Red Card to Your Heart: You Don't Deserve My Love Extra Time novel Chapter 4

I rose to my feet, washing the medicinal oil from my hands in the adjacent bathroom. The warm water and antiseptic soap—the same routine I'd performed thousands of times over the past two years—suddenly felt foreign, as if I were going through someone else's motions.

The ring on my finger caught the light as I rinsed my hands. My chest tightened painfully, as though the band itself were constricting around my heart instead of my finger.

I stared at it under the harsh fluorescent lights—the simple silver band that Diego had presented to me on that rare good day six months into his recovery. "A promise," he'd said then, sliding it onto my finger without meeting my eyes. I'd treasured it like a holy relic, this physical manifestation of hope.

Every night, I'd twist it on my finger before sleep, a silent prayer for his recovery and our future. When things were at their worst—when he'd spent days refusing to do his exercises, when specialists had shaken their heads in doubt—I'd press my lips to the metal and whisper, "Just a little longer."

Now it felt like a shackle.

From outside the bathroom door, Diego's voice reached me, uncharacteristically gentle but unmistakably clear.

"Emma, you're like a sister to me."

The tears came instantly, splashing into the running water. I quickly wiped them away with the back of my wrist, biting my lower lip until I tasted blood.

Don't say that. Of all things, please don't say that.

Such words were devastatingly cruel, even for him. After everything we'd been through, after my confession, after these years of the most intimate care—a sister?

I took several deep breaths, willing my face to compose itself. The sounds of celebration continued in the suite's living area—laughter, champagne corks popping, congratulatory shouts in Portuguese and English. His world was expanding again while mine was collapsing.

When I pushed open the bathroom door, Diego was waiting just outside, his eyes rimmed with something that looked almost like guilt.

"Emma, I need to explanation to you—" he started, his Portuguese accent thickening as it always did when he was emotional, his English syntax slipping.

I walked past him to retrieve my purse from the sofa, then returned to where he sat in his wheelchair. Summoning every ounce of dignity I possessed, I began working the ring off my finger.

He opened his mouth, his expression tormented. "Emma, is not what you think. I just—with my legs now—I cannot expect you to—"

I shook my head and raised my hand to stop him. I didn't trust myself to hear whatever justification or pity he was about to offer. If I heard one more word, the dam would break, and I refused to let him see me shatter. For two years, I'd been his rock—unfailingly optimistic, endlessly patient. I wouldn't let that image crumble now.

"Your friends are waiting," I said, forcing a smile that felt like broken glass. "This is your night. You should enjoy it."

Then I wheeled him out to join his celebration—the celebration of a future that suddenly had no place for me.

As I pushed him through the door into the suite's living area, my vision blurred with unshed tears. I blinked them back furiously, refusing to let a single one fall where anyone might see. Not his teammates, not his doctors, not his family who had come to see his miraculous recovery.

And especially not Diego himself, who glanced back at me once more with an expression I couldn't—wouldn't—try to interpret.

I'd given him two years of my life. My last gift would be my dignity.