Page 132 of The Striker (Gods of the Game 1)
“I wanted to apologize for the way I handled things after your accident,” he said after several beats of silence. “I know it’s been years since we’ve seen each other, but you’re not the only one who’s changed since then. I acted like a jerk, and I’m sorry.”
I couldn’t have been more surprised if he’d sprouted fairy wings and started tap dancing in the middle of the breezeway.
Was Rafael Pessoaapologizingfor something he did?
“It’s great to see you looking so good,” he added. “It’s like the accident never happened.”
A sudden, irrepressible wave of fury swamped my earlier surprise.It’s like the accident never happened?
No wonder he was so friendly and chatty. He probably saw me and thought I would be an easy hookup now that I was back to “normal.” He also probably thought that I was the same girl who’d fallen head over heels for his cocky flashiness when I’d been too young and inexperienced to know better.
What hedidn’tsee were the years of surgery, therapy, and rehab I had to go through to get to where I was today. He didn’t see my self-loathing spirals or the fatigue that kept me glued to my bed during my worst flare-ups. Even at that moment, when I “looked so good,” I had little prickles and aches that formed an incessant hum in the background of my life.
My symptoms were invisible, but they were real.
Rafael didn’t see any of that because hehadn’t been there. He’d ditched me then had the nerve to waltz up to me five years later like all was forgiven and forgotten.
I forgave him formebecause I didn’t want to stew in a toxic pool of resentment anymore. But I certainly didn’t forget.
“Actually, Rafael, the accidentdidhappen.” Poisonous honey dripped from my voice. “Remember when you saw me in the hospital for the first time and flinched? Remember how you told me I would feel better if I ‘chose to’?” The honey congealed into cold, hard anger. “Remember when you broke up with meafter my first surgerybecause you said I ‘needed space’ to heal on my own, then ran off to fuck the first girl you saw at the club? You framed it like you were doing me a favor when in reality, you were too much of a little shit to handle the fact that you were no longer the center of my world. You hated that I didn’t make you the center of attention anymore and that you didn’t have a shiny trophy to show off in public.”
The color leached from Rafael’s face. “That’s not what?—”
“I’m not finished sodon’tinterrupt me.” The anger snapped inside me, teeth bared and claws elongated. “For you to come up to mefive years laterand say it’s likethe accident never happenedis the biggest fucking slap in the face. But you know? I shouldn’t have expected anything more from you. You’ve always been a self-centereddick, and I’m sorry it took me so long to realize it. In hindsight, the only good thing you’ve ever done was break up with me. If you hadn’t, I would’ve been stuck with you all this time, and that would’ve been a worse punishment thananypain or accident.”
The silence that followed my rant was so deep and all-encompassing I could’ve heard a moth breathe.
Rafael gaped at me, his face a mottled canvas of shock, anger, and the tiniest smidge of remorse.
I’d never spoken to him like that before. I’d never spoken toanyonelike that before, but my feelings had been pent up for years. They’d rattled inside me, repressed but unforgotten, until his appearance popped the cap off their prison.
Once they were unleashed, there was no stopping them until they’d spent every last bit of their energy.
Exhaustion settled into my bones—exhaustion, and no small amount of pride.
“We’re done,” I said, more calmly this time. “Don’t try to contact me again.”
I’d waited years to give Rafael a piece of my mind. Now that I had, I was ready to put him in my past once and for all.
Unfortunately, he was either too arrogant or too stupid to realize I wasn’t joking.
He grabbed my arm when I attempted to brush past him. A sour feeling spread through my chest. “Scarlett, I was just?—”
“Don’t touch her.”
My gaze flew to the right just in time to see Asher blaze a path toward us with Vincent hot on his heels.
Oh, fuck.
Rafael dropped my arm.
Asher punched him.
And everything went to hell—again.
CHAPTER 34
ASHER