Do Not Fall For The Baseball Captains (Victoria and Elijah) novel Chapter 104

Victoria

55 vouchere

The silence inside Adele’s bedroom was absolute, heavy and thick enough that every micro sound could be heard clearly.

For the past two days, the world had shrunk down to the four corners of this guest mattress and the white ceiling above me.

I lay on my side, my knees pulled tightly toward my chest, staring at a small knot in the dark wood of the floorboards without actually seeing it.

Beside the bed, an untouched bowl of chicken soup sat on the nightstand, a thin film forming over the surface as it slowly lost its heat.

“Tori, please just take three bites,” Adele pleaded softly, her voice carrying a weariness that made me feel an instant pang of guilt.

She was sitting on the edge of the mattress, a silver spoon held between her fingers, her eyes filled with a deep worry.

The moment everything had imploded at the diner. Adele hadn’t hesitated. She had packed up her things. left Miles’ apartment where she had been staying to save on the commute, and moved right back into her own place to take care of me since I didn’t have anywhere else to go to.

Her off-campus apartment was nearly forty-five minutes away from school, meaning every single morning since the fallout. she had to wake up incredibly early just to drive us both all the way back to campus for our remaining papers.

She’d sacrificed a lot in the last two days to keep me afloat, while I was doing my absolute best to sink.

I didn’t answer her. I just pulled the duvet higher, burying my nose into the soft fabric.

Ding-dong.

The sound of the doorbell cut through the quiet apartment, crisp and demanding. I didn’t move an inch, but my entire body went rigid beneath the blankets.

Adele’s hand paused in mid-air, the spoon tilting slightly. We both knew exactly what that sound meant. It was the same routine, at the exact same hour, every single afternoon.

“I’ll get it,” Adele murmured, setting the spoon back into the bowl.

I listened to the pad of her bare feet against the hardwood hallway, the faint creak of the front door opening, and the low, muffled exchange with the delivery courier downstairs.

A moment later, she returned, her footsteps heavier this time.

When she walked back into the room, she was balancing a glossy boutique shopping bag on her forearm, a sleek designer gift box in one hand, and a heavy, ribbon-tied cream scroll in the other. Probably one of his letters.

For a moment, I managed to forget our problems just to marvel at how romantic, thoughtful, and intentional Elijah Carter

was

He was the absolute definition of why you don’t judge a book by its cover. The public image I had of Elijah didn’t match this version of him at all.

The man I thought I knew wouldn’t be capable of genuine romance; instead, he would have subtly manipulated me into believing I was the one at fault for everything

My eyes followed her as she crossed the room, watching her set the new gifts down with the others.

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Chapter 106

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She placed the vase on the dresser opposite my bed, right next to the other gifts that had arrived over the last forty-eight

hours.

They all looked beautiful, especially the bouquets with apology notes tucked into the petals, but I still hadn’t found the courage to open them. I hadn’t touched a single piece of paper he’d sent.

“He’s really not stopping, is he?” Adele asked softly, looking at the neat, authoritative handwriting spelling out my name on the front of the envelope.

She let out a small, conflicted sigh, stepping away from the dresser.

“Honestly, seeing Carter do all of this… it’s a lot. He’s trying, Tori.”

I kept my mouth shut, turning my face further into the pillow.

Seeing me completely unresponsive, Adele sighed again, a sound full of defeat.

She kicked off her slippers and climbed onto the bed, shifting until she was sitting cross-legged near the foot of the mattress.

She reached out, her hand resting gently over my ankle through the thick layers of the duvet, offering a grounding touch that I didn’t have the energy to pull away from.

“Look at me. Tori,” she coaxed gently.

Slowly, reluctantly, I rolled onto my back. looking up at her through swollen, heavy eyelids.

“I am never going to be one of those people who tells you to just overlook a man’s excesses,” Adele began, her tone serious.

“What Elijah did was calculated, and it was entirely wrong. He took the one thing that made you feel exposed, the one thing you were struggling with, and he turned it into a tool to get next to you. I get it. I’m furious for you.”

She paused, her thumb rubbing a small circle over my ankle.

“But Tori, you need to stop wallowing in this heartbreak. Not for him, but for yourself. You’re paralyzing yourself, and you can’t think clearly like this. I’m not asking you to forgive him right now. God knows he doesn’t deserve an easy pass. All I’m asking is that, when you’re ready, you talk to him. Just once. You both need to have a conversation so you can actually come to an agreement, or at least find some sort of closure. You can’t live in this bedroom forever.”

The word heartbreak echoed in my mind, raw and agonising.

Deep down, past the anger and the stinging humiliation, that was the most terrifying part of all.

I didn’t even completely understand why my chest felt so vacant. The fact that he had preyed on my vulnerability regarding Caleb should have just made me angry. It should have made me despise him.

Anger was clean; anger was easy to handle.

But this wasn’t just anger. A part of me was genuinely, deeply heartbroken beyond the deceit.

I wasn’t just mourning the loss of an alliance or a friendship; I was mourning him.

I missed the arrogant remarks that masked a terrifying amount of attentiveness. I missed the way he seemed to read my mind before I could even process my own thoughts.

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