Page 41 of Offside

And sad.

Don’t even get me started on not having anything to watch–not without wanting to cry every time I hit play on something Metal and I watched together.

All my favorite things were basically ruined now–they were all stained with Metal in a way that made me happy two weeks ago…

That was the sickest part of it all.

Honestly, the real dumb part of me thought Metal would come back. I spent the whole first week thinking he was just freaking out about something, but that he’d level out or miss me too much, and he’d come back.

And every day he didn’t, I felt like I was dying.

How was it possible that I missed him with every breath I took, but he didn’t care enough to even tell me why he was leaving?

Or even just saying goodbye to me?

It stung in the worst ways imaginable, but now I just had to watch my own team play from my living room, not even being able to play to vent some of these feelings. My family finally left the other day, but all that did was take away my distractions from the gnawing ache Metal left behind.

Now I knew what not being lonely felt like, and there was no temporary replacement for it. No quick fix or stand-in–I actually got nauseous at the idea of marking myself available on Mixr again.

And honestly, I would have deleted the account altogether if I weren’t still hoping Metal would come back every day.

Walking around on my own wasn’t easy, but I'd found all the spots in my apartment to hold on to, to make it so I could go anywhere I wanted. Leaving wasn’t easy, and I had to have everything delivered for now, but my doctor was expecting me to be able to walk around again almost normally in the next few weeks, so this was temporary.

It was all temporary.

Still, getting to my door when someone was knocking took a few extra minutes.

“Coming!” I shouted, expecting it to just be the guy delivering groceries. I finally made it over to the door, opening it and leaning on it for support, only to find not the grocery guy. “Sam?”

“Hey,” he said, smiling up at me. “I was just getting back from Texas and saw the, uh,” he trailed off, nudging his head down at the bagged groceries by my door. “I just thought you might like some help with them.”

“That would be…really nice, yeah–thank you,” I mumbled, opening the door more as he bent down to grab a few bags.

And that was how you knew my heart was broken–I wasn’t even thinking about how nice he looked bent over like that…and I didn’t even have to chide myself over it mentally. I hadn’t been doing it for a while–not when I had Metal keeping that part of my mind occupied and claimed, but he still had such a hold on me that I couldn’t even gawk at my favorite eye candy.

It made me a little sick to even call him that in my head now.

“I can help you put it away,” he offered, carrying the last few bags to the counter.

Something was different about him.

The last time I saw Sam was Christmas, and you'd have thought I was barking at him with the way he scurried out of here, tail between his legs. I didn’t know why he was so skittish or seemed so down, but he seemed so up now.

Sam had a very pretty face, but it looked even better when he was smiling. He had that boy-next-door kind of sweetness to him that attracted me in the first place, and brunettes had always been my favorite, but add in some unique eyes like Sam’s– bright green–I was sold.

If you'd handed me a piece of paper and asked me to draw my perfect guy, it would have been Sam. All proud, five foot nine inches on him.

If I could slap his head on Metal's body, but keep all the stuff in the head that made him Metal…

Man, I just really fucking missed my guy.

“Thank you,” I said again, earning a little nod from him as he got to work, navigating around my kitchen. “You seem better than the last time I saw you.”

“Oh yeah,” he huffed, investigating what was in each bag. “Mood got better as soon as my family was across the country again–I love them, but having them all in my apartment was a lot.”

“Heard that,” I half-chuckled, shaking my head. “Mine just left a few days ago, and only because I promised them I'd have one of you guys come check on me every other day.”

“Is someone actually doing that?” he asked, eyebrow raised at me like he already knew.