Striker (67 page)

She shrugged. ‘Maybe not. But I can at least try.’

She gave him one more smile before she left his office, closing the door behind her and making her way back out into the main atrium.
 

‘Did you see where Ryan went?’ she asked Barry behind reception.
 

He looked up and smiled at her. ‘You look happy, if you don’t mind me saying, Ms. Sullivan.’

‘Yeah,’ Amber smiled back. ‘Yeah. I guess I
am
happy. Sorry, did you say you knew where Ryan had gone?’

‘I think he went back outside, into the stadium.’

‘Okay. Thanks, Barry.’

She turned around and made her way back through the double doors she’d just come through, heading down the corridor that took her to the exits that led out into the stadium itself.

The freezing cold air hit her as soon as she stepped outside, along with the eerie emptiness that a deserted stadium created, the buzz and excitement the new signing had created now long gone. Looking around she found Ryan sitting halfway up the stand, his hood pulled up over his head, his hands clasped between his open knees. He was staring straight ahead, out across the empty stadium, and for another of those brief seconds Amber felt a wave of feelings for this young man wash over her – feelings she couldn’t explain, but they were still there. She couldn’t switch them off just like that, not after everything that had happened.

She made her way over to the row of seats he was sitting in, sliding down onto the seat next to him. ‘I’m sorry, Ryan.’

He didn’t look at her as he spoke. ‘Sorry for what, Amber? Sorry for the fact we’re not together anymore, or sorry that I had to witness Jim Allen fucking you?’

She sat back, closing her eyes for a second and breathing out slowly. ‘I really am sorry.’

‘He only really came back here for you, didn’t he?’ Ryan said, finally turning to face her, not taking his eyes off her now. ‘That’s the only reason he came to Red Star, wasn’t it?’

Amber slowly shook her head. ‘That’s not fair, Ryan. He came here because this club is very close to his heart…’

‘Whatever.’ Ryan finally broke the gaze and turned back to stare out at the empty stadium in front of him.

‘Ryan, I…’

‘Did you ever love me, Amber?’

‘I… Of course I did.’

He turned to look at her again. ‘Really?’

‘Jesus, what
is
this, Ryan? When did
I
suddenly become the bad guy? It wasn’t
me
caught fucking two women in
our
bed.’

‘No, but I caught you…’ He looked away, down at the ground. ‘I’m sorry. I guess me seeing you with Jim…’ He looked at her, realisation now flooding his face. ‘I really blew it, didn’t I?’

She smiled slightly, wanting to reach out and take his hand but she was afraid of the signals that would send out. ‘Our whole relationship was a complicated mess, Ryan.’

‘Is that how it really felt to you? A mess?’

She looked away. No. That wasn’t how it had felt. Not all the time, anyway. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘But maybe we were kidding ourselves, Ryan.’ She turned back to face him again. ‘What I felt for you, it was real. I loved you, and…’

‘But you were never really
in
love with me, were you?’

She wanted to look away again – to hide the guilt she was feeling? Maybe. But he deserved the truth now. ‘Jim, he… he’s been such a huge part of me for so long and… I tried to pretend it was over, Ryan, I really did, because I didn’t want to go back there and leave myself open to that kind of hurt all over again, and I thought that if I could just… I wanted to believe that he wasn’t the only man I could love. I wanted to believe that so much…’

‘And you thought
I
might be the man that could help you see things differently? Is that it?’

‘When it’s said out loud it makes me sound so selfish,’ Amber said quietly, staring down at her clasped hands again.
 

‘I think we were both selfish, in our own ways,’ Ryan sighed, sitting back and pushing his hood back off his head. ‘I liked the idea of having this beautiful woman by my side, someone who was always going to be there whenever I needed her, but at the same time I couldn’t let that old life go. And it wasn’t fair on you.’

‘It wasn’t fair on
us
, Ryan. We never really gave each other a chance, did we?’

‘I thought we were getting there,’ he said. She looked at him again, his handsome face clouding over with a sadness she’d never seen in him before. ‘After the Christmas party, when you went back to Jim, I… I thought you were all I wanted. I thought that losing you was the worst thing that could happen to me and...’

‘Your head was all over the place, Ryan.’

‘I acted like an idiot. Like some spoiled kid who couldn’t have what he wanted and all I could think about was… I thought that if I tried to get your attention, tried to make you see that I couldn’t cope without you…’

‘Ryan… what are you talking about?’

He shook his head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘No, it
does
matter. To me.’

‘That night, when Gary and Debbie assumed I’d tried to… tried to harm myself… I wasn’t quite as wasted as everyone thought I was, Amber. I was sober enough to know exactly what I was doing.’

‘And what
were
you doing? Exactly?’

He turned away, staring straight out ahead again. ‘Like I said before, I thought if I could do something drastic enough to make you come running back to me…’

She narrowed her eyes slightly as she continued to stare at him. ‘Do you mean…? What you did…? That was all
deliberate
?’

‘I was desperate, Amber. I couldn’t get you out of my head, couldn’t think straight without you and I just thought… I just wanted you to come back to me. And I didn’t care how I had to do that.’ He looked at her. ‘He doesn’t deserve you.’

She laughed, and she hadn’t meant to do that out loud but she really hadn’t been able to help it. ‘Pretending to be so low that you wanted to kill yourself? That’s sick, Ryan. How could you do that? I was so worried about you, so scared; do you have any idea…?’

He continued to stare at her, his dark eyes boring deep into hers. ‘He doesn’t deserve you, Amber.’

‘I think he does,’ she said quietly, still slightly shocked by what he’d just told her. ‘I love him, Ryan. It’s as simple as that. I think I’ve been in love with him for most of my life, and I can’t just push that aside and pretend those feelings don’t exist because they do. They do.’

‘So, you never were
in
love with me, then?’

‘I didn’t say that. Jesus, I don’t know…’ She turned away for a second, pushing a hand through her hair, sweeping it back off her face. ‘I just don’t know, Ryan.’

‘If he’d never come back here… Amber, look at me, please.’

She slowly turned back to face him.
 

‘If he hadn’t come back to the North East, do you think we would have stood a chance?’

‘That would have depended very much on you, Ryan.’

It was his turn to look away, his eyes focusing on one of the groundsmen who’d come out to inspect the damage that morning’s activities might have inflicted on his perfect pitch. ‘It really was a mess, wasn’t it?’

Their eyes met again, but this conversation, it wasn’t making anything any easier. For either of them.

‘So, you and Jim…’ Ryan began, his fingers fiddling with a red and blue friendship bracelet he had wrapped around his left wrist. ‘When did you… Was it straight after you found me and…?’

She shook her head, stopping him from asking the question he was trying to ask. ‘No. No, it wasn’t
straight
after, but… Well, once I knew that you and me were over, I… It was like a bolt of – of realisation, I suppose, if that makes sense. It just hit me. I could either continue to fight what I felt for Jim, or I could just give in to what I’ve always known. That I need him.’

Ryan smiled at her – a wry smile. ‘
You
don’t need anyone, surely.’

She smiled back, taking a quick look down at her still-clasped hands. ‘Yeah, you see, I do. I really do. This independence lark, it’s really not all it’s cracked up to be. Those tough-girl barriers I used to put up, they were only there to help me deal with the fact that I couldn’t have the one thing I really wanted – Jim Allen. And maybe I should have been more truthful to you and more honest with myself from the beginning, but then, I’m not sure either of us really knew what the truth was, did we?’

‘No,’ Ryan whispered. ‘No, we didn’t. So, how long have you…?’

‘Officially? A couple of days. Nobody knows yet. We haven’t made anything public, although the press seem quite happy to draw their own conclusions anyway, regardless of what the truth is.’

‘And what
is
the truth?’

Her eyes focused on her left hand – a hand that only a week or so ago had worn Ryan’s engagement ring, but now it was naked again, waiting for the man she considered to be the love of her life to put his own on there. And just thinking about that sent another frisson of excitement shooting through her, making her shiver ever-so-slightly. ‘The truth is…’ No. She wasn’t going to tell him that she and Jim were getting married. She wasn’t going to tell him they were seriously thinking of moving to
Spain
where they could finally make that fresh start they both wanted so badly. It was only fair that her father should be the first to know those little snippets of information, although she was dreading
that
particular conversation. ‘The truth is, it was time to face the fact that I can’t live without him, Ryan. I can’t do it. I pretend to be this strong, independent woman but all I ever wanted was for him to walk back into my life and tell me that he loved me. I never stopped dreaming about that day.’

‘And what if
I
can’t live without
you
, Amber?’

‘Oh, I think we both know that’s not true, though, don’t we? You’re young, you’ve got this incredible career, you can have any woman you want… Your future’s sorted, Ryan. You don’t need me.’

‘Neither does he.’

Amber said nothing for a second, just looked away briefly again, watching the groundsman on the pitch below crouch down to examine a damaged patch of grass, shaking his head as he ran his hand over it. ‘I feel like I can breathe again for the first time in decades,’ she said quietly, turning to face Ryan again. ‘When he walked out of my life a second time, when I told him to stay away from me… it was as though I’d made a decision, right there and then, to close a part of my life off, the part that belonged to him because, despite everything he’d done to me, I knew I would never stop loving him. And I didn’t, I couldn’t. So, to have him back, to
really
have him back it’s like – it’s like that door I closed almost twenty-one years ago has finally been re-opened. And I feel like I can breathe again.’

Every word she spoke tore into Ryan’s heart like someone ripping a blunt dagger right through it. It was a jagged pain, a gut-wrenching, agonising realisation and it was something he never wanted to experience again, so deep were the feelings it created. So maybe he should take a leaf out of her
book and close that door that left him open to this hurt and this pain that no-one deserved to feel. Maybe he should just go back to the shallow and materialistic lifestyle he’d indulged in before. At least that way he wouldn’t have to experience this.

‘I really think we could have made a go of things, Amber,’ Ryan said, his voice barely above a whisper. ‘I was ready to… I would have changed for you. I would have changed anything, for you.’

Amber shook her head again, not enjoying the way she was feeling right now, but what else could she say to him? That she thought they could have made a go of things, too? Maybe, in the heat of all the talk of engagements and celebrity weddings and brand-new, purpose-built mansions she’d got caught up in the whole footballer lifestyle. She’d let herself get carried along on that wave of fantasy because these people didn’t live in the real world.
She
did. And now that she was back in it she could see that, as far as her and Ryan were concerned, they’d never really stood a chance.

‘I still love you, Amber. I want you to know that.’

She said nothing. There wasn’t anything she
could
say. If he really did still love her – and she wasn’t altogether sure that he did – then it wouldn’t be fair for her to make him think she still had any feelings left for him, even if she did.
 

‘I care about you, Ryan.’ This time she did reach out and take his hand, squeezing it gently before standing up and leaving him alone. Saying anything more wasn’t going to benefit the situation. She’d said enough.

Ryan watched her leave, not taking his eyes off her until she was back inside, out of sight. When he’d asked her that question – what if he couldn’t live without her? – he hadn’t really meant it, at the time. He wasn’t the kind of person who needed just one woman; he’d proved that point good and proper, hadn’t he? But, as he turned back to look out at the now-empty-again stadium, the eerie quiet echoing around his head like a sudden migraine that wanted to make itself known, he suddenly realised he’d never actually spoken a truer word. Ryan Fisher couldn’t live without Amber Sullivan. That was the truth.