The Nerd Who Stole The Quarterback (Astra and Zayne) novel Chapter 199

KIKA G

The Nerd Who Stole The Quarterback

“Fuck!”

I drove my fist into the wall.

Pain shot through my hand, but it barely registered beneath the panic tearing through me.

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Footsteps came rushing down the hallway. Mom appeared in the doorway seconds later with Lucas and Mason close behind

her.

“Zane?”

I turned toward them.

Mom’s attention went from me to the open closet, then to the crushed note in my hand. Whatever she’d been about to y died before it reached her mouth.

“What happened?”

I tried to answer, but nothing came.

Mason slipped around her first, searching the room as though Astra might somehow still be there.

“Where’s Astra?”

Lucas appeared beside him. “Did she go somewhere?”

The confusion on both their faces told me everything. She hadn’t told them either. She hadn’t told anyone.

My gaze returned to Patches, sitting on the bed where Astra should’ve been when I woke up.

I’d spent the whole fucking night holding her without knowing I was about to lose her.

For several seconds, nobody spoke until Mason’s voice came again, smaller this time.

“Zane?”

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.

My chest hurt in a way that felt physical. Every breath fought against the pressure wrapped around it

1 blinked hard, but instead of clearing, my vision only worsened as something warm slipped down my cheek I wiped it away with the heel of my hand, almost pissed at myself for losing control, but another followed.

“Zane.” Mom’s voice changed immediately.

“I’m fine.”

The lie came out wrecked.

I tried to pull in another breath, but it caught halfway. My hand went to the edge of Astra’s desk, gripping it hard enough to hurt as the room blurred around me.

She was gone.

Actually fucking gone.

The thought hit differently this time, stripping away whatever had been keeping me upright.

I sank onto the edge of the bed, but I couldn’t stay there. I bent forward, elbows braced against my thighs, the note hanging

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The Nerd Who Stole The Quarterback

uselessly between my hands while tears dropped onto the carpet.

“Fuck.”

I pressed both palms against my face.

It didn’t help.

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My breathing broke apart, and somewhere between trying to get it under control and realizing I couldn’t, I slid from the edge of the mattress until my knees met the carpet.

Mom was beside me almost immediately.

“Zane…”

She dropped beside me and caught my shoulder, but I barely felt her touch. Astra’s handwriting filled my vision while pieces of last night came back with brutal clarity.

“Can we stay a little longer?

Jesus fucking Christ.

A rough breath dragged out of me as another tear struck the paper.

“She left me.”

I barely recognized my own voice.

Mom’s fingers tightened around my shoulder. “Zane…”

“She fucking left me.”

The last word gave out on me. I pressed a fist against my mouth, but there was no stopping it now. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d cried like this, and I didn’t give a fuck. Not with her closet half empty and Patches sitting on the bed because a stuffed bear was apparently the closest thing to herself she could bear to leave behind.

Mom wrapped her arms around me. I resisted for all of a second before my forehead dropped against her shoulder.

“I don’t know where she is.”

“We’ll find her.”

“She told me not to look.”

Mom fell quiet.

A bitter laugh escaped me as I lifted my head. “Like that’s going to fucking stop me.”

A sniff came from a few feet away.

Lucas and Mason were still there. Lucas had gone pale, while Mason stood beside him with tears gathering in his eyes.

“Is she coming back?” he whispered.

There was no answer I could give him. I couldn’t tell an eight-year-old whether the girl who had tucked him into bed two nights ago would ever walk through our front door again.

Mom looked toward them. “Boys, go downstairs for a little while.”

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The Nerd Who Stole The Quarterback

Neither moved.

“Mom Lucas began.

“Please.”

Mason wiped his nose against the back of his hand. “But where did she go?”

“I don’t know yet, sweetheart.”

Lucas reached for Mason’s hand, and after one last reluctant look around the room, they finally left together.

Mom stayed beside me, her attention falling to the paper clenched in my hand.

“What did she write?”

I couldn’t bring myself to explain it, so I handed her the note.

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She sat on the edge of Astra’s bed and carefully unfolded the paper. I watched her read until her expression began to change By the time she reached the end, one hand had risen to cover her mouth.

“Oh, Astra…”

Her gaze traveled across the room, then she looked down at the letter again.

“I don’t understand.”

Neither did I.

I watched her eyes move back over the page until one line caught mine from where I stood.

“Please don’t blame your dad. He didn’t hurt me, and he didn’t make me do this.”

Dad.

Everything from the hospital came rushing back.

Astra refusing to tell me what they’d talked about. The way she’d reacted when I’d asked whether he’d said something to her. Her insistence that whatever happened between them hadn’t been bad.

And now she’d made a point of protecting him in the letter.

Mom must have seen the change in me because she lowered the page “Zane?”

“What did Dad say to her yesterday?”

Her brows drew together. “At the hospital?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know.”

I pushed myself to my feet.

“He knows.”

Mom stared at me. “What?”

“He told her to leave.”

The Nerd Who Stole The Quarterback

“You can’t know that.”

I pointed toward the letter “Then why is he in there?”

Her eyes dropped to the page.

“She wrote me an entire goodbye and still made sure I wouldn’t blame him. Last night I asked her what they’d, talked about, and she wouldn’t tell me.” I swallowed against the ache rising into my throat again. “Whatever happened in that room. Dad knows more than we do.”

Mom went quiet.

“He wouldn’t tell Astra to leave.”

I headed for the door.

Mom rose immediately. “Where are you going?”

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