Kiptyn

I wake with a pounding in my head and a sick, nauseated feeling in my stomach. I’m barely able to peel my eyelids open, and when I do, I immediately slam them back shut.

Fuck, it's bright out there.

I attempt to roll from my laid back position and then think better of it. My shoulder is throbbing in tune with the beating of my heart until I sit up, and then the throbbing, pulsating pain increases. How could I forget? Some ass-wipe plowed into me last night at the beginning of the third quarter, and now, thanks to him, I'm out for the rest of the season.

Hell, I don’t know if I'll ever be able to play again. I'm determined, though, and with the help of the country's finest physical therapist, I'm sure I’ll make a swift recovery. If I don’t . . . shit. I can't even think about that. My life revolves around the game, and without it . . . no.

I'll recover, period. Next season, I’ll start, just like this one.

I swallow rapidly as the tart, acidic flavor of alcohol bubbles up into my throat. It doesn't help much. Grabbing a bottle of water from the bedside table, I take a small sip, trying to keep from losing the contents of my stomach all over my fresh, clean comforter and five hundred-count sheets. Skila just bought these, and I’d hate to ruin them.

Skila.

Where is she? Normally, when she gets up before me, she just goes to the small window seat and gazes out into the beautiful sky while she reads, but she isn’t there this morning.

“Skila,” I call out.

She doesn't answer, so I call out again as a deep, regretful worry settles deep inside of me. I can feel it. The house seems hollow and empty. It's just an empty shell without her here. She breathes life into this space, into me, making everything better.

I don’t know when or how, but sometime over the last two and a half months, she has become an integral part of my life. Every day I wake, my first thought is of her and what she’s doing, how she slept the night before, and how many times I can make her scream my name before we both have to climb in the shower and get ready for work.

During the day, when I’m not texting her or writing her on Messenger, we Snapchat back and forth. If something exciting happens during my day, I can’t wait for my chance to tell her. I miss her every second of every day, and sometimes it's a battle with myself to not walk out of practice and rush to her side, just so I can steal a kiss from her sweet red lips.

The evenings are my favorite time of the day. I swing by and pick her up from work, and on the way home, we decide on dinner. Some nights, we just pick up something quick, but my favorite is when we come home and, after changing into comfortable sweats and tees, we make our way to the kitchen. While cooking the evening meal together, I tease her relentlessly with soft kisses to the back of the neck and gentle strokes of my fingers along her arm, her jaw, and her lips. I drive her wild with desire, and then after dinner, I take her upstairs and show her how much she means to me.

I haven’t told her I love her yet. I'm trying to wait for the perfect timing. The ring I ordered and customized for her beautiful third finger came in last week. I had Jordan go pick it up for me just in case the tabloids were buzzing around. I don’t want them to ruin the surprise for her. God, I can't wait to make her my wife and spend every day of the rest of my life making her the happiest woman on earth, but first, I have to find her.

“Babe,” I call out as I reach for my phone on the bedside table, but it isn’t there. What the hell? I always put it on charge before going to bed at night, but it isn’t here. I rack my mind.

Something happened last night. The memory dances along the edge of my grasp, teasing me. Did we fight? I look around the room, finding her bag on the floor, filled with clothes and shoes.

Shit.

“Sky,” I call out again, hoping against hope that she’s just downstairs and didn’t hear me the first two times, but it soon becomes obvious that she isn’t here. I sit on the edge of the bed and lay my head in my hands, rubbing at my temples, trying my best to recall something . . . anything.

Flashes dance across my mind's eye: Skila screaming at me, tears falling down her face, her storming out of the room, a blonde stripper outside on the front landing. The pieces fall together, and soon enough, my memory is back just in time for me to wish it gone again. I can't believe she left.

Yes, I can.

I can't believe I let a fucking stripper bring me home. I should have explained it better. I should never have gone out to begin with, but after the game and the doctors, I just needed to let off a little steam, and having a few drinks with Chris always seemed to do the trick. I had too much, especially on top of the Percocet the doctor gave me, but I didn’t do anything. I know I didn’t. I wouldn't do that to her, to us.

How could she even think that? Is her opinion of me no higher than that I’m cheating scum? She really believed I would bring another woman home to fuck while she was here, pregnant with my child? What the fuck kind of person did that? The old you would have, the devil on my shoulder whispered, but I pushed him away. I’m not that person anymore.

I don’t know what to do with all this. My heart and brain argue back and forth with each other, each one trying and failing to prove their own worth. On one hand, I want to rush to her and explain, and demand how she could ever think something so horrible of me, and then my brain kicks in, and I tell myself to just let her go.

If this is how she sees me, if she has no more faith in me than this, then I don’t want her. I know that’s not true. I'll always want her. She is mine, my beautiful Midnight Sky. Unable to make a decision either way, I flop back against the undisturbed pillows on her side of the bed and toss my arm over my eyelids.