Free Red Card by Carrie Aarons Page B

career took off.
    The first boy I'd ever fallen in love with, and the boy who I thought would be my last.
    I'd practically planned our wedding. I thought it would be inevitable as to where we'd end up. We'd talked about what would happen when he was drafted, and I'd been prepared for it all. Ready to move, make us a home and a life in whichever city wanted him. I'd scouted venues in our hometown for the following spring, a nice wedding nestled in between the seasons. I'd forgotten about my dreams, sacrificing everything for the greater good that was Taylor.
    I never looked back, and then suddenly, there was no looking forward.
    Exploring other options. God, but wasn't that just the most cliché breakup speech you'd ever heard? It was so unoriginal and typically male. I'd given him five years, was prepared to give him many more, and he couldn't come up with a better reason than he wanted to fuck the perks that came along with being an NFL star?
    I squeezed my eyes shut under the white duvet, weeping silently as my broken heart cleaved even more in two, splintering and cracking my chest wide open. I wasn't even crying for lost love, because if I was honest with myself, the boy I'd fallen in love with didn't exist anymore. I'd watched as Taylor had developed an ego, a hard exterior cockiness about him that I barely recognized as he rose through college football's ranks. And yet I stood by him.
    No, I was crying for all of the time I'd lost. The girl inside of me who had vanished, taking all of my hopes that had been buried under the dreams of someone else with her. I sobbed for the life I'd never have, the one I had carefully laid out, planned for, and was now smashed to bits, trodden on by cleats that couldn't give a damn about my feelings. I cried for the life he’d promised me, the one he’d mapped out for us as he whispered to me in the various beds and rooms we had shared over the years. And then I shed tears for the new knife sticking out of my chest, the one that hemorrhaged fear and anxiety from me like I was bleeding out. Pain and hope did an emotional dance in my chest. Hurt for the life I would never live, and anxiety for the new one I was trying to create.
    I had come here in search of my true self. To figure out who Leah Watson was without Taylor Mason. Without the cameras, the bullshit promises, the expectations and the carefully planned out future. I wasn't even a week in and already the new life I was trying to lead had been destroyed, due to an inconvenient assignment and a devilish soccer player. The media here didn't know who I was, only identifying me as "an unknown blonde." And no, I hadn't been reading article after article under my covers for two hours.
    Pretty soon, someone from back home would happen across the story and send in a tip, or a comment on social media. I'd be lauded as the next athlete chasing jersey slut. I'd seen it happen to so many girls before me, those who truly deserved the title and those who didn't.
    And then what? The job, the school and everything I was trying to put in place for me and only me here would crumble. I shoved my head into my pillow as big salty drops welled up in my lower lids.
    My phone began to ring, again a London number I hadn't given my own cell to. What was with this?
    "Hello?"
    A gruff voice came through. "Yeah, hi love. It’s Jimmy. Listen, I need you to get over to Killian's ASAP. He's having some sort of crisis, I don't know..." Jimmy cut in and out as he talked, making it almost impossible to hear him. "I'm....in..Scotland. Text you...address. Gotta...go."
    And then the line went dead. Jeez, for all the times for Killian's manager to be out of the country, it had to be now. I couldn't go over there. Not only could I not risk being seen by the press anywhere near him, but there was still the matter that he'd kissed me silly and then sent me extremely expensive shoes.
    And the matter that I knew he was a man I should stay far away from. I could see