Hate You Still by Lyssa Lemire

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

KNOX

A wave of white-hot pain rattles my body as my tight fist slams into the concrete wall.

But it’s not enough. Smashing my knuckles into the hard surface with all my might only relieved a minute fraction of my anger, my frustration, my rage.

Despite the agony, I tightly contract my fingers into another first and rear back with my arm.

Right as I’m about to put all my force into punching the wall again, I feel an arm grip mine, frustrating my efforts.

“Knox! Bro! Chill!”

I try to struggle against the force holding me back, but it’s no use. It’s Lars who’s gripping me. If there’s one guy on the team powerful enough to hold me back even in a burning rage, it’s him.

“Let go!” I snarl.

“Only if you promise you’re not gonna break your fucking hand against the wall when I do,” he protests.

I puff. “The fuck do you care?”

I relax my muscles in his grasp, so he lets me go. Rather than stick around to hear what he, or anyone else, has to say, I walk away into the locker room, stripping off my clothes and heading right into the shower, hoping to drown my thoughts in the simmering heat.

I just played the worst fucking game of my life.

I didn’t think it could get any worse than last week. I was wrong.

Coach didn’t even want to start me this week. But I fucking begged him. Pleaded with him. I’d done well in practices all week long. Catching passes, running good routes. I thought that maybe I’d gotten out of my funk. I just needed this game as a chance to prove it.

But despite how well I was able to do in practice, it didn’t matter one bit where it actually counted.

I dropped passes. I got shut down by defenders. I tripped over my own two feet.

I even fumbled the ball.

I fumbled the fucking ball. The mortal sin for any offensive player, especially a tight end. That’s the one fucking thing that we, of all people, are not supposed to do.

To add insult to injury, our opponents were able to score a touchdown off that fumble.

I spend a long time in the shower. By the time I get out, everyone else is already changed and gone.

Good. I want to be alone right now. I need to be alone.

Any hopes that this was just a temporary funk have completely vanished by this point.

Like being hit by a lightning strike of revelation, it dawns on me what’s happening.

My talent has left me.

My heart skips a beat and my breath hitches. Suddenly everything is blurry, and it feels like my head is swimming in a thick, foggy mist. I reach out my hands and press them against the metal of the lockers to steady myself and keep from tipping over.

When the wave of dizziness passes, though, things are no longer blurry in my mind – in fact, everything is crystal clear.

That’s it. It makes perfect sense.

My talent has left me.

Like everything, and everyone, else.

There’s no other explanation.

Everyone I’ve ever gotten close to has left me. Everywhere I’d ever grown used to, I always ended up being pulled away from. For better or for worse, every place and every relationship in my life was temporary.

Why should it be any different for my abilities?

My talent is gone. It’s deserted me.

And without it, I’m nothing.

I’m what so many people, for my entire life, have always said I was. A loser. A waste.

Just like no family ever wanted me, now no team will ever want me.

Future in the NFL? Forget about it. Shit, I’ll probably be cut from the Alton Eagles next year.

And when I have nothing, no prospects, no future, probably even kicked out of school after losing my football scholarship, the inevitable will happen.

Emma will leave me, too.

Shit, that would be the best-case scenario for her. She’s such a good person, such a tender soul and pure heart, that she might not have the heart to leave me.

Which would only mean she’d be dragged down to my level. She’d never have the life she deserves. The life that I, without my football talent, could never possibly give her.

My jaw clenches. I can’t let that happen. I can’t let Emma waste her life on me. Not now.

I know what I have to do.