Second Down (Moving the Chains Book 2) (7 page)

He pauses to catch his breath, studying my face for a reaction.

I have no idea how to respond. What are words?

“Are you all right? You’re scaring me. Say
something
.”

“Why doesn’t he want me to know?” It’s the number one question rolling through my mind. My brain absolutely cannot process the fact that I forgot Rob and I are…were?...together. Did he break up with me because of what he must have seen? Does he not want me anymore because he thinks I’m defiled?

Alex bites his lip. “He’s afraid that if anyone tells you anything about those three days, that you’ll remember the attack, and he doesn’t want that to happen.”

A harsh voice cuts through the pounding in my brain and my harsh breaths.

“What did you do?”

We both look toward the doorway to find a sweaty Alyssa glaring daggers at Alex. Behind her, Jess peeks into the room with a less aggressive expression on her face.

“Yo, I need your help. She’s freaking out.”

“No shit, she’s freaking out, asshole! Rob told you not to say anything! How would you feel if someone dropped a bomb like that on you when you can’t remember it for yourself?”

With quick strides, Alyssa crosses the room and sits beside me, wrapping her arm around my shoulders. She doesn’t even loosen her grip or release me when that uncontrollable shudder rolls through my muscles.

“Stop fucking touching me!” My scream echoes around the acoustically-designed room. I don’t even care. I’ve had all I can take of everyone trying to control me since I was released from the hospital. If it’s not kid gloves, then it’s withholding information. Half of them are pushing me to seek therapy; the others expect me to open up to them.

Fuck them all. They don’t know what I’m feeling. What I experienced. What I’m going through. It doesn’t matter that I don’t remember it. I have the wounds to remind me.

Why doesn’t anyone understand that forgetting and remembering are equal curses?

As my panic subsides, Alyssa and Alex’s argument pierces my ears.

“He needs help! I don’t know how else to give it to him!” Alex shouts.

“He can get his own damn help! This wasn’t your secret to tell!” Alyssa fires back.

“She has a right to know.” Jess’s quiet voice interrupts the shouting match.

I blink and look up to see her standing there, her hands on her hips, her usually happy face a mask of worry. Beside her, Jeremy’s gaze volleys between all of us. I never even noticed him enter the room.

“Rob’s gonna kill you when he finds out you told her, man. You know how he feels about this.”

“
How
does he feel about this?” I grit out. I have less answers and more questions, and my poor, pounding head is ready to call it quits for the day. “What else aren’t you telling me?”

Jess and Jeremy drop to the ground, forming a huddle around me like some twisted version of a pow-wow.

“He feels guilty,” Jeremy offers. “For some reason, he thinks it’s his fault that you were attacked.”

“He told you this?” Rob doesn’t seem like he’s speaking much to anyone these days. Alex and Mike have been with me so often that there’s no way they could have been with Rob. Maybe Jeremy really does know more about where Rob’s head is than anyone else.

Jeremy shrugs. “Not in so many words, but figuring him out isn’t exactly rocket science. I’ve known him since kindergarten.”

“Rob’s never taken failure very well,” Alex chimes in. “He definitely sees this as a failure on his part to keep you safe. You don’t remember this, but the Saturday before your attack, Rob and I sat in our usual booth in the diner for most of the day while the chickenshit worked up the nerve to lay it all on the line with you. Jackson…” he sucks in a sharp breath.

The room goes deathly silent. No one has mentioned Jackson’s name since my attack. I don’t even know what happened to him. He might still be in the ICU for all I know.

Alex sighs, then starts again. “Jackson was there. Rob didn’t like him; didn’t like the way he looked at you. I could see it too. Rob wasn’t just being jealous. There was something off about the guy.”

“Holy shit,” Jeremy interrupts. “
He
did this? That creepy dude from the diner? The last time Rob and I were there, he pointed him out to me. I didn’t think it was a big deal. Guys leer at Evie all the time.”

“They do not!” The denial leaps off my tongue though it should be the least of my worries. I cross my arms over my chest. They’re discussing my assault as if they know what really happened. How odd is it that in spite of my memory loss, they’re throwing around theories without having all the facts?

Alex rolls his eyes. “Yeah, Evie. They do. That’s not the point. In Rob’s head, he should have seen this coming. He’s a quarterback. That’s what he does. He sees all the players in motion, reads what’s going to happen, and makes the play.”

“He couldn’t have known,” Jess whispers.

“No, he couldn’t.” Jeremy responds. “But that doesn’t matter in his mind. All he sees is his failure. He’s always been this way. That’s why he’s so good at everything he does. If he screws something up, he works his ass off until he fixes it and never makes the same mistake twice.”

“Until you.” Alex’s quiet admission drags everyone’s gaze to his serious face. “Since ninth grade, Rob hasn’t known what to do with you. It’s been eating away at him slowly. When you started dating Eddie last year, it crushed him. I know that guy as well as my own brothers. I know he thought Bio and being ordered to tutor you in Calc were his second chances. And Rob never blows a second chance. But he did this time. He just doesn’t fucking know how to process it.”

Nausea claws up my throat as my headache reaches a fever pitch. “Even if I believe you, which I’m not saying I do…what does all this mean? He’s just…done with me because he thinks he screwed up?”
Or because I’m too disgusting to be girlfriend material now.

Alyssa pats my knee. “What don’t you believe, sweetie?”

I blink at her, unsure how to answer. Between them discussing my assault like regular school gossip, all the information I can’t remember that’s been thrown at me, and my guilt over Rob, if I open my mouth, I might throw up.

Instead I fall onto my back and stare at the ceiling.

“You see?” Alyssa screeches. “Rob was right! She can’t handle this!”

A booming voice from the doorway stops the argument before it can even begin. “Enough!”

I don’t have to see him to know the expression on Mike’s face. He only yells when he means business, and that’s rare.

“Everyone out,” he orders.

“It’s my day to take her home,” Jess argues even as she rises from her position on the floor along with everyone else.

I stay on my back. Movement is out of the question.

They mumble words of parting, the usual apologies, then I hear Alex and Mike having a conversation not meant for my ears. They’re too far away for me to make sense of it anyway.

Mike sits beside me, but thank God, makes no move to touch. His voice is quiet, his usually calm demeanor back in place. “Who let the cat out of the bag?”

“Alex.”

He makes a humming noise in the back of his throat. “And?”

I slide my gaze to his face. “And, what?”

“What are you thinking?”

“I don’t know, Mike.” Tears well in my eyes, and I swallow the building tension in my throat. “I don’t know what to think anymore.”

“You wanna know what I think?”

My laugh comes out more as a choked-off sob. “Please. Please tell me what you think. All I’ve been hearing for the past week are everyone else’s thoughts.”

“Hey, you can’t think for yourself right now. Might as well borrow one of my thoughts.”

When I don’t respond, he takes it as his cue to unload on me. “Sometimes it’s easier to be strong for someone other than ourselves.”

I meet his deep brown gaze. If anyone knows about inner strength and control, it’s Mike.

He unfolds his massive body, stretching before offering me a hand. “Think about it. In the meantime, let’s get you home.”

I close my eyes and inhale deeply, giving myself a moment to collect my swirling thoughts. Repressing the urge to shudder, I take his outstretched hand, and he pulls me up like I weigh nothing.

“So it’s true? Alex wasn’t lying?”

Mike hoists my backpack over his shoulder, then herds me out into the hallway. “Why would Alex lie about you and Rob being an item?”

I chew on my lip, trying to ignore the stares of the students still loitering outside the building. Not one person has said a word to me about Rob. If I’m supposedly his girlfriend, that seems odd. Or maybe everyone knows he dumped me already.

I still can’t wrap my head around that. Yeah, we got close since the beginning of the school year, but…
I’m
his Dream Girl? All his sweetness makes so much more sense. The cupcakes, the coffee, the amazing backrubs. How stupidly blind I’ve been.

“For someone who said she didn’t know what to think, I can hear your brain from here.” Mike flashes me a smile as he unlocks his car.

“I mean, I have thoughts; I just can’t organize them.”

He waits until we’re both seated in the car to respond. “Yeah, concussions will do that to you. What’s your number one concern?”

I gaze out the window and breathe through the pain in my skull. It makes it harder to think coherently. “Alex said Rob’s had a crush on me since freshman year. Is that true?”

“Yep.”

That makes sense, but I can’t fathom why. It’s like I know it, but…I don’t. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

Mike grimaces at the windshield. “You’re like my sister. I wanted to be sure he was good enough for you. I wanted him to prove himself.”

“Do you think he has?” It sure doesn’t seem like it since he can barely look at me.

“Yeah. He has.” His voice is steady and firm. “Do you really think he’d be this broken up if you were no one to him? I guess…even I didn’t know what you mean to him. I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?” I’m so fucking sick of hearing how sorry everyone is.

“All this time I thought I was protecting you from being with a dumb jock like me. Rob’s a good guy, don’t get me wrong. Alex always tried to help him, but I never did. Maybe I should have. I know it wouldn’t have changed anything that happened to you last week, but it might have kept Eddie out of the picture.”

A surge of memories about that night rushes to the surface. “Oh my God. That’s why you called Rob the night you picked me up?”

He shifts in his seat, clearly uncomfortable. “Yeah. That’s why. On the other hand, maybe it’s a good thing you hung up on him. He might have killed Eddie too.”

“He didn’t kill Jackson.” I hope. Surely someone would have said something by now if that were the case.

“No, but he could’ve,” Mike grinds out. “No less than the bastard deserves.”

“Do you know anything about that? Is that something else everyone is hiding from me?”

His sigh fills the tiny cabin of his sedan. “Last I heard, he was transferred to the county lock up.”

“On what charges?” My voice wavers. My name might not have been used on television since I’m a minor, but Jackson definitely isn’t. Maybe the sexual assault isn’t as secret as I’d like to believe.

“Attempted homicide. Why?”

Relief floods my muscles, then they tense again. “Is Rob going to be charged with the same thing?”

Mike casts a curious glance my way. “Not that I know of. It was justified. I haven’t honestly talked to him much since I’ve been juggling you and Chelsie. Jeremy might know, though.”

“Why have you and Alex been spending so much time with me if Rob’s doing so badly? I asked Alex, and all he told me was that Rob would want it that way.”

“Yep.”

I close my eyes and rest my head against the seat. What am I going to do with all this new information?

“Evie?”

“Yeah?”

“You don’t have to make any decisions today. Rob’s not going anywhere. Whether he realizes it or not, he’s freaking the fuck out because the guy loves you. I know you don’t want to talk to anyone, but maybe talk to him. Test the waters and see what you think now that you know everything.”

My snort is less than becoming for the supposed girlfriend of the school’s star quarterback. “How am I supposed to talk to him if he can’t stand me?”

Mike lifts his eyebrows like I’m being ridiculous. “He can’t stand what happened to you. There’s a big difference.”

It doesn’t feel so big from where I’m sitting. “How would you know that if you haven’t talked to him about it?”

A smug grin spreads across his face. “Because he knows I’d kick his ass if he ever hurt you.”

The rest of the ride is silent. Working through the roller coaster of my emotions only sharpens my nausea. Luckily, there’s a pile of make-up work waiting for me at home to distract me.

I peck out a group text to everyone who just blindsided me. Something Mike said keeps pecking at my broken brain.
Test the waters.