She nods and turns in a daze, heading over to the bedroom.
I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. If her mother doesn’t pull out of this, Kayla will be beyond devastated. More than that, she’ll be an orphan, just as I was. And though she grew up with two loving parents, when I only had one and for a short time, I know what it’s like to feel utterly alone in this world.
This is going to destroy her.
I lean against the wall, trying to breathe. Our relationship is hanging on by a thread, I’m probably the person she trusts the least at the moment and now she has to go back home. I can’t even go with her because of rugby, even if she wanted me there.
Still, I have to make sure. I could try.
I head to the bedroom to see her shoving everything in her suitcase, a blank expression on her face.
“Do you want me to go with you?” I ask her.
She barely looks at me. “You can’t go. You have rugby.”
“I know I do but this is important.”
She shakes her head, grabbing a pair of jeans out of the laundry basket. It’s all happening so soon. She’s leaving.
It would be completely selfish to fear that she might not ever come back.
“You stay here,” she says. “This is…I have to go be with my brothers. We have to figure out what to do.”
“I know,” I say softly. “But I could make something work. If you needed me, you know. For support.” The truth is, I probably couldn’t make anything work. Not right now, before our first game. But if she needed me to be there, if she wanted me there, I would do whatever I could.
“You stay here,” she says again.
I nod. “Okay. I just wanted to make sure.”
I go to my computer and quickly book her a ticket on the next flight out of Edinburgh. There’s one that leaves tonight, stopping over in Newark and then LA, but at least she’d get to leave as soon as possible.
And just like that, both our worlds completely change for the second time today. We’re both silent and reeling on the drive over to the airport, with Lionel and Miss Emily in the back seat to keep me company on what I know will be a very lonely drive back home.
Everything is happening so fast, my heart and mind can barely catch up. One minute I’m begging her to stay, to give me a second chance. The next minute she’s leaving and it’s out of our hands. She’s leaving and what we are as a couple, who are to each other, is being left completely unresolved. But that’s the least of our problems right now and right now I don’t think I deserve to dwell on anything that remotely resembles myself.
It’s all about Kayla. And that’s where my heart breaks all over again. Because I know how much she loves her mom, how much responsibility she feels for her. I just want to be with her, by her side through all of this. I want to be the rock she so desperately needs. I want to be the hand she reaches for at night, the chest that she cries into.
And skip, skip, skip goes time.
I’m getting whiplash.
We’re now at the security gate and she’s already said a teary goodbye to Lionel and Emily in the car, and she’s all checked in and now we’re standing a few feet apart and the short distance between us feels a continent wide already.
“I know I’m going to regret this moment,” she says quietly, her tone still flat, in shock.
“What do you mean?” I ask, reaching for her hand. It’s cold and limp in mine.