Page 2 of Unloved

Confused and frustrated, I wrap my hands around his wrists and push them off me. I’m four years younger than him, but I have a height advantage and my football training gave me size.

“What do you want from me?” I ask angrily, stepping into his personal space. “You want to go? So go. You want my blessing? You have it,” I shout. “I don’t know what difference you think it’s going to make. Whether I’m angry at you or not, it isn’t going to make you stay.”

I run a hand over my face, irritation and anger making my blood boil. “You want to hear that I want you to stay? You want to hear that I’m mad that you’re leaving? No.” I shake my head vehemently. “You don’t get to hear those things from me if they don’t end up making a difference.”

I step away from him, needing the space, trying to calm myself.

“Does it make a difference?” I ask once more, steadying my voice. “If I ask, will you stay?”

The silence adds salt to my already open and exposed wound.

I hold his gaze, reading the shock and heartbreak in every line on his young face. There is no hiding how out of character my outburst is for the both of us. I always keep my cards close to my chest, constantly living in fear that any inconvenience I might cause would have me back in foster care and alone. Even at eighteen, aged out of the system, with a football scholarship, a roof over my head, and a job, I can’t shake that irrational fear that one day it will all be taken away from me.

“Like, I said”—I glance around the room, eyeing his bedroom door before allowing myself to look back at him—“I don’t want you to go, but I understand why you have to.”

I don’t allow myself to linger or give myself the chance to worry about whether or not his feelings are hurt, because mine are too. It’s time to be selfish and protect myself.

The damage is done; he’s leaving me.

Lowering my head, I step around him and head to the door.

“Len,” he calls out.

I ignore him.

“Len,” he repeats, my name filled with enough anguish, I pause, my hand on the doorknob. “I know it doesn’t help, but I am truly sorry.”

A lone tear I’d been desperately trying to hold on to, rolls down my cheek.

I’m sorry too, because he is the first person I opened up my heart to, and with the way I feel now, he’ll be the last.

1

SAMUEL

FOUR YEARS LATER

Ican’t breathe.

Lennox.

I can’t breathe.

Lennox.

I can’t breathe.

Pulling at the neck of my jersey, I gasp for air. Lungful after lungful, I try, but my chest continues to constrict. Tighter and tighter.

I can’t breathe.

Lennox.

One second, the home crowd’s cheering, all of us watching as Lennox runs up the length of the field, ball in hand. And the next, the USC cornerback runs at him, shouldering him in the chest, hard enough their helmets clash together, causing Lennox’s body to become airborne, looking for somewhere to land.

It’s a textbook play. He’s supposed to land on his back and get right back up, but the force of the hit seems to have caught him off guard, and his head thumps on the ground first, followed by his shoulder and then the rest of his body.

All of him lands in a hard heap, one that has all the medical stuff running to him.

---