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Offside Rules

Page 159

by Kenna King

"I can’t answer that for him," Juliet says gently.

"Then why didn’t he tell us when Beau was getting treatment?"

"He believed your family wouldn’t accept the help if you knew it came from him. He didn’t want that to keep your brother from getting what he needed."

I look toward Beau.

He’s still standing at the microphone, his speech hanging at his side. The color has drained from his face.

Mom comes up beside me. "He paid for everything?"

"The foundation covered the approved treatment," Juliet tells her. "Wolf provided the original funding, yes."

Mom presses her fingers against her mouth. Dad follows her from the table, looking from Juliet to my brother.

"I told him to leave," my father says.

I turn toward him. "What?"

"At the hospital. After the game."

"He came to the hospital?"

Dad nods. "He wanted to see Beau."

"And you wouldn’t let him?" I ask, my voice raising.

Wolf tried to apologize after I yelled at him in the parking lot and my father turned him away.

"Baylor, your brother had just been brought in. We didn’t know how bad it was. I was angry."

"What did you say to him?"

Dad glances at the people watching us, then back at me.

"I told him to leave and not come back."

For six years, I’ve remembered Wolf coming out of that arena. How furious I was. How easy it was to believe he could keep walking while my brother’s life fell apart.

He went to the hospital.

And when Dad wouldn’t let him through the door, he found another way to help.

Beau steps down from the stage and comes toward us. I watch him approach, trying to put the brother standing in front of me together with the one who thanked Wolf’s foundation from that microphone.

"Baylor."

"You stood up there thanking them."

"I didn’t know."

"Neither did I."

My voice breaks. Beau reaches for my arm, but I step back before he touches me.

"He told me he loved me," I say. "Before you went back out on the ice."

Beau’s hand falls to his side.