Page 66 of Show Me How to Heal
I should’ve probably shown more gratitude, told him I appreciated the offer. That I appreciated all he’d done for me since the accident and even before then. But I hadn’t. My mind had already started going a mile a minute, trying to figure out what I needed to do. Find out what the press knew. Talk to Zayne. Find someone specialized in doing damage control in a case like this… maybe my former manager.
A wet, cold snout snapped me out of my downward spiral.
Sammy.
“Yeah, I understand,” I whispered, scratching him behind his ears. “First of all, I need to feed you.”
He barked in agreement.
Things didn’t look good.
The good thing was it wasn’t hard to figure out what the press knew. The bad thing was that it wasn’t hard because they basically knew everything. They knew where I lived — at least the town I lived in — they knew where I worked, they knew who my boyfriend was, and all the small details of our relationship Zayne had told his followers in his YouTube videos or Instagram posts. Little tidbits here and there. He’d asked, but I hadn’t minded at the time. After all, I was just this faceless guy for his followers. They didn’t know me — until they did.
My chest was so tight that breathing hurt, and my heart was still going at a rate that might cause a heart attack in the near future, but I powered on despite everything. Despite my mind screaming at me to stay in my cabin in the woods, hidden from the world, hidden from the paparazzi, hidden from anyone besides a pair of cinnamon-colored black bears I’d seen on the edge of the forest a couple of days ago. Despite the wrath I was certain I was going to face — and rightly so.
Zayne had been an open book, telling me everything while I… had kept everything from him.
I put Sammy in the car, got in myself, and started driving to town.
Things started looking even worse when I got stuck in traffic. Like, there was an honest to god traffic jam in Juniper Creek. I tried pulling my beanie hat deeper onto my face, wrapping a knitted scarf tighter around my throat and up to my mouth. I didn’t think anyone would expect me to be driving an old pick-up truck that looked like it was on its last breath, but you never knew.
Sammy was whining low in his throat, probably sensing my fear but being unable to do anything about it since he was wearing his car harness.
“Everything’s okay,” I told him even though it was a fucking lie. Nothing was okay. Nothing was even close to okay.
That only became more obvious as I drove by Z’s Soapbox, where there was a whole crowd gathering in front of it. My heart plummeted. The paparazzi had already arrived. How? Were those the American ones trying to get a story out of the German soccer player hiding on the other side of the world? They had to be, seeing as there was no chance for German journalists to make the trip to Colorado in the few hours since the story had hit.
But there were other people in front of the shop, too. Zayne’s followers, I supposed. Many younger people standing in small groups, laughing, waiting for god knew what since the shop wasn’t going to be open today in preparation for tomorrow.
Why were there so many people?
Sammy gave a sharp bark, and I took a deep breath to calm me down a little. Getting so anxious I was starting to freak my dog out wasn’t going to do me any favors.
I needed to stay focused. First of all, I needed to find a parking spot and somehow get into Zayne’s shop — preferably without being recognized, which meant I couldn’t park anywhere close by. People would recognize me, hell, they were waiting for me — and my limp didn’t do me any good trying to stay anonymous.
So I kept on driving until I pulled into a free parking spot right in front of Kickstart, which was filled to the brim with even more people.
Holy shit.
This couldn’t all be about me, could it? Soccer wasn’t even that popular here!
My throat constricted, and it took me a couple of seconds to relax just enough to drag in a breath. Sammy was whining in his spot, eyes firmly trained on me, which urged me on to keep breathing, to keep my calm.
No nervous breakdowns. The press would have a field day to see me breaking down again.
After a while, I carefully climbed out of my car, taking each and every step with utter concentration to not show my limp while I was desperately trying to blend in, to look like a regular guy from town.
Of course, I should’ve known better than hoping no one would recognize me. When I turned around after getting Sammy out of the car, I ran directly into Corbyn.
“Scheiße,” I murmured, stumbling backward until he grabbed my upper arms, steadying me.
“Hey there, Mister Soccer star,” he said with a teasing voice. I immediately threw a look over my shoulder to make sure no one had heard him even though he’d spoken really quietly.
“Don’t call me that,” I snapped, my fists balling at my sides. I was that tense.
“Sorry,” Corbyn said ruefully. “I tried calling to tell you you should probably stay away from town since I didn’t think you’d enjoy encountering all the paparazzi running around here.”
I felt a pang in my chest.
