Chapter 50

fifty

ISLA

I call in sick for the rest of the week. Every morning I wake up and tell myself that I need to get out of bed. That my students need me. But I simply don't have the strength.

The night Maddox broke up with me—over text—I spent hours combing through social media posts trying to figure out what had happened. Because something had to have happened. He couldn't have just broken up with me out of the blue, right?

That's when I found the photos some female fans posted from a bar. In one of them, a pretty brunette sat perched on Maddox's lap. Her face was bright and happy. Mocking me. Maddox stared at the camera as if daring me to look away.

He's already moved on with someone prettier. Someone new. Of course, he has. I'm just the placeholder. The woman who's good enough for now but not worthy of forever.

I wanted forever with Maddox. I want it still. My stupid, broken heart hasn't been able to accept what my head so easily recognized.

He's done with me. So done, all my calls go straight to voicemail and my texts sit unread.

Rubbing my swollen eyes, I curse the tears that don't seem to stop. They trickle endlessly from my tear ducts. My pillows are perpetually damp. And covered with donut crumbs.

I'm right back to where I was before the auction date. Only it's worse this time. So much worse. Alex crushed my dreams, but Maddox obliterated my heart.

A knock at my door has me groaning. My voice is raw and scratchy from crying and disuse when I shout, "Go away!"

There's a faint jingling of keys, followed by the click of the lock, and then my best friends' voices fill my apartment.

"I swear to god, Isla, you better have changed your underwear today."

Nope. Sure haven't. What's the point?

"Go away," I mumble into my pillow. "I don't want to see anyone."

I hiss like a thousand-year-old vampire when Jess throws the curtains back and light floods my room. "Tough titties, Isla. I swear to Chris Hemsworth, we will not let you wallow this time. Not like we did with Alex."

"Wanna wallow," I grumble. Ice-cold water splashes on my head and body and I scream like a creature of the night. "What the hell? "

"Get your pretty ass up," Nev commands. "We know you're sad and hurting, but babe, you cannot lose a job you love over a man."

I know she's right. Trish has been super understanding about everything. Especially since people are still posting derogatory crap about me online. But her grace can only extend so far. And I can't afford to lose this job.

I've already lost too much.

In a moment that feels entirely too familiar, my besties shove me toward the bathroom and a nice hot shower. It takes all of my energy to strip out of my clothes and get under the spray. At least this time they don't stand in the bathroom with me. But I do leave the door cracked at their request so we can talk.

Ever since the night of Maddox's game, they've been trying to get me to tell them what happened. I haven't been able to bring myself to speak the words. But that was Monday and this is Friday. Apparently, four solid days of wallowing is their limit, this time. If it were up to me, I wouldn't be getting out of bed.

The Rogues get home today. A glance at my phone tells me it's one in the afternoon. Their flight lands at three. Before my relationship imploded for reasons unknown, Maddox had planned to come straight here. I would have seen him in four hours.

Now, I'm not sure if I'll ever see him again.

Another round of tears drip down my face. They mix with the hot spray of the shower as I rub my aching chest.

Everything hurts.

My head, my chest, my heart.

"Are you going to tell us what happened?" Nev asks. Her tone is gentle, but I know I can't put them off forever .

"I don't even know," I admit. My voice breaks. "He was acting all weird on Friday, didn't come over like we'd planned, but wouldn't tell me why, and I didn't even hear from him until I texted his sister in a panic." My stomach lurches. Mira. I wonder if she knows. She's moving here thinking we'll be friends, and now what? Do I reach out to her? Do I simply go into hiding?

Mira and the guys on the Rogues were starting to feel like good friends. Like they could have become even more, with time. So not only have I lost Maddox, but all of them as well.

Fuck, I hate this. Breakups always sucks, but this one feels particularly brutal since I don't know what happened. Well, outside of Maddox seeming to move on to another woman.

"He didn't tell you why he was ending things?" Jess asks.

I choke back a sob. "Only that I fooled him into thinking I was good enough and that he deserved better."

My best friends hiss like pissed off snakes.

"That rat bastard," Jess growls. "I'm going to show up at his apartment and break his dick with his own hockey stick."

"Please don't." My forehead falls against the shower wall. The damned thing feels too heavy to hold up. Everything feels too heavy. "I just want to pretend like none of this ever happened."

"That might be a little hard to do," Nevaeh mutters.

"What do you mean? Why?"

She sighs. "I don't know how to say this."

"With words," I snipe. "Spit it out. "

"You and Maddox have been the topic of online conversation this week."

Oh, no. How can we be the topic of conversation when I haven't been at any games? When I haven't seen him or spoken to him in almost a week? "What do you mean?"

Nev clears her throat. "Seems Maddox has been starting fights on the ice. Which isn't a thing he normally does. At least, not to the degree he has been this week. He almost got thrown out of their last game."

I shouldn't care after the things he said, but my stupid, traitorous heart lurches. "But why would they talk about me because of that?"

"He's been tagged in a few pictures by female fans. Nothing inappropriate," she hurries to add. "But every time another puck bunny posts a photo with him, people bring you up. They're wondering where you are. Speculating about why you haven't been seen with him. And why Maddox is taking photos with women sitting on his lap."

Oh, god. Will the horrors never cease?

"Okaaaay…"

"Apparently he also got wasted after their last game. When a fan asked about you at a bar afterward, Maddox's teammates had to hold him back from punching the guy."

Not good.

Nevaeh pauses. "There's a lot of speculation about what happened. People are coming up with some wild conspiracy theories."

Great. Do I even want to know? "Like what?"

"Like you ran away and eloped with a player on a rival team, you're secretly pregnant, or maybe you've decided you like girls after Maddox left you unfulfilled. Sexually, I mean."

I almost laugh. "Yeah, Nev. I got that."

"But the worst ones are the theories that you got what you wanted from him, and left. Money, your fifteen minutes of fame. An in to meet someone richer." She pauses before huffing out a breath. "Those are the theories that look like they're sticking."

"So everyone thinks I'm some gold-digging mercenary whore."

There's a long pause. "Pretty much."

"Oh." Suddenly, it's not just my head that feels heavy. It's everything. My back slides down the shower wall until I sit on the cold tile beneath the spray. Every drop that hits my back feels like dull pinpricks.

It shouldn't hurt so much that people keep accusing me of being some shallow gold-digger. I'm not one. I know that. The people who care about me know that. What does it matter if Alex and some randos on the internet believe otherwise?

My thoughts go to Maddox. Does he think I'm a gold-digger? He couldn't, right? I've never said or done anything to lead him to believe otherwise.

"Isla? Are you all right?"

No. I'm not

"I know you two were hoping to get me to leave the house today, but I think…" My throat feels raw and there's a lump in the shape of my heart stuck inside it. I clear my throat. "I don't think I'm up for it. Can we just stay here and watch some movies or something?"

There's a long pause while my best friends hold a whispered conversation I don't listen in on. That would require energy I don't have. And the will to do anything other than simply exist.

Even that feels like a lot, right now.

"Sure, babes," Nevaeh says. She sounds defeated.

Join the club.

"As long as you promise you'll go to work on Monday."

I have bills to pay. Of course, I'll go in on Monday. What other choice do I have? "Deal."

After crawling out of the shower, I put on some comfy clothes and drag my ass to the couch while my best friends make me tea and lunch. They're worried I haven't been eating. I have. I've eaten half a dozen donuts in the last two days alone.

I give in for the first time in days and tap the Instagram icon on my phone and navigate to the Rogues' profile. Sure enough, comment after comment fill the screen. Some express simple curiosity, some voice ridiculous theories, and some call me all kinds of terrible names and say they're glad it looks like I'm no longer in the picture.

When the acid in my stomach threatens to force its way up my throat, I decide to delete my profile. And then I delete the app.

I don't want to know what people are saying about me.

It was bad enough hearing how Maddox sees me.

Maybe it's just time to admit that I'm just not built for relationships. Love isn't in the cards for me.

Someday, I'll find a way to accept that.