I couldn't help myself. My phone lit up with a notification that Lydia had 'posted for the first time in a while' and the curiosity just got the best of me. I was still tangled up in a mass of sheets and dark hair as I peered at the sultry image she'd posted.

I groaned inwardly as I took in the shapely look of her long, dark legs and noticed that her body had changed in the long eight months that we'd been apart. She'd gained muscle mass on her thighs and toned up her bare stomach, her smooth skin in a perfectly defined hourglass figure that most girls I'd been with would have killed for.

She'd angled her body so that her back was facing the camera and I had to bite back the desire that shot through me as I scrutinized every single inch of that picture. She didn't have a stitch of makeup on and still her face was more beautiful than those who paid thousands of dollars for that 'natural look' and Lydia just made it look effortless.

Her pink pouty lips took up the majority of my attention but something struck me as odd. There was a small glimmer of a scar that I'd never seen before on her eyebrow, a pink line that reminded me of my own scars on my face from years of brutal football training.

Had something happened to her in the months that we'd been separated? And if so, was she doing okay? She seemed like she was doing better than okay, especially if she was posting pictures like she was.

Sofia stirred in her sleep beside me and I vowed to return to the picture later, when I was only in the company of me, myself and I.

"Good morning," she smiled lazily at me and I forced one back to her, my muscles aching as I was reminded of our late night physical sessions and then how not so careful we'd been in evading the paparazzi as we got in the same vehicle to go to her house. I could've sworn that they'd snapped a few pictures of us as we entered her building as she didn't have a permanent residence in Boston.

I hastily grabbed up my clothes from the floor and rushed to put them on, remembering my early morning practice that coach would probably kill me for missing, especially so close to the Super Bowl.

"Where are you off to so soon?"

There was a mischievous glint on her face, and had she been another woman with blue eyes instead of the brown ones staring back at me, I would've taken her up on that offer, coaches be damned, but she wasn't her and I felt no magnetic pull towards this woman, just a waning desire in the morning light.

"Early practice, I can't afford to miss any especially right now," I pushed out as politely as I could.

"Call me later, then? We can have dinner, maybe go to the club..."

"Yeah sure, sounds great."

That was actually the last thing I wanted to do, but I agreed anyway, hoping that the distraction would take my mind off of the girl who haunted my every waking thought. I assumed that getting with other people and focusing on training and football would make me forget her, but of course, things never went the way that I planned.

"See you tonight," she called out in a sultry voice as I raised a hand in goodbye to her, slipping my shirt on my head just as I reached her front door.

What a terrible idea on my part.

Photographers snapped my picture in all angles and getting my entire body on full display leaving Sofia's apartment. If they wondered if we were screwing then they sure had their proof right in front of them.

I cursed myself for being so careless, but what was done was done.

Practice was going to be great.

"Miss Montgomery, what do you think about what Mr. Dalton just elaborated on?"

I snapped my eyes to the front of the room and was ready for the answer that eloquently flowed out of my mouth.

"I think Mr. Dalton was incorrect when he insinuated that the defendant would have known the victim simply because they both attended the same school. It's circumstantial at best, maybe if he had proof that they followed the same social circles such as social media posts with the two of them in the background but as of now with the evidence we are presented with, I have to disagree with Mr. Dalton."

The forty-something fashionable professor stood in front of us with a smirk on her face.

"I have to agree with Miss Montgomery on this one, Mr. Dalton."

I stifled a laugh on the inside as I had finally one upped Malcolm at his own game. He might have been able to school me all day on lesser known law loopholes but when it came to the facts of an actual trial and real experience with these kinds of cases, I sure did have him beat.

I could practically see the steam coming out of his ears at this fact and I intentionally ignored him for the rest of the class as I jotted down notes on my computer so quickly that it felt my hands were going to fall off.

A few hours later and classes were finally finished and it was time for my second workout of the day at the actual gym which allowed me to run without getting slapped in the face with brittle snowflakes and my sweat freezing upon contact with the frigid Boston air.

The atmosphere in the school gym was buzzing with the sports center station turned on almost every single television set proudly displaying the Patriots and their games leading up to the Super Bowl.

I'd overheard countless conversations discussing who was going to make it to the titular game and why it was most definitely going to be the Patriots and the Chiefs. I tuned them all out and focused on the run I had before me.

Headphones in, workout gear on and countless miles ahead of me, I limbered up before beginning the long journey to nowhere on the treadmill.

I pumped my arms to the edgy music filtering through my head on an endless loop as I allowed the pain to wash over me, side cramps threatening to debilitate me until a punch to my chest pulled me out of my already four mile run.

I quickly shot my arms out on the sides of the treadmill and kicked my feet off as my heart skipped yet another beat and I began panting in fear, looking around for help even though it was obvious no one had noticed the palpitations, they were internal and no one else could know something was wrong.

I shut off the machine and gulped down some water to try and calm my ricocheting heartbeat until the entire bottle was drained.

I attempted to walk back to the locker rooms but I stumbled on my own feet as my heart decided to betray me once more and the air was knocked out of me, sending me stumbling directly into a pair of awaiting arms with concerned blue eyes staring down at me.

"Are you okay?"

I didn't even register that it was Malcolm until his irritating voice reached my ears.

I absentmindedly nodded my head yes but when my body threatened to betray me once more as I tried to take another step, steady arms wrapped around me to ensure that I wouldn't fall yet again.

"I think you need to sit down, you pushed yourself too hard."

I nodded my head once more because I couldn't seem to find my voice as my heart was quite literally in my throat.

I'd never experienced anything like that sensation before, my heart hammering so quickly that it threatened to knock me out with its intensity. Each out of rhythm beat sending me cascading down a terror stricken path of anxiety and what if's.

What if it was my body telling me that keeping on like this was going to kill me...I thought back to my last meal and realized it was nothing but a granola bar at breakfast. My head was spinning, my eyes blurring and stars exploding behind my vision.

"Do I need to call an ambulance? Are you okay?"

"Yeah, yes I'm just lightheaded, I forgot to eat today is all."

I took a peek at his features and realized that it didn't seem that he quite believed me but I let it be. His opinion of me didn't really matter to me, especially not in that moment.

"I can stand, I'm good now."

He quirked his eyebrows up skeptically but when I stood without letting the vertigo show on my face, he seemed appeased.

I walked on fragile legs to the locker room and dressed slowly, my ever present heartbeat sending blood roaring past my ears so loudly that I didn't hear my phone beeping until the third ring.

It was Amalia asking me if I'd seen the latest paparazzi news and although I'd tried to keep my mind away from it I couldn't resist and noticed that there were tons of images scattered on the internet showing Emmett going home with a superstar. Of course he was, he was over me easily whereas I couldn't bring myself to even look at another guy in anything but a platonic way.

My fantasies and dreams were littered with his face, haunting me with stricken memories of disheveled mornings and a particular night where I surrendered myself to him, body and soul.

He was the first person that I'd ever willingly bared my soul to, and the first healthy sexual relationship I'd ever had. In a lot of ways, I wished that I could count him as my first, and he was the first for me in a litany of different ways other than being the person who introduced me to my first sexual encounter.

Although Christian had stripped me of my innocence, he hadn't finished the job, so I still had some part of me left to give, but I gave it to the wrong man when Nate came along and took advantage of my naïveté and damage.

Emmett was everything the evil men in my life were not. He was good and pure and fit with me perfectly like puzzle pieces and I screwed it all up because I wasn't worth his love. Was I?

Maybe if I took down Nate and the rest of my demons once and for all, I'd be deserving of his love. Maybe if I could expel the shadows from my mind, I could give him all of me, for real...but he was already moving on and I was stuck in the past like cement blocks were strapped to my feet and I was pulled under a riptide current.

I hadn't realized I'd ventured out of the locker room until Malcolm's hand clasped onto my upper arm.

"What?"

"I'm taking you to get something to eat. I need to go over some things for our first student trial and you're lead counsel. Professor just emailed us."

Wow. I had gotten lead counsel over Malcolm...

"Okay, but I'm picking the place."

He rolled his eyes but relented nonetheless and I smirked to myself silently. Even if the rest of the world was crumbling all around me, at least one thing had actually gone right for once. Maybe if I kept working as hard as I was, my road to Emmett wouldn't be paved with mistakes and missed chances, maybe I could find my way back to him sooner rather than later.