“I think I could answer that question.” My simple declaration silences the chatter and all eyes are on me. For a split second, Izzy looks shocked to see me, but it’s chased away by a flash of anger in her eyes, then relief as she walks over to me and wraps her arms around my waist nuzzling her face into my chest.
“You mind if we take this little party to the kitchen? I have a feeling Ken’s sighting of Amy Winehouse isn’t going to keep the paparazzi for long.” I turn towards the stairs and tuck Izzy into my side. “Plus, I don’t know ‘bout you all, but I could sure use a drink.”
The collective mumbling of agreements tells me they’re all on edge with me and knowing what I have to tell them is only going to make it worse. “Hey, Ken,” I look over my shoulder to find him among my family and friends, “you bring what we have?”
He just gives me a nod as he trails behind us all down the stairs to the kitchen. Mazzy takes it upon herself to play bartender to our little soiree while Baz raids the refrigerator and pantry for food. Before I’ve had a chance to say anything, we all have drinks in front of us and Baz has put together a deli meat tray and a salsa-like sour cream dip for some pita chips to snack on.
“First, thank you all for being here. I know that with recent events, being here for me—” I level a knowing look at Mazzy. As Izzy’s best friend, she’s going to be looking out for her interests, “—isn’t very easy and each of you deserves an explanation, but none more than Izzy.” I look at my wife sitting to my left and grab her hands in mine. “Izzy, my first mistake was not trusting you. Sure, I had a thousand reasons why I couldn’t tell you what happened that night, but none of them should have been enough to keep me from telling you the truth.” It’s hard to miss the pools forming in her eyes. The sight twists my heart. “Fear led me to make the wrong choice, but not this time.”
“I’m aware,” refocusing my attention on all of them, “that I have no right to ask you to believe everything I’m about to say.” I catch the look in Lito’s eyes and he looks relieved. The look confuses me and I hesitate to continue. “What’s that look for, Lito?”
“Just tell us, hijo.” He gives me a soft smile with his and-the-truth-will-set-you-free voice.
“This all started the night of Bean’s heart attack. Back when you were here on your visit, Mazzy.” She nods in recollection. I look at Izzy and her eyes are wide. “When a few of the guys and I went out for drinks after visiting with Bean, one of them mentioned to Sasha where we were going to be if she wanted to join us.”
I feel Izzy’s hands start to slip from mine and I squeeze, willing her to look me in the eyes. “I was still nursing my last drink when the guys decided to hop bars to meet up with some lady friends. I had Ken take them while I finished. In hindsight, I suppose that was my first mistake.
“Sasha didn’t leave with them. She offered to give me a ride home, but Jay gave me some weird looks when she had asked so I declined.” I can feel the relief in Izzy’s hands. “That was one part of that night I got right.”
I work to not let the memory of Sasha making a pass at me and how I chose to handle it from there make my stomach revolt. I choke on my words as I tell them what Sasha did. “That fucking cunt,” Mazzy interjects. Play by play, I tell them about the photo shoot with the team in the following weeks.
“Sasha called me into her office. I remember the urgency in her voice had me concerned.” I turn to look directly at Izzy. “That’s the first night I saw that picture that started our new year.” She looks like she’s frozen in fear, but there’s an inferno raging just below the surface. I can feel her begin to tremble. “What I didn’t know for sure then, but I do now, is that that image is Photoshop’d. I wasn’t paying attention to the details because I was mentally beating myself up for not being straightforward with you about what happened that night at the bar. I was too racked with guilt to notice that the image of me was taken earlier that night, during the photo shoot.”
“It was during this meeting that I got the message that was supposedly from Ken. About my birthday dinner,” I look at Izzy apologetically. “I was so focused on what I thought Sasha saved me from, I didn’t even question the canceled dinner or my missing phone.”
Izzy’s eyebrows knit together and she purses her lips. She looks down at our joined hands and backs up; she shakes her head like she told me so.
“I know. You tried to warn me. I know. I’m an idiot. But seriously, what is it with you women and your bitch sense? What has you so tuned into this?” I’m practically pleading with Izzy and Mazzy to clue me in.
“I think, hijo, that this might be a ‘you thing?” I can’t hide the pain his words inflict fast enough. They have every right, to be honest with me. “You misunderstand me,” he continues. “Perhaps, the problem is that you are blinded by love.” He tosses that jewel up as if it explains everything. I can’t say I’m quick to catch what he means. “Simply put, your love for Izzy kind of makes the charms of the opposite sex invisible to you.”
“You’re not picking up what they’re putting down ‘cause you’ve got the hots for you wife, bro.” Baz interrupts with his take on Lito’s words. His outburst lightens the mood of the room when everyone chuckles at his poignant interpretation.
“Thanks, bro,” my appreciation oozes sarcasm. In return, he tips his imaginary hat to me.
Shaking my head, I continue. We discuss that Ken and his computer guy, Kyle, have also discovered that the video from the night of the photo shoot had been altered. I explained to Izzy that the different events I agreed to do for Sasha were out of a sense of obligation for her help. Mazzy scoffed and Izzy leveled her a look. She smirked and raised her hands in surrender.
“That night when fate twisted our world and robbed us of our sweet little girl was the last of any non-team related social obligations. Because of my stupidity and Sasha’s fucking manipulations, I wasn’t there for you Izzy. I caused the pain that cost us our baby.” Izzy sucks in a sob, and shame drops my head to my hands.
The memory of that night haunts me.
Chapter Twenty-Five: Always On My Mind
November 2006
Another fucking event with Sasha. I’m losing my patience with her constant reminder of how she saved my ass, “If you could do this for me, you’d be saving mine,” she’d said. Izzy has clearly reached her limit. She’s been waging an emotional war on my need to do the right thing for hours. It’s time to leave and she’s still going.
“DIEGO,” Izzy cries out. “I want you to stay.”
Balled up at my feet, she begs me to tell Sasha that I can’t do any more events. This is the third event in as many weeks. Plus practices, games, and endorsement obligations, I’ve left Izzy to fend for herself in this new city. New country.
The guilt over why I’m doing these events is eating at me. I’m aware that I’m keeping Izzy at a distance, but I’m terrified of what the truth might do now. Izzy’s in a precarious situation with her pregnancy and…I just have to draw a line with Sasha.
“Izzy,” I plead. “You know I can’t just cancel like that. I don’t have anything for the next two weeks. Let’s make plans to do something special,” I’m desperate to make this right, but I lack any viable options. Canceling last minute would not help my situation with Sasha. If I didn’t feel obligated to her father and this organization, I’d tell her no more. I don’t think Sasha’s deliberately being vexing with her reminders, but she’s definitely capitalizing on the opportunities.
“Whatever, Diego. Just go.” Her dismissal stiffens my spine, my shoulders. I hate to see her in this kind of pain. It can’t be good to be this emotional in her current state.
“Bella,” I plead again.
She doesn’t answer. She picks herself up from the ground at my feet and walks up the stairs.
I frantically scrub my hands over my face up through my ha
ir, yanking the ends. My phone dings from the inner pocket of my tuxedo coat. Without looking, I know it’s Sasha. Her driver is probably out front.
With a sigh and a whispered ‘I love you so much so much,’ I walk out the door and lock it behind me. I send a silent to plea to the fates, Please, make the end of this night come sooner than later.
Fucking hell.
That’s what this is. This is fucking hell. Glad-handing with the elite and I’m the only fucking soccer player in here. Fucking Sasha. At least, there’s an open bar. A good one because of all the money in this place.
“Double Redbreast Fifteen Year Old Whiskey, please.” The bartender nods, acknowledging my order. He turns to grab the bottle and I turn to put my back against the bar.
“So, you’re the new wonder boy over at London United?” a voice to my left questions. I look at the voice.
Holy shit! Looks like I’m not the only soccer player here.
“Dare Beecher?” I do my best to keep my chin off the floor as one of the world’s greatest midfielders waits for me to answer his question.
His laugh breaks me out of my trance.
I apologize, “Sorry, Dare. I, uh. I’m a big fan.” I think back to his question, “And yeah. I’m the new wonder boy.” I roll my eyes and hope I’m not coming off as a complete tool. “Holy shit! Dare Breecher knows who I am.” The internal thought is not so internal. Dare laughs. I turn back to face the bar. Thank fuck. My drink is in front of me.
I take a much-needed sip.
“Really thought I was the only ‘baller here tonight,” I tell him.
“I sneaked in the back. I fucking hate the meet and greet.”
We trade experiences and I’m not as hot under the collar to leave. We take a seat at a table nearest the bar and keep up the conversation. I ask him about his time with London United and in Italy. He asks me about Bean and mentions he needs to go see him. We talk about the game and the States. We continue at this; discussing wives and kids. I share that Izzy is expecting. He congratulates me. Some time passes and we’re in need of refills. We head to the bar together. I’m scanning the room for Sasha it’s been too long since she’d taken my coat to set it at our designated table. Oh shit! My phone. I reach into each of my pant pockets and find nothing.
“Dare—” I’m about to tell him I’ll be right back, but he speaks at the same time.
“Santo,” he says with a tap. “I think you need to see this.” I follow his gaze to the television placed at the back of the bar.
Mrs. Santos was rushed to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital for unknown reasons. She—
“Fuck!”
“I’ll drive you. Let’s go.” Dare’s grabbing my shoulder and pulling me towards the exit. As we pass the table where my coat lays, I swipe it up without stopping. Sasha tries to stop me to talk with someone or about something. “Not now, Sasha,” I growl my response.
“Diego,” she insists loudly.
“Hey, Sasha,” Dare addresses her. “Have a fucking heart. The man just found out his wife was rushed to the hospital.”
I dig my phone out of the inner pocket of my coat without breaking stride. What the fuck? “How the fuck did my phone get shut off?” Switching it back on, I get a series of beeps alerting me to the waiting voice messages. I press the voicemail button.
Her voice tears me to shreds. “Diego,” she sobs in pain, “something’s wrong...it hurts...” We’re outside the building and Dare is guiding me to his car. I can feel the case of the phone giving under my death grip, “...Diego, I need you.” I hear her phone crash to the ground, and a thump. Izzy cries out in pain and her end of the line goes silent. I no longer have a hold of my phone. It slips from my fingers.
“Diego.” My Izzy. “Diego,” the voice getting more insistent. My Izzy. I can feel my heart break with every labored breath I take. “Diego,” hands shake me. “Diego.”
When I snap back to reality, I’m in front of a car with its passenger door open. I get in without thinking. “My phone?” I realize the last time I saw it, it was falling from my hand. It’s placed into my hand and the door shuts.
I remember there were a few messages left. I’d only listened to the one. Not sure I can brave hearing another one like the first, I bring up my voicemails once again. The roads of London become a tunnel of darkness with blurred streaks of light. The next message was from Grace.
“Diego, sweetie. Izzy’s not well. I’ve called an ambulance. One is on its way. I’m headed to your house now.”
Next message was also from Grace. Just letting me know that Izzy was being rushed to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.
The final message. That one felt like a knife in my heart. “Hijo, what’s wrong with Izzy? Call me back.”
Dare allows me the ride in silence. My thoughts are all over the place. Izzy? The baby? Are they in danger? Did this happen because we fought? Please don’t let me lose my Izzy.
“Diego,” it’s all Grace says. She wraps her inviting arms around me and squeezes. “She’s in an operating room. She’s fine, but the baby’s not so good. Something about a tear.” Grace doesn’t continue because she’s wracked with silent sobs.
We’re left waiting in the waiting area for an eternity. It seemed that way. I don’t know how long it’s been, but I’m ready to jump out of my skin. Dare waited for as long as he could, but when it got too late he excused himself with some well-wishes and positive thoughts. Grace refused to leave my side even as the late night turned to early morning. We got updates as they could. They’ve stabilized Izzy, but the baby’s heart stopped because Izzy suffered a placental abruption. The doctor explained what it meant and then rambled off a bunch of statistics. Once Izzy is out of recovery, I take my place beside her. Grateful, my status as a professional athlete allows me to break a few rules.
My head rests on her bed, her hand between both of mine. Time passes, but life feels like slow motion. I wrestle with how I handle the loss of our baby while being grateful that my Izzy is still with me.
Izzy jerks. My head whips up to her face, my hands squeeze hers just a little tighter. Her eyes open and she looks at me blankly. She reads me like a book and before I can school my expression, she’s connected the dots. Despair replaces the void on her expressionless face.
“Izzy.” I’m speechless. My tongue feels heavy and impossible to move. She stares at me with desperation and then the walls of the room close in on me. On us.
“Noooo, please no.” Izzy cries out. Her pleas a beg for a different reality than the one she faces. The one without our little peanut. Her pleas battle with the rapidly increasing beeps coming from the machines she’s attached to. There’s instant chaos in the room.
“Ma’am, you need to calm down,” a nurse tells Izzy firmly. In a blink of an eye, Izzy goes from desperate to angry.
“Calm down?” she yells. “Because waking up to discover I’ve lost my baby isn’t reason enough to lose my shit?” Her voice is dripping with anger and sarcasm. She doesn’t let up on the volume. “FUCK YOU!” I’m taken aback by her curse. It’s not like Izzy to speak like that to some stranger trying to help her. I just stare at her with wide eyes and an ache increasing in pain with my inability to fix this. “Where were you, Diego? Where were you?” She lashes out.
A few seconds later she’s back to sleep, but her face still wears the pained expression of a woman that lost her child. The nurse Izzy verbally berated gave her a sedative and me a sympathetic look. I don’t know if the nurse was used to this type of patient behavior, but she clearly didn’t blame Izzy for her outburst. That was clear.
What Izzy said to me struck a chord so true. The guilt of our fight, my time away from her, and not manning up for the woman I loved eats at me. The new guilt finds a way in with the old guilt and my head is swimming in regret. Uncertainty mixes with the guilt and
I’m overwhelmed with the possible paths this event will set us on.
How did it come to this? Why?
I hope Izzy can forgive me.
Chapter Twenty-Six: Swallow My Pride
February 2007
I’m grateful for the opportunity to collect myself. “Izzy, I know I’ve said this a thousand times, but I can never say it enough. I’m so sorry. So sorry that you went through one of the biggest moments in our lives without me. I’m sorry that I acted mad at you when I was really mad at myself. I can’t undo the damage that night caused, but I will spend the rest of my life making up for it.”
Mazzy’s taken the liberty of refreshing my empty glass after I tossed back the rest of the original contents. “It was hell after that night. I thought I’d lost you,” I squeeze Izzy’s hand. “We’d lost our baby and I didn’t know how I was going to fill that hole in our hearts, in our marriage.”
I wring my hands recalling the frustration. Reaching back for Izzy’s hands, I explain, “When you all got here, I could see hope. Lito, when you sang to Izzy like you did mi mama in the hospital, you brought back the music. Baz, you were my rock. You heard the brunt of what was going on in my head and you kept me from completely losing my shit. Mazzy,” I shake my head as the tears pool in my eyes, but I man up and look her in the eyes, “you broke my heart a little. The way you could just communicate with my Izzy without words. Those wordless conversations you two could have. The way you could reach her when I couldn’t. It hurt like fucking hell and I was beyond jealous, but you shattered her armor of silence.”
Love Needs Another Chance (Truth About Love #3) Page 15