaving for the airport. I didn’t think it would bethiscold this early in the season, so I left my winter coat back in Florida, where it’s currently seventy-eight degrees.
You know it’s winter, right?Hervoice rings through my ears as if she were standing beside me, and it stops me dead in my tracks, just like it always does. Taking a deep breath, I push all thoughts of her to the back of my mind. Now is not the time…but after my sister’s admission yesterday, all mental barriers I had came crashing down.
“What’s the verdict?” Ari’s voice rang out from the kitchen the moment I stepped off the elevator. She appeared in the double doors of my condo entryway with a half-eaten sandwich in hand. She was dressed in athleisure wear, but we both knew the most activity she’d be doing was running her damn mouth. My sister was in town for work, her new job requiring her to travel between Indianapolis and Florida at least once a month. We finally sat down and talked about Thanksgiving when I got home from Europe last December, but that was the easy part of the conversation. The hard part came after, when I had to tell her what happened after everyone left Celestia.
“They think I could be cleared as early as next month,” I said.
“That’s great news!” she said with a mouthful. “Why don’t you seem more excited? I thought you’d be bursting at the seams to get back into the ring.”
“I don’t know, Ari,” I said. “It’s not…It’s not the same.”
Nothing was the same. Being backstage felt like being in a foreign country. I had become so accustomed to having her around, knowing she was there, that being there without her didn’t feel right. I told myself I just had to get through Wrestlefest, and then I would take a small break. If I could make it to the end of April, then I’d take the time to go through the motions and process everything properly, but life had other plans.
Nine months ago, I suffered an injury that almost took me out of the ring for good. I don’t blame Drake, even if I’d like to. Every wrestler knows the risk when we step into the ring, and even the simplest of moves can lead to injury if you’re not careful. That hasn’t stopped the rest of the locker room, and even a few sports talk shows, from giving Drake flak. So, I don’t feel the need to add on to the mountain of criticism he’s faced—first, for my injury, and later the accusations that came out about his escapades outside the ring. He was finally getting exactly what he deserved.
The discoloration on my skin and the inability to move my left arm at Mayhem that night sent everyone into an absolute frenzy. I told them I’d be fine until I got home, where I could consult my own doctor, but Amos refused to let me leave without Doc checking on me first. Doc wanted me to go to the hospital in Charlotte, but I wasn’t going to an emergency room eight hours from home if I wasn’t dying…That stunt, as my doctor called it the next morning, resulted in a stern talking-to before I was scheduled for an OR time of six o’clock the next morning.
One week after my surgery, I put the house up for sale and bought a condo on Longboat Key, a beach community about an hour and a half from Crystal Bay. I couldn’t stand being in the same five-thousand-square-feet she haunted. Everywhere I looked, she was there—some memory or thing she left behind. And not even the pain of a ruptured deltoid paired with a dislocated shoulder and Grade II strained pectoral muscle—oh, and let's not forget the rotator cuff discomfort I’d been putting off, which could be why the deltoid rupture happened in the first place…None of that compared to the pain of her absence. It had been almost four months since she walked out the door, and I thought that maybe, just maybe, she’d still care enough to at least call or text, but she never did. Every time I was there, I waited for her to walk through the door—hell, I still do some days—and say she didn’t mean it, because I know she didn’t. But that day has never come.
“You mean because Savannah isn’t—”
“Don’t say her name.” The outburst surprised both of us. I don’t know where it came from, and the words came out harsher than necessary. But I didn’t apologize. I wasn’t in the mood to have that conversation with my sister, and I was going to do whatever it took to make it stop immediately. I took a deep breath before starting over. “She doesn’t care, Ariana. It’s been a whole year and—”
Ari sighed. “Brooks, it’s not that she doesn’t care. She does. More than she would like to admit, if I’m honest.”
“What are you talking about?”
“She’s going to kill me for this,” Ari said under her breath, rubbing her temples. “Savannah has called and checked on you every week since you got hurt. She pretends like it’s just to chat, to see how the new job is going or how life is going, and I know part of that’s true, but I’m not the true reason.”
What the fuck?
“She called the night you got hurt.”
Again,what the fuck?
“She was worried sick about you. I begged her to meet us back here, but—”
“So, she can call you to check on me, but she can’t pick up the phone and call me herself?”
“She’s trying to let you go.”
“Trying? She’s fuckingtrying? She’s the one who walked out that fucking door, Ariana. She wouldn’t have to try if—”
“John.” My sister interrupted me. “I know you don’t want to hear this, and I don’t want to be the one to tell you, either, but I think you need this time apart. You both have some healing to do, some stuff to figure out, and maybe…Maybe one day, you’ll find your way back to each other.”
And that’s how I found myself here, standing on my grandmother’s porch in the middle of an early December snowstorm. To officially start healing.
The other side of the door is quiet for a while after I knock, but finally it swings open to reveal Grandma Aggie. Her brown eyes widen, whether in surprise or fear, I’m not sure. To her, I could either be her grandson or a “strange” man. You never really know what version you’re going to get.
John!” Her voice is raspy, matching the new frailness of her appearance. “This is a surprise. What are you doing here?”
