Page 113 of Finding Hayes
But she’s back now. She just shows up, you know? Maybe she’s one of the few people who can actually tolerate me.
Anyway, I had my first football game. I realized it was the first time I’ve ever played a game where you weren’t there. I’ve got my guys there, cheering for me. Kate’s a cheerleader, so she’s out there shouting her ass off for me. Yet I feel completely alone because you aren’t here.
Fuck. I’m probably just tired. Tired of writing letters that you’ll never read. I had some scouts out at the game, but I don’t know if college is even an option anymore. We’d always planned to go together. Do you remember that, Sav? That plan that we had?
Truth is, I can’t leave Saylor in this house alone. I’m going to need to figure something out if I want to leave Magnolia Falls to go to school.
The one person I usually talk this shit over with is you. The only person I trust when it comes to these types of decisions. Kate thinks college is stupid, so there you go.
Maybe college is stupid. I just don’t know that I care about much anymore.
I hope you read this. I still look at my stupid green pea on my wrist and wonder if you remember what it means?
Because I’m starting to think you’ll never come back, and I’ll never hear from you again.
I’ll keep trying for a while more.
You’ve got to give me something, Sav. I’m losing faith in us. Maybe I’m fucking crazy, and we never were as close as I thought we were.
Hayes
My heart ached as two tears dripped down onto the inked paper, making it bleed. I couldn’t wait to wrap my arms around my husband and tell him that there hadn’t been one day after I left Magnolia Falls that I hadn’t thought of him.
Because it was the truth.
The next few days were intense. We’d been here for ten days, and my father had started treatment. He was dealing with all the side effects that we were familiar with when it came to chemo. This was a more intensive type of chemo, and he was vomiting and nauseous and feeling horrible.
Nadia and I took turns sitting with him, and I went for walks outside when I needed to get out of the hospital. Emotionally, it was taxing watching someone you love suffer in this way.
I’d prepared for it, but it was definitely taking a toll.
I had just finished reading another chapter of my father’s novel. He would sleep while I would read, and then we’d discuss it. It was a beautiful story, and I’d been emotional from the first page when I realized that he’d written a book about a young girl that fit me in every single description but that he called fiction. Her relationship with her father mimicked ours, and it was about the young girl’s journey to finding her own happiness. I set thebook down and rubbed my eyes as he woke briefly and growled at me for water. He was moody and angry at the world, and that was fair. They’d prepared us for everything, which was why Nadia and I took shifts and breaks.
I missed Hayes. I missed my life in Magnolia Falls.
My phone rang, and it was my husband. He always knew when I was thinking of him.
We’d fallen asleep with our phones beside us the last few nights, because I’d had a hard time sleeping lately.
“Hey, baby,” he said, his voice sounding tired.
“Are you feeling okay?” I held the phone up so I could see his handsome face. Three of the guys had gotten the stomach flu, and he’d had to pick up extra shifts to cover for them.
He was handling his new position as captain like a rock star. I hated that I wasn’t there to bring him soup and support him right now.
“Yeah. Just tired. We had a bunch of calls today, and it’s been busy.”
“I wish I was there to bring you dinner.”
“I wish I was there to sleep next to you. I don’t sleep well without you,” he said, his voice strained and exhausted.
We were both struggling being apart, and I knew I was here for at least another week.
He wasn’t sleeping well.
And neither was I.
It was amazing that we’d lived for a decade apart, and now we couldn’t handle being apart for a week or two.
