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Chapter Fourty
" miss him "
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. . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆
"I'm just saying you can't hide from them forever..." Colin rolled his eyes at the young girl who was trying and failing to repaint the office wall the shade of blue that was halfway spread across the walls.
"Yes, I can!" The redhead snapped back, paint smeared across her face as she dripped some on the floor.
The young man had caught the girl leaving work a couple of nights ago now and had been caught up with the situation of the broken arm and needing a steady income. He had also pieced together that the girl was hiding from Jamie in an attempt to not have to deal with her problems. A situation which Colin had been attempting to get her to deal with given that they had their first official game of the season coming up and photos would need to be taken whether Tallulah liked it or not.
Colin huffed at the ginger's defiance, "I ask you again, how are you going to keep staying a secret at the game on Saturday? You fancy being a ghost?"
"What do you know, Welsh boy?" Tallulah scoffed, but a smile played on her features. She forgot how much she missed all of the team's friendships she had with the players. "Besides, I've gotten really good at sneaking around."
"You waiting till everyone has left is not sneaking around." Colin shook his head.
"Yes, it is." The girl argued again, dripping more paint on the floor.
Colin looked at the girl's shoddy paint job with a grimace, "Why don't you just ask maintenance to do that? Lord knows it would have been better if you had waited for someone to help with the lights."
"Hey, the lights are working fine now!" Tallulah defended, gesturing with the paintbrush to the ceiling where, in fact, the lights were working fine despite the fact—
"They have burn marks around them, Fitz! Look at them and tell me they're 'fine'." The man pointed out.
The girl rolled her eyes, "They're fine, great even, based on the fact that I can see you. And to go back to the why are you not waiting for help, I am capable of doing this myself, plus I have nothing better to do." She shrugged."I wonder why that is," The Welsh man trailed off for a second, fanning thought, "Oh yeah, that's right, because you're scared of seeing Jamie so you have no photos to edit."
The girl went back to painting the wall a royal blue at the mention of Jamie; a small silence fell over the two before Tallulah began to explain; "It's not just because of Jamie... it's because of a lot of things."
"But you admit it, Jamie is a big part of it?" Colin needed confirmation.
Tallulah scoffed, "Of course he is!"
"Sorry, sorry!" Colin joked, "No need to get defensive." His tone got softer again, "Do— do you still love him?"
"I..." Tallulah was at a loss for words, "I don't know... I think I'm always going to love him. I don't know how I could possibly let go of the best thing that ever happened to me." She rambled, setting down her paintbrush and looking at her handiwork. "I miss him so much... I don't know how to tell him I still love him. I don't know how to tell him I still need him."
She turned to look at Colin who looked back at her with eyes of pity but also acknowledgment as if he knew the feeling of being in love but didn't know how to express it. Or keep the person he was in love with.
"It will be okay." Colin tried to comfort her.
"Yeah... Maybe."
A FEW HOURS LATER
Tallulah stared at the handle of the door. It was still early enough that the coaches were sure to be here, as well as Rebecca, but she was hoping later enough that most of the players had gone home by now. Hoping. She sighed and opened the door. The hallway was empty.
Lucky.
Thankfully she didn't see anyone until she moved past the coaches' office. Where she saw someone open the door and come out of the room not even looking, turning in the direction she was going, making his way down the hallway, giving out little waves and greetings. Jamie. So close yet so far from home. Though she had to admit.
Lucky.
What wasn't lucky was Roy coming out exactly after Jamie did and coming face to face with the ginger, who stared at him blankly with her big doe eyes, too shocked to say a word.
"Oh, this better be fucking good." He mumbled, grabbing the back of the girl's shirt as if she was a teenager he had just found sneaking out. Thankfully, he dragged her through the empty locker room now and into the coaches' office where Beard simply read one of his coaching books until he looked up with wider eyes than Tallulah at the sight of her.
The gruff man finally let go of the girl, shoving her lightly into Ted's spinny chair as the man walked into the commotion. "Explain yourself." Roy huffed at the girl.
"Uhhh..." she looked from Roy to Beard to Ted. Her mind was completely blank. No thoughts. Echoes. Empty cavern above her eyes. It was only after staring at the girl with a not angry but disapproving expression that Roy finally saw the cast that came from her shoulder all the way down to the girl's pinky and ring finger.
"What happened to your arm?" His voice now fierce.
Her mind still empty, all she could do was mutter out again, "I, uhhh... accident." She looked back at Ted with desperate eyes for help.
Ted, taking notice, looked for a nod of approval to see if he could share the whole story, what he got was a blink of inconfidence, but Ted decided it still weighed the same. He moved around the room, placing a hand on her shoulder in support.
"What I think our dear Bambi here is trying to say is... she got into an accident and she had to come back... Isn't that right?" Ted asked her.
Tallulah just jerked her head, now looking down at the pale cast. There was a small navy patch where she must have bumped into the wall when she was painting. It almost looked like a wave. A little bit of ocean.
"What happened?" Beard asked from his spot across from her. She looked up to meet his eyes. He looked worried. She hated that look. How many times had she seen the worried eyes of friends over the past couple of weeks? From her bandmates, her manager, Ted seeing her in the hospital for the first time when she looked so bruised and broken.
"I went to a bar and um... someone put something in my drink." She gulped, thinking about who it might have been. She had never thought about that before. A man fairly older than her had been hitting on her when she was ordering; she had turned her back for one second. What would have happened if she hadn't gone home?
"I tried to go home but I was sick... it felt like.. You know when you go swimming and you hold your breath for too long?"
"Yeah." Roy nodded along with Beard. Ted had already heard the story though when she had told him she hadn't been entirely lucid, still taking so much medicine for the pain.
"It felt like that, it felt like I was drowning. I had to open the window to try and get more air in the car... Then I swerved and kinda rolled almost and hit a tree. It was bad, when I woke up I was in an ambulance then I was in the hospital. I remember just being glad they had taken my bag from the car. Then later Ted came and helped me out for a bit. I didn't want to tell anyone so if you're going to be mad at anyone, don't be mad at Ted, be mad at me." She explained, her voice rattling through the experience she felt like she had already explained a million times.
Or maybe it was because it was just because she felt like she was constantly reliving it. The memories though foggy, playing every time she looked down at her cast. A constant loop of drinking, feeling sick, driving, and feeling pain.
"Why would we be mad at you?" Roy questioned.
"I— I don't know. I hid."
Beard spoke up this time, "We know why."
She took a moment before nodding, of course, they knew why. "I see him everywhere." Her voice was soft. "I see him in the leaves of the trees, and in the blueberry muffins I eat in the morning. I just... miss him."
The rest of the group looked at the broken, both literally and metaphorically, girl in front of them. They all wished they could say that the boy missed her too, but it would probably only break the girl further.