31. Matt

Icautiously step into the room, nearly choking on the strong scent of antiseptic.

"I needed to see you, to make sure you were…" The word catches in my throat.

"Alive?" Zak snarls. "Like you give a fuck."

A woman next to Zak turns colors. "I think I'll just step out for a few minutes?—"

"No, you don't have to leave, Mom," he says. "He's leaving."

But my legs keep moving closer to the bed. "Please don't shut me out. Just give me a chance to?—"

"I've given you way too many chances already. And that's on me. I'm not a goddamn doormat. There's no ‘welcome' sign tattooed across my forehead anymore."

Zak's mother moves toward the door.

"Mom, seriously. You don't have to leave."

"It's okay. I'll just be outside, sweetie." She gives me a long curious look as she passes. Then her lips curl up into a tiny smile, which, for some weird reason, gives me a small sliver of hope.

That maybe I can fix this after all.

But once Zak's mom leaves the room, that hope is snuffed out like candles on a kid's birthday cake.

"Thank God you're okay," I murmur, moving toward the bed. "I tried to get to you, but you'd already been taken away. I'm sorry, Zak. I'm so fucking sorry."

His dark eyes blaze, flinging sparks that singe my skin as I get closer to him.

"Sorry for what? For using me? For lying to me? For making me believe that you'd changed when you're the same old Matt who only gives a damn about himself?" His lips twist with disgust.

"All of it." My throat tightens like there's a hand wrapped tight around it. "But I need you to understand why."

"I don't give a fuck!" he yells. "You're so goddamn selfish. You're all about yourself, do you even realize that?"

The vein in his forehead throbs, his face flooding with red. "I don't care what you have to say, okay? Right now, all I care about is the fact that I can't feel my legs. I'm waiting for my doctor to come in here and tell me all about how my spine was fucking shattered in that crash and that I'll never be able to walk again." He shoots his arm out and sends the water pitcher on the table next to him flying into the wall.

"Jesus, Zak. I didn't know. I'm so sorry."

He lances me with a glare, and it stops me dead about a foot from the bed even though I long to reach for him. Anger radiates off him, almost as a warning to steer clear.

"All because I let myself get sucked into your black hole again. You wrecked me tonight. I left that place with my head in a million directions because I had a plan for myself, and a few bullshit words from you sent it up in smoke. Then I ended up welded against the door of my car. I'm done, Matt. Done with your games. Done with you."

I scrub a hand down the front of my face, my body prickled with panic. "Please don't do this. I was so wrong for everything I did, and if you hate me, I don't blame you. But don't make me leave until I say what I need to say. When I came to you the other day and told you about my family, it was only part of the truth." I suck in a breath, my heart thrashing in my chest as I rush to speak the words.

"During our first year at Ohio State, my dad had gotten into really bad trouble. Owed a lot of money, and if he lost one more bet, he was gonna be killed. So, he came to me before one of our games, begged me to throw it so he'd win his bet. He did it a couple of times after that, too. Travers overheard him once, recorded the whole thing. He held that over my head, used it against me when he wanted to take you out. He was so fucking jealous of you that he couldn't stand it that you were better than him. Everyone knew you'd always get drafted over him, and he didn't want to take that chance."

Bile rises in the back of my throat, his threats reverberating between my ears.

"The day you were injured, I was ready to tell the coach and say fuck it. I told Brett what I was going to do, and he threatened to have me thrown out of the league if I said anything to anyone. Making it big was my only way to help my family. It was the only way I'd be able to save them from my dad's bad decisions. If Brett came out with that recording, I'd have been finished. And they would've been, too. So, I chose."

My spine tenses.

I continue, "I chose wrong, though. Everything I've done has enabled him to keep fucking up my family's future. Sometimes, I think I should have walked away that first time. Just let things happen. But I didn't, and I lost someone I loved. Someone I love."

"If you think that your sob story can make everything better, you're wrong." His voice shakes. "It doesn't excuse treating me like a piece of trash that you can't get away from fast enough. You could have told me the truth back in college. But you were too worried about saving your own ass. I lost my chance at the NFL because you made your choice. I didn't get a choice."

"I know, and I'm sorry. I just wanted to help my family. I didn't have any money back then. All I had was football."

"And I respect that you wanted to do right by your family. I just wish that you'd have respected me enough to be honest."

A shudder runs through me, his voice slices into my heart like the sharp blade of a stiletto knife.

"I fucked up," I whisper, creeping forward and reaching for his hand. "I was scared. I had nobody to turn to. You never had to work a day in your life because your family was swimming in cash. You'd never have understood what I was going through, what I'd already lived through for years before that."

"It's not like you ever tried to talk to me about it. You'd shut down any time the subject of your family came up. I figured it was because they didn't know you were out, and you didn't want them to know about me."

"You're right. I didn't want anyone to know I was gay. Back then, it was too risky, and I didn't want to become a target. But just so you know, Travers didn't go after you because you were gay. He went after you because he was threatened by you and used the gay thing as an excuse because he's a vengeful motherfucker."

I pause, trying to read Zak's face but it's hard as stone. "Even now, Travers could end my career with that recording. He's always held it over my head because it gives him an upper hand. And if it were leaked, and by some miracle I was able to stay in the league, who the hell would trust me afterward?"

He pulls his hand away before I can take it. "Your track record is shit, so probably nobody. Now, if you're finished unloading your conscience, get the hell out of here. I'm done listening, and I've got more important things to think about."

I wrap my fingers around the top of the bed rail, my stomach freefalling into my shoes. Desperation snakes through my insides. "This can't be it for us. I can't be without you. I love you, Zak. I have since we were together at school, and I never stopped, even after all these years. That's the reason why I can't stay away from you, why I can't fucking breathe without you."

"Give me a damn break." He snorts. "You're so full of shit. You don't want me. And you definitely don't love me. You only love yourself."

"That's not true. I know I hurt you, and I want to make it up to you. Please give me that chance. I want to be with you."

Zak rolls his eyes. "You could never handle the reality of being a gay man in the spotlight. You're too afraid of what you'd lose—your fans, your career, your money. So instead, you made me your dirty secret and used me to get off, to cause you pain when you needed a release. You knew I was an easy target for you because I never said no."

His dark eyes narrow.

Then Zak says, "Well, I'm saying it now. I don't want to be with you, Matt. You're all talk, all the time. And you don't have the balls to show me why I should ever trust you again, much less love you."

Suddenly, Zak shoots up onto his elbows, his face pinched with agony.

"Get a doctor," he chokes. "Now!"