The Cruelest Kind of Hate (Riverside Reapers Book 3)

CALISTA

I’m back in the one place I never thought I’d be again—among the barely living and the graves where once-beating hearts now rest in an eternal sleep. Fluorescents and disinfectants greet me with welcoming arms, the buffering beep of heart rates on expensive machines tailing me down bland, alabaster halls that form unsolvable labyrinths. Snapshots of the game flip through my mind like jaundiced camera film in a projector, and I can still hear Teague’s screams ringing in my ears, steeped in an unbridled fear that no child should ever have to experience.

I haven’t left Gage’s side. It’s only been a day, but he hasn’t woken up yet. The doctor deduced that he must’ve suffered major head trauma when he was thrown up against the boards, and that while the damage isn’t lasting, it might take him a while to come to. There’s a contusion on his head that’s swelling, underscored by a plum-colored bruise, but thankfully no bleeding occurred from the injury.

I know he’s going to be okay. I know he’s going to wake up. But there’s a small part of me that’s hyper focused on the what-ifs of this scenario. What if he doesn’t wake up? What if the injury worsens? I can’t…I won’t be able to deal with that alternative reality. I need Gage to be okay. I need him to come back to me.

His heartbeat is steady, but instead of trumpeting out a life anthem, it sounds more like a funeral ballad. His chest rises and falls rather peacefully, and I rub my thumb over the back of his knuckles, repeating the fruitless ministration as if my touch will somehow bring him back to consciousness. His hand is cold, as pale as the sheets of frost that’ve started to settle on trimmed lawns in the early morning. The sun’s already begun to rise, bleeding warm tones of yellow over the sky like the running yolk from a split poached egg.

Every time my bloodshot eyes trace over his rigid form, it feels like my heart begins to hemorrhage, guilty nerves tossing my stomach into a permanent upset. The tears have receded for the time being, but my cheeks are still overwiped, and my ichor-mottled bottom lip is still overbitten.

Gage is my everything. He’s my whole world. If I lost him…I’d lose myself too. If he wasn’t on this planet anymore, I’d follow him wherever he went, even if that meant leaving behind the people I care about most. I can’t do this without him. I can’t breathe without him. I know we only just made things official, but I can’t imagine my future without him. He was the one person to give my life purpose again after I found myself stuck in a tireless, repetitive cycle. He saved me from myself—from my fears, from my self-doubt, from my self-hatred. He saved me, and there’s nothing I’ll ever be able to do to repay him. What he’s given me is priceless. What he’s given me is a second chance at life. What he’s given me is a first chance at love.

I don’t know if you know this, but humans are a lot like elephants. And Gage is my elephant. They mourn just like we do, and when their partner dies, their grief can become so detrimental that it results in their death as well. They stop eating and drinking. They even stay close to the deceased and sometimes carry their bodies around as if they’re still alive.

Gage is a part of me. He’s the best part of me. I’ve always lived my life with a heart half full—a heart so consumed by responsibilities that it never sought love anywhere else. I was so consumed with caring for others that I’d given up on caring for myself. Gage cares for me on the days when I can’t, and that’s something that only happens when you’ve found your soulmate.

Instead of him being the anchor mooring me to the dock, now I’m the one stretching myself to keep him from drifting off to sea. I’m the one who has to be his rock—who has to be strong for the both of us. And I’ll never let go. Not even in death.

“I’m here, Gage,” I whisper, squeezing his palm in the idiotic belief that he’ll return the gesture. “I’m not leaving until you wake up.”

There’s a knock at the door that curtails the start of another crying session, and I’m not sure who I was expecting, but all of Gage’s teammates are standing in the doorway, holding various get-well gifts for him. Flowers, overpriced chocolates, cards, and even a teddy bear bring a pop of color to this desolate prison.

I don’t even know whether I should be glad they’re here or not. I feel terrible. I feel like I’m the one to blame, and maybe they feel the same way too. An irrational part of me tells me that this accident wouldn’t have happened if his hip had been ready. And yeah, both his physical therapist and team doctor cleared him to get back on the ice, but I could’ve spoken up and prevented him from playing.

I stand up hesitantly, watching as Fulton strides over to me, and instead of voicing his disappointment, he immediately wraps me in a hug. It’s not so strong to knock me off balance, but it’s just firm enough to provide me with the support I hadn’t realized I needed.

“Cali, we came as soon as we could,” Fulton says when we pull apart, a consolatory grimace darkening his naturally peppy demeanor.

The rest of the guys all share the same tortured expressions as they slowly filter into the room, loading their gifts onto the table beside Gage’s bed.

So many words are thrust upon my tongue, waiting to charge their way out of my mouth once I open it, but I begin to feel the fear creep back—a new species of fear that’s a thousand times stronger than what I’ve dealt with in the past. “I’m so sorry this happened,” I blurt out. “I should’ve known he wasn’t ready. I should’ve paid closer attention to his hip. He wouldn’t be in this situation if I’d⁠—”

Suddenly, Kit’s hulking frame enters my personal bubble, and he brings my face smack-dab into the middle of his chest, where my apology gets muffled beneath his heaping muscle mass and a layer of cotton.

“This wasn’t on you, Cali. I was watching Gage the entire time. What happened was a freak accident. There’s not a single person at fault,” Kit gruffs.

I can’t really see anything past Kit’s body, but I hear Hayes speak up from somewhere to my right.

“Stuff like this happens all the time out there on the ice. It comes with the territory. I’m pretty sure I’ve been concussed more times than anyone else on the team, and I’ve recovered every single time.”

When I break away for air, I suck in gasps like a guppy out of water, feeling those goddamn tears straddle my waterline. “I know he’ll be okay. This is just…this is so scary.”

Hayes takes one of the chairs in the room as Casen takes the other, Bristol leans against the doorway, Kit gives me some space, and Fulton lingers by Gage’s bedside.

“Gage is tough. He’s been in this position before, and he was conscious within the hour. They just have him on drugs that sedate him,” Kit reassures me. “He’s resilient. He’ll spring back just like he always has. Dude’s like one of those STDs that keeps coming back even though you’ve taken every precaution there is.”

Everyone in the room gives a half-hearted chuckle, and I unexpectedly erupt into laughter for the first time since the incident. It feels so good to laugh. It feels so good to feel something other than complete hopelessness.

Bristol crosses his arms over his chest. “The first time Gage went to dinner with you, you should’ve seen what a mess he was when he came home. I’d never seen him so stressed before.”

“Yeah. He had this crazed look in his eyes and couldn’t stop blushing when we confronted him about everything,” Casen inputs. “He was fully losing his mind, and he barely even knew you.”

Surprise tethers me in place. “Really?”

“Really,” Fulton chuckles. “Gage has loved you from the very beginning, and Gage doesn’t fall in love with anyone. He’ll come back to you. You just have to give it some time. But he’d never leave you. Not without a fight.”

My heart, for once, is not a floundering set of rhythmless beats. It’s still. So petrified by the unbelievable amount of love in the room that it doesn’t even know how to function. The fear that once waded through my bloodstream is nowhere to be found, having been deluged with warmth and hope.

“Thank you, guys. Thank you for saying all those things even though you didn’t have to,” I murmur quietly.

Fulton’s mouth matures into a beaming smile. “Of course we had to say all those things. We love you, Cali. You make Gage the happiest he’s ever been. We should be the ones thanking you.”

“He wouldn’t have been able to play this game if it wasn’t for your help,” Hayes adds.

“Get used to us,” Kit chirps. “You’re a part of the family now, and knowing Gage, you’ll be a part of the family forever.”

Oh, God. I feel like I’m going to cry again, but for a different reason. Before I can make a fool of myself with more blubbers and whines, all the guys dogpile me, bringing me into one gigantic team hug that I disappear into.

You’re not alone anymore, Cali. And you never will be again.

It’s been hours since the guys left, and I’ve made a permanent home for myself right next to Gage’s side. Thankfully, Hadley’s been kind enough to watch Teague while I stay with Gage, wanting to be the first person he sees when he wakes up.

I’m beyond thankful that Gage has such supportive teammates that love and believe in him. After my talk with them, I thought long and hard about the role I played in all of this, and I’ve come to accept that what happened was out of anyone’s control.

I feel myself dozing off, opting to use Gage’s arm as my pillow, when a small voice cries my name from the doorway, the patter of tiny feet rising in volume. I stand up, bleary-eyed, feeling arms wrap around me and a nose bury itself in the notch of my neck.

Teague.

I hug my brother back without regulating my strength, squeezing him so tightly that I’m afraid I’m hurting him, but he never lets go of me. My pulse trips over itself as my heart scampers against the cage of my ribs. I’ve missed him so much.

When we pull away from each other, I check his face for residual tears, on a mission to erase the pain from the stress lines etched into his features.

“Are you okay?” I ask, tucking a curl of his hair behind his ear.

“I want Gage to be okay,” he says, a wet sniffle whistling through his nostrils, the slightest wobble to his chin. His eyes are large, glistening with a splash of moisture, and they look at me like I have all the answers in the world.

“Me too, Squirt. Gage is strong. He’ll be okay.”

“What if…h-he…d-doesn’t…wake u-up?”

Teague’s words rot on my tongue, his worry like a body-deteriorating sickness that I want to cut out and burn alive. I swallow down the sand drying my throat, trying my best to keep my emotions in check. When the first tear starts to fall on my brother’s red face, I catch it immediately, wiping it on Gage’s jersey—which is stained with my own tears.

“He will.” It’s a truth forged from hope so bright that it defeats the shadows of grief preying on young, undeserving hearts.

Teague’s mouth knots into a frown, and this time, I’m not fast enough to stop the river rapids from flowing freely. “I don’t want him to go, Cali. I want him to stay here with us,” he sobs, balling his fists and banging them against my chest.

I pull my brother back into an embrace, bearing the hits that rattle my breastbone, doing everything in my power to take his pain. I hate seeing him cry. I hate it even more when I can’t be the one to fix things. All I can do now is be here for him. All I can do is love him and tell him that everything’s going to be okay.

I’m not running into my mother’s arms anymore, crying and screaming and losing it. Now I’m the one who gets all the tears and heart-wrenching howls of pain. I’m the one who gets to keep everyone afloat. Not has to but gets to. This is my purpose in life—being my brother’s protector. I just wished I’d gotten better at it a lot sooner.

“He’s my best friend,” Teague bawls, blowing snot bubbles against my front.

He’s mine too.

“Shh, shh. I know it hurts, Teague. But we have to be strong for Gage. He’d want us to be strong.”

“I-I…don’t think…I c-can.”

I crouch down in front of Teague and rub my hands down his arms. “You can. I know you can. You’re the strongest person I know, which is one of the endless reasons why Gage loves you. And when you love a person, you always find your way back to them. Remember that time you got hurt on the ice?” I ask.

Teague nods, trying his best to fight the quiver of his bottom lip.

“Remember how strong you were? How you got back up right away and didn’t cry? Gage needs you to be that strong for him.”

My brother rams straight into me with another hug, letting me pet his back like my mother used to pet mine when I was upset, and I siphon each negative worry from his body, determined to carry the weight of his crumbling world and reinforce it. A wail of my own almost leaps up my esophagus, but it’s smothered when Hadley voices her presence.

She opens her arms up as Teague runs to her and disappears in her oversized sweater. “Come on, Teague. Let’s give Cali and Gage some privacy,” Hadley coos, tucking him close to her leg.

We’ll be outside, she mouths to me before they desert the room, leaving Gage and me alone once again, the future of our relationship hanging heavy in the distilled air.

I grab Gage’s hand—as if the five minutes I wasn’t holding it has somehow hurt him—and I bring his knuckles to my lips, trying to warm the frozen flesh with a shaky kiss.

I foolishly thought I had cried all the moisture out of my body, but more tears toe the shoreline of my eyes, and the beginning of my words launch from my mouth in a rocky, fumbling start. “Gage, I don’t know if you can hear me, but I’m sorry this happened. I’d switch places with you in a heartbeat if I could. Seeing you in pain…it fucking kills me. I feel like I’m losing my mind without you here. Like, you’re here, but you’re not really here. I just need you to come back to me. I need you to make stupid jokes and pay me cheesy compliments and annoy the living hell out of me. I need you to wrap your arms around me when things get hard because it’s the only place in this entire world that I feel safe.”

I force a breath as my tears splatter the hospital sheets, permeating the thin material in shapeless blobs.

“I need you to kiss me when I get trapped in my head. I just need you, okay? I can’t do this without you. I can’t do life without you. You’ve shown me what it means to sacrifice for the people you love. You’ve shown me how to be strong for myself so that I can be strong for others. You’ve shown me kindness and understanding in times when I was a complete asshole to you. You’ve waited for me even when I wasn’t ready because you never wanted to leave me alone—because you knew how lost I would be without you.”

No spike in his heart rate. No twitch of his fingers. No nothing. Just stillness. Just silence.

“I was devastated when my mom got sicker. I’d never been at such a low point in my life. But with you, it’s not just devastation. It’s something so exceptionally worse that I can’t put into words what it does to me. I’d rather be dead than live with this feeling—this grief that never seems to run out, this impending fear of losing the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I was so focused on protecting my family that I hadn’t even realized you’re my family now.

“I was so scared to give you all the pieces of me because I’ve never surrendered myself wholly to anyone before. I used to be full, unbroken, until the world chipped away at me. Nobody in their right mind wants a bunch of broken pieces. But you have every piece of me. You made them into something beautiful, just like you did with the scars on my palms. You never once saw anything wrong with me, and I love you so, so much for it.”

I love him. So much that it doesn’t seem remotely possible for this amount of love to fit into a human body. I knew it all along, but I was too scared to say it out loud. This whole incident reminded me that tomorrow isn’t promised. You need to say the scary things out loud in the unfortunate chance that you may never get to.

I’ve lost all composure, sobbing and crying like a child while I rest my head over Gage’s lethargic heart. It doesn’t bring me the same solace as it usually does. It feels like an unspoken goodbye. A goodbye that I’ll never be ready to utter for as long as I live.

“Oh, God. And I lied about the tattoo,” I weep, printing my face of makeup onto his shirtfront. “I’m a terrible person. It’s fake, okay? I didn’t think telling you would put you in the hospital. Not that it’s, like, a direct result or anything. Or maybe it is. Maybe you were so riled up that you didn’t notice the players coming for you, and now your head is traumatized and it’s all because I pulled a stupid prank on you⁠—”

“I knew it.”

What? Oh my God. Am I hallucinating? Where did that voice come from?

I suck in a large sniffle and peel myself up to locate the source of the sound, certain that it’s just my delirium conjuring up Gage’s voice, until my gaze lands on the poorly veiled, crooked half-smile painting his lips.

“Gage? Is that…really you?”

He squints open one eye. “I’m not dead, Cali.”

“Oh my God.” I immediately wedge my arms under his body and embrace him, holding him so close to my chest that his back comes off the hospital bed, and a couple of groans escape him.

“Sorry!” I apologize, setting him back down on the firm mattress.

He winces. “’S okay. Grandpa’s just not as springy as he used to be.”

“Oh. Ew.”

“Glad to see you aren’t treating me any differently. Even though I’m hospitalized. And in pain.”

“Do you need me to kiss it better?”

His eyes fully open, but then they lower to half-mast, and he gets that devious grin on his face again. “That depends. Where are you kissing me?”

Aaand I’m starting to feel less sorry for him. “Seriously?”

“Just come here, Spitfire,” he demands impatiently—which is bold given his state right now.

I lean in—wary of keeping my weight off his body—and marry our lips, tasting him for what feels like the first time. Even shrouded in the pungent scent of chemicals, he still smells like petrichor and pine, and my heart comes alive in technicolor starbursts. He doesn’t lift his hand to cup the back of my neck, but he’s warm with renewed life.

He’s okay. My person is okay.

Although I want to bask in this kiss forever, I pull away when I feel tears prick the backs of my eyes. “Are you okay? Is there anything I can do?”

Gage grunts as he hauls himself to a sitting position, the tube of his IV moving in tandem with the arm he lays over his lap. “You’re here, aren’t you? That’s all I need. That’s all I’ll ever need,” he replies, taking my hand in his to calm the shaking I hadn’t realized was occurring. “Plus, I’ve dealt with head trauma before, and I turned out fine.”

“You know, that does explain a lot,” I say.

He angles his head. “Explains what?”

“Explains all the weird shit you do. Maybe a piece of your skull chipped off and imbedded itself into your brain matter.”

“I happen to think that I’m perfectly normal, thank you very much.”

Of course I can count on Gage to make me laugh after practically coming back from the dead. The resonance of a hearty chuckle cannons into the depressing atmosphere, heralding life like the rosy warmth of a new dawn on the horizon.

Gage leans back, his Adam’s apple fluttering in the expanse of his throat. “Fuck, I’ve missed that,” he admits.

“Missed what?” I question.

“Missed your laugh. Your smile. You.”

Oh.

My fingers clutch his tighter, and the bluish offshoots of his veins begin to fade as color returns to his skin. “I’ve been here the whole time.”

“I know. I heard everything. And I’d get hurt a million times over just to keep hearing it. There was never once a doubt in my mind that you didn’t feel the same way about me. It just took you longer to realize it, and that’s okay. Waiting doesn’t seem nearly as long when you’re the one I’m waiting for.”

He heard everything. Every secret that I released from the vault. Every soft and squishy feeling that I’ve hidden behind saccharine sarcasm.

“Thank you,” I cry, this time not bothering to wipe the unbidden emotion spilling down my cheeks. “Thank you for coming back to me.”

Gage lifts his unoccupied hand to my face, swabbing the first of many tears while he flashes me eyeteeth. “You’ll have to try a lot harder than that to get rid of me.”

I know it’s a joke, and that good-natured tone of his confirms it, but I can’t stop myself from falling into every sob-garbled noise under the sun, smearing the splotches of makeup I left on his shirt with salt-tinged moisture.

I squash my nose over his heart, needing the reminder that this isn’t some false reality I’ve made up in my head, and he holds me as my whole body rocks painfully. I unload every ounce of strength I’ve clung to, letting his arms heal me in the way they’ve always been made to do. I know he should be the one coming to me for comfort, but I can’t pretend to act like this whole ordeal hasn’t wrecked me completely.

“Shh, Calista. It’s okay. I’m right here.”

“You’ve ruined me, Gage,” I snivel, my heart concaving along with the fortress that’s kept me protected this entire time. My reinforced defenses are finally cracking to expose me to the harsh elements. I give in to the vulnerability, no longer afraid of getting hurt because I know now what the worst pain in the world feels like. “You ruined me the moment I met you.”

Gage cauterizes my bleeding wounds with his love, scars them over with his heated touch. “You ruined me first, Spitfire. All I’m doing is returning the favor,” he whispers.

Just like the first time we met, eyes from two different worlds merge into one, mixing blue and green to create an aurora borealis of color unachieved even by nature itself. But this time, there’s no hatred or calculated plan for revenge in them.

Gage never breaks eye contact for a second. “Loving you fucking hurts. It hurts in the best way. Every time I look at you, it feels like my heart’s going to burst out of my chest. And fuck, I’d die without a single complaint if it meant that the last thing I ever saw was you.”

When I pitch forward to kiss him again, I don’t even think about pulling away. “How do you imagine seeing me?”

He smirks against my mouth. “Preferably with my head between your legs. Or riding my face. I’m not picky.”

“You know, for a big, strong hockey player, I can’t wait to tell your teammates how bad you’ve got it for me.”

“Go ahead, baby. They already know I’m pussy-whipped.”