by SM Soto
“She’s worth it,” is all I say, leaving no room for discussion. Thankfully, Aliza doesn’t say anything else for the rest of the drive.
We meet up with Sam in the emergency waiting room. She’s pacing the hall and freezes when she sees us.
“What’s going on? How is she?” I ask impatiently.
“They took her back for a screening. Said they’ll give us more information when she gets up,” Sam placates.
“That’s it?” I hiss angrily.
“Hey. Calm down, Luke. I know you’re angry, but she’s in good hands now, so let’s just calm down and wait it out,” Sam says. I bite my tongue from saying anything else and nod my head. I send a quick text to Drew, letting him know what’s happening.
“Chase! Thank god!” Aliza says as she runs into the arms of some guy. His large body engulfs her small one and he kisses the top of her head lovingly. He holds her back at arm’s length and checks her over.
“Are you alright? How is she?” He cups her face gently in his hand, and she grasps his hand with her own.
“Seriously? You’re asking about me right now? I’m just worried about her. They won’t let us see her until the drugs leave her system and she wakes up.”
Chase sighs and kisses Aliza firmly on the lips. It’s no secret the two are madly in fucking love with each other. They look at each other like they need the other to take their next breath. It’s infuriating. I can’t help but feel bitter. Why the fuck couldn’t I do that with Natalia?
God, I’ve fucked everything up so royally.
Releasing each other they turn to us, and it’s then I notice the other guy at his side. “Luke, this is Alex, he’s a friend of ours,” Aliza says, gesturing to the other guy with buzzed cut hair. He nods in greeting. Aliza grasps the hand of the guy next to her.
“Chase, this is Luke. He found Natalia. And Luke this is my boyfriend, Chase.”
The guy is tall, about my height and build. He looks like a surfer through and through with the tan skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes. We shake hands briefly then take a seat. And then we wait.
I have my head dropped into my hands when I hear her voice. It’s like nails on a fucking chalkboard.
Mother fucker.
That’s one voice I shouldn’t be hearing, not here. I snap my head up, pinning Gina with my gaze. She’s standing next to an older graying man, who I’m guessing is her father—well, Natalia’s too.
“Where is she? What happened?” he asks, striding up to Sam.
“They have her in an exam room. They wouldn’t let us in because we aren’t family. She was at a party and someone slipped something into her drink. We don’t know anything more.”
“She was at a party drinking?” he asks in contempt. I can basically feel him judging his own daughter. My hands curl into fists, and my nostrils flare.
“Daddy…I told you—” Gina’s starts to say, but I shoot out of the chair, and cut her off.
“Shut the fuck up!”
Everyone’s head swings to mine, including the other families in the waiting area.
“Get the fuck out of here, Gina. You aren’t wanted,” I growl. Gina’s face pales, and she steps closer to her father’s side like the coward she is.
“Hey! Don’t speak to my daughter that way! She has a right to be here for her sister,” Natalia’s father yells, taking a step closer to me. “Who the hell are you, anyway?”
“Luke saved Natalia,” Aliza says from her spot on her chair, coming to my defense. Natalia’s dad cocks his head to the side and narrows his eyes at me.
“So, you’re the little shit who has been causing my girls to fight?”
I chuckle humorlessly. “You would think that, wouldn’t you? Maybe if you opened your fucking eyes, you’d see I’m not the only problem here.” I train my gaze on Gina, making sure she hears me loud and clear. “Your daughter, not the one resting in a hospital bed, but the one standing next to you, is a manipulative bitch. You’ve spent most of your life giving everything to her, when you should’ve been giving it to Natalia, the most selfless person I’ve ever fucking met.”
Natalia’s father charges me, jabbing his finger in my chest. “You know nothing about my family. Shut your God damn mouth.” He shoves his hands against my chest, and I snap. I curl my fist, hurtling my arm back, and land a right hook onto his cheek. Everyone in the room gasps. He stumbles back, barely catching himself from falling onto the floor.
“That’s for being such a shitty father to a girl who deserved more than second place,” I hiss. Thick, heavy arms land on my shoulders yanking me away from Natalia’s piece of shit father.
“Take a minute to cool off, man. Think about Natalia,” Chase, Aliza’s boyfriend says calmly. Blowing out a breath, I shrug out of his hold, and storm out of the sliding glass doors leading outside.
I pace outside, trying to rein in my anger. Fuck me. I’ve just punched Natalia’s father in the face. Way to get back into her good graces again, Caldwell.
Scrubbing a frustrated hand through my hair, I whip my phone out my pocket, and dial Drew.
“Any news?”
“Nothing yet,” I sigh down the line. “I need you to come here.”
“What’s going on?”
“I just punched Natalia’s father in the face,” I deadpan. The line is quiet, then I hear Drew blow out a sigh.
“Fucking Christ. On my way.”
When Drew finally gets here, he gives me a small lecture, and tells me to get my shit together and play it cool for Natalia’s sake. We walk back inside, steering clear of Gina and her father, just in case my temper makes me do something stupid—again. I need Drew here to keep me in line, in case something happens again. I can’t keep messing up like I am. At the rate I’m going, I’m sure to end up in a jail cell by the end of the fucking night.
All of us wait like sitting ducks for who knows how long before a doctor finally comes out to see us. At the sight of the doc, we all stand almost immediately.
“I’m Doctor Peter McNeill. I assume you’re all here for Ms. Baldoni?” We all nod our heads and wait impatiently for whatever it is he has to say.
“We have her on IV fluids to help flush out what she ingested. The drugs are leaving her system smoothly, she should start coming around. She’ll be a little out of it for the rest of the night coming and going, which is completely normal for the effects of a drug like Rohypnol, or better known as a date rape drug. Ms. Baldoni will heal accordingly. I’ll send a nurse out to bring a few of you in when she wakes.”
With that he leaves, and I all but deflate into the chair. She’s going to be okay. She’s coming around. Everything is going to be okay. I blow out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding, and the crushing weight that had settled on my chest finally loosens, making it easier to breathe.
We wait patiently, then, finally, a nurse comes out and says we can see her. We all hop to our feet, but the nurse quickly shuts that down. “I’m sorry, but only three people at most can be in the room with her.”
My jaw tightens. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Gina and her father nod their heads. Of course the least deserving ones would get to see her first. If anything, it should be Aliza and Sam. Drew grips my arm and tugs me back down into the seat next to him. No more than twenty minutes pass, before Gina and her father leave the hospital. The nurse turns the corner behind them, heading straight to us.
“Normally, I would only let three of you back, but I know you guys have been waiting to see your friend.” She leads us down the sterile white hall and turns into a small room that likely won’t fit all of us at once. Alex, Samantha, Aliza, her boyfriend, Drew, and I all try to squeeze into the small room just to see how she’s doing. Natalia lays unmoving with the IV connected to her arm. Her eyes are closed, and I blow out a sigh of relief. If she saw me anywhere near her, it would surely be World War III.
“She was awake not too long ago, but she’s still a little out of it. I just wanted you guys to see that she was okay,” th
e nurse says.
I get one last good look at her before nudging Drew, letting him know it’s time to leave. He nods and leads the way out of the room. Just before leaving, I look back at my beautiful girl in that bed and grimace in pain at the dull ache in my chest.
“You good to head home on your own?” Drew asks as we walk down the hall.
“Yeah. I’m just gonna drive around for a bit. Clear my head.”
Drew nods, patting me on the back, and leaves me standing in the middle of the hallway. I pull my phone out of my pocket and hover over my contact list. I want to text Natalia.
For what? I don’t even know. I just need her to know that I care. I don’t want her to wake up feeling alone. Or even scared.
Shaking my head, I stuff my phone back into my pocket and continue walking down the hallway toward a side exit.
“Luke, wait!” Sam calls down the quiet hallway after me. Blowing out a breath I steel myself, turning to face her.
“Yeah?” My voice is tired, resigned.
“Thanks for everything…things could’ve been real ugly if wasn’t for you, so thank you.”
I nod my head in understanding. I would’ve done it with or without her and Aliza. There was no way in hell I was going to let that fucker hurt her. Just as I’m about to turn around, she shocks the living hell out of me with what she says next.
“If it means anything…I really hope one day she can forgive you.”
I clench my jaw and turn without another word because I want the same thing. More than I’ve ever wanted anything—including football. But I know that will never happen. Tonight is the closest I’ll ever be to Natalia. Just that thought alone makes me feel like a little boy on the verge of tears.
Once I get home, I head straight to my room and shut my door. I pull out my phone and dial the one person I should’ve called a long time ago.
“Luke? Honey, is everything alright? It’s late, you never call this late.” My mom’s concerned voice travels down the line.
“Not really…I just…needed to hear your voice.”
“What’s going on, Luke?” she asks in full mom mode. I blow out a deep breath and rest my back on the mattress, staring up at the ceiling.
“I messed up,” I say flatly.
“The girl?” she asks, and my lip curls. Ah, mother’s intuition.
“How’d you know?”
“For starters, you never did bring her over for dinner,” she says with a hint of distaste in her voice. I know she really wanted to meet her.
“Yeah, well, I kinda fucked up before I even got the chance to bring her over.”
“What did you do?” she asks sternly.
“I fell in love with her, then I broke her heart.”
“I see,” she says quietly.
“I…uh…I also think I might need a lawyer.”
My mom breathes deeply down the line. “Luke Alexander Caldwell, you better start talking before I fly down to San Diego and embarrass you,” she threatens, eliciting a croaky laugh out of me.
I recount everything that happened with Natalia, following up with everything that happened with Aaron. My father had to be woken up, and he is not happy about the turn of events, but I know he’ll eventually get over it. The same can’t be said for my mother. She is a whole other story.
“I’m proud of you, Luke. Not for breaking the poor girl’s heart, but for protecting her when she couldn’t protect herself. Now what I really want to know…did you kick his ass?”
I chuckle down the line. “Yeah, pretty sure I broke one of my knuckles.”
“That’s my boy,” she says with pride in her voice. “Now, what are you going to do?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you love this girl, right?”
I clear my throat, feeling uncomfortable admitting something like this to my mother. “Yes.”
“Then you better fight for her forgiveness.”
Blowing out a sigh, I tell my mother how useless fighting for her really is. “She hates me. Won’t even look at me. There’s no way in hell she’d ever forgive me, no matter what I did.”
“When has a no ever stopped you from doing something before? Fight. For. Her. Don’t stop until she realizes how much she means to you.”
My mother’s words stay with me long after our conversation. I suddenly know what I’ll be dedicating all my time to—and it’s not football. I’m winning my girl back. No matter what it takes.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Natalia
When I finally come to, my body feels heavy and groggy. Everything comes back to me in unclear flashes. I can hardly piece together what happened after Aaron gave me a drink. I just remember feeling sad, from the conversation with my dad to everything with Luke. I just wanted to have fun—one night where I didn’t have to be the responsible, well-put-together Natalia. But the more sips I took from the red cup Aaron gave me, the more loose my body became. The last thing I remember was fear clawing at my throat when I realized I couldn’t move, and Aaron’s distorted face hovering over me.
To make matters worse, the first faces I see when I wake are ones I don’t want to. I am consumed with anger that my dad would bring Gina. I feign sleepiness, not interested in talking to either of them. I just need my friends—who are more of my family than my real family is. Halfway into their visit, I must’ve fallen back asleep because when I wake up again, I see the faces I have been longing for. All except for one.
Aliza and Sam slowly fill in the missing pieces of my memory, and I can’t help but gasp in horror. I can tell they’re leaving certain things out. Specifically, how they got through the locked door, and what ended up happening to Aaron after. I don’t dwell on it too much. I’m just glad they’re discharging me. I just need to curl up in a ball on my bed and berate myself for my decisions. If the girls hadn’t come looking for me, what would’ve happened? The question sends a shiver down my spine.
***
I’m brushing out my hair after just getting out of the shower when Sam barges into my room without knocking. With my back to her, I roll my eyes. After I got discharged, the first thing I did when I came home was shower. I wanted every part of Aaron washed off my body. I scrubbed my skin raw under the water, wondering all the places he could’ve touched without my knowledge while I was unconscious. Sam and Aliza have been fussing over me since I left the hospital. It’s been infuriating. I just really want to lie in bed and lick my wounds. Not hash out all the details. Is it really necessary that I know everything? Apparently fucking so.
“We need to talk,” Sam says from the doorway.
“Do we have to talk right now, Sam? I just want to lie in bed, maybe even watch a little TV. Forget everything for a while,” I say, turning to her. Sam stares at me with a look I’ve never seen before. I can’t even place it.
“I want to talk about Luke.”
My heart does a painful stutter in my chest, and my breathing turns irregular. I don’t want to hear about him. Not right now. Everything is still so raw.
“Well, I don’t want to talk about him,” I retort.
“Do you love him?” she asks suddenly. My breath catches, and my eyes prick with tears. “Despite what he did, can you see yourself living without him?”
I bite my bottom lip until I taste blood. I know the answer to this. I’ve known it from the first day.
“No,” I whisper.
“Good. Because he fought for you in a way I’ve never seen Luke do anything before. He almost threw away his football career for you, and that’s saying a lot. So, I think it’s time I tell you what really happened.”
After Sam tells me the full story, I’m a mess of tears. I can’t believe Luke Caldwell did all that for me. He risked his college ball career, his NFL career, maybe even his life, depending if Aaron decides to press charges.
“He was a mess…at the hospital. He even punched your dad.” Sam snickers and I snap my wide eyes to hers.
“He punched my dad? But…why?�
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“Your dad brought Gina. That didn’t sit too well with Luke. God, I wish you would’ve seen it, he really told your dad off. Told him you were worth more than second place. I swear, he won me over right then and there.” She chuckles. My bottom lip trembles, and a fresh wave of tears spill over.
“He really said that?” I whisper thickly.
Sam nods, smiling at me sadly. “Yes, he did.”
“Why wasn’t he at the hospital when you, Aliza, and Chase were?”
She blows out a sigh and stares at the ceiling for beat before turning to me. “I think he was scared. Scared you wouldn’t want him there. He came in when you were asleep. Just stopped in with Drew to make sure you were okay.”
I press a trembling hand to my lips, trying not to sob out loud like a baby.
“I know what he did was wrong…” So wrong. “But sometimes, I think we all make mistakes that we regret, Natalia. It’s the actions we take to fix those mistakes that really matter.”
I stare up into emerald eyes swirling with emotion and give her a watery smile. “When did you get so smart?”
Pursing her lips, she shrugs and nudges me in the arm. “It’s all up to you, Nat. What are you going to do?” she asks with a gleam in her eye. I smile up at my best friend and pull her into a close hug. Never wanting to let go.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Luke
I just got back home from talking to coach and getting my ass chewed out for what could’ve happened. I couldn’t really hide what happened. The whole goddam university knows the story by now. Doesn’t help matters that my throwing arm is shit, and my knuckles still feel like they’re permanently bruised. Fuck it. It was worth it.
I’m just about to call my dad and let him know that everything is fine when suddenly, there’s knocking on the front door. With a pent-up sigh, I stalk toward the door, yanking it open, not even bothering to look through the peephole. My stomach bottoms out, and I stop breathing.
“Hey,” Natalia says, shifting back and forth on her feet. My grip tightens on the door, and I summon all my strength to breathe normally and not reach out and touch her.