But Molly being Molly wouldn’t hear of it, and pulling me on the mattress beside her, assured me there was nothing I could have done when I told her I’d let her down. I explained to her what happened—the note, Shelly, my momma, everything—and with every sentence, she grew more and more distant.

Over the next couple of days, Molly gradually turned in on herself. She wouldn’t eat, barely spoke, and when she wasn’t sleeping, she stared unseeing at the ceiling, ignoring me, ignoring our friends.

The guys came to see her and tried their best to cheer her up, but the worried glances coming my way showed me they knew Molly was f**king depressed. I didn’t know what the hell to do to pull her out of it.

I couldn’t bear it, day in and day out being in that f**king hospital, watching Mol drown in misery, watching the hours turn into days, and my girl letting the grief tear her apart from the inside out. So when the doctor came in and told us Molly was being released, I was so damn happy, thinking that once out of the prison cell of a hospital room, she would start to heal, start to help me heal too.

I was busy packing her bag when a text came through on my cell.

Coach: Rome, I hate to ask this of you now, but I really need you at this function tonight. You don’t have to come for long, but you need to be here for the team, for the press.

Sighing and pinching my nose, I cursed inwardly. Coach had been great lately, but the fact of the matter was that football stops for no one, and our baby’s loss was not going to change the fact that the championship was right around the corner.

“What is it?” Mol asked from the bed.

I turned to see her looking at me with her usual indifference, and answered, “It’s Coach. He needs me to attend a charity function at the stadium tonight. I’ve missed a lot of game prep, and he needs the QB to be there to show I’m with the team all the way to the championship.”

“Then go.”

I stilled and dropped the packed bag to the floor. “I can’t leave you like this.”

“Yes, you can. I’m tired anyway. I need to sleep.”

Anger seeped into my muscles. I was through with this f**king imposter lying on the bed, pretending to be my girl. I hardly recognized her. I wanted the old Molly back. The one who would laugh with me, the one who would make everything better… the one who friggin’ loved me. I’d coped on my own for the last several days, supressing my grief to get her through hers, but I couldn’t f**king do it anymore, and losing my grip on my anger, I swung a fist into the wall.

“For Christ’s sake, Mol! How can you be tired? You’ve slept for days, done nothing for days! I understand you’ve had surgery, but the doctors said you should be feeling a lot better by now. You’re wallowing, Shakespeare. You need to snap the hell out of it! I’ve tried, been trying to be patient, but enough is enough! I’ve lost a baby too, not just you, but you shut me out and act like I’m a damn stranger to you. I was the daddy, for f**k’s sake! I can’t do it alone. I have too much to think about—you being like this, leading the team to the championship, the hopes of an entire state on my head. I need you to help me, Mol, not to drown in your own f**kin’ misery. Who’s supporting me? I’m grieving too!”

Her lifeless eyes regarded me, unseeing, and pure desperation took hold as I pounded to the bed, all gentleness gone. I pressed my lips to hers, aggressive, rough, and how we usually liked it. But her lips didn’t move. It was like kissing a f**king corpse.

I was scared.

When I saw her on the floor, covered in blood at my folks’ place, I’d been scared. When I knew I had to tell her our baby had died, I was scared, but the fear of the girl I loved, the girl who saved me, being lost for good had me almost insane with panic.

“For f**k’s sake! Please. Please. You’re scaring the shit outta me! You need to start dealing with it, dealing with everything that’s happened.” I pleaded. But she turned away, not wanting to listen… and it felt like I was dying a slow and painful death.

“You can’t even bear to look at me, can you?”

Her back stiffened, she whipped to face me, pure anger distorting her features, and she screamed, “There! I’m looking at you! Tell me, Rome, what would like me to deal with exactly? The fact that your mother killed my f**king baby?”

And there it was… My baby. She no longer saw us together… We were no longer in this together.

“Our baby, and don’t you ever forget that. I was with you all the way until the end… still am! I’m still f**king here, trying to pull you out of hell!”

But there was nothing, not even a flicker of understanding in her eyes. She’d given up on us, and in that moment, I didn’t care either. I was over this whole friggin’ year.

“You know what? Fuck this! I’m out!”

I attended the dinner as requested and hours later found myself tearing through the hospital, my girl gone and nowhere to be found. Sitting in her empty room, one thing was abundantly clear: Molly had given up.

She’d left me. She’d run.

29

Present Day…

“My God, Rome,” Ally whispered, wiping at her eyes. “I never knew… never realized you both went through so much. How much you meant to each other. Saved each other.”

“Yeah,” I croaked out. “Now you do.” I turned to Ally, who was looking around the room, biting her lip in worry. “We need to find her, Al. What if she does something stupid? She’s not thinking straight. Hasn’t been for days.”