Redemption Read Online Free PDF Page B

mind. I kept expecting him to push me away so that he could spend time with the women who threw themselves at him, but he never did. Given the choice he would always hang out with Maisie and me. 
    Thankfully, Maisie was too young to pick up on the way I’d been around him, although she seemed to have put the pieces together once she got older. It must have been painfully obvious how I felt about Oliver to anyone who’d been through puberty. Just the way I looked at him and hung on his every word was enough to let anyone within a mile radius know I was crazy about him. 
    Even as a horny sixteen-year-old, I was still sensible and realistic enough to know this might just be some silly schoolgirl crush that I’d forget about as soon as the summer ended. It certainly sounded that way on paper. Young American girl travels to England for the summer, falls for good-looking rugby star, gets married, and lives happily ever after. 
    But that wasn’t how my story ended. Oliver started coming home late at night and generally doing everything he could to ignore me. It took me all of six seconds to picture him with a girlfriend—tall, blonde, skinny, and with big boobs—but I kept imagining everything would turn out okay in the end. He’d realize that I was his destiny and we’d still have our happily-ever-after.
    One day Oliver agreed—after much pestering from Maisie—to take us into London for the evening. We had a nice meal, but Oliver had something on his mind the entire time. At the end of the evening he told us he had something to do and that we should head home by ourselves. I suspected he was “doing” the imaginary blonde with big boobs, so I sulked the entire way home. I didn’t notice the two men come out of the shadows until it was too late.
    We never found out why they attacked us, but it didn’t matter. Maisie ended up with burns all over her face and the doctor told us they would never heal. Mine were nowhere near as important, so I kept them to myself. A few burns on my arm didn’t compare to what Maisie was going through, so I didn’t want to take the attention away from her.
    If Oliver had been distracted before, then he only got worse after the attack. Maisie rarely stopped crying—a mixture of pain and embarrassment at her face—and Oliver blamed himself for what happened. He avoided spending time with us just so he wouldn’t have to face up to his guilt.
    Then came the day of the Rugby World Cup Final and things went from bad to worse. England had made it through to the final, in no small part due to Oliver’s phenomenal penalty kicking and field goals. 
    The game took place in Paris, so we all gathered around the TV to watch, along with the majority of the country. Despite the significance of the occasion—or perhaps because of it—the game was drab and uneventful until the last five minutes. Each team had only scored one try, although there were quite a few penalties, bringing the score up to sixteen-fourteen to South Africa. 
    Oliver had converted most of his kicks, but he’d missed the conversion after the try and hadn’t even attempted a field goal all game. The commentator suggested the occasion was getting to him. He was only eighteen after all, and he had the expectation of the entire nation on his shoulders.
    That wasn’t like Oliver at all. He had enough confidence—and a dash of arrogance—to take big games in his stride, and I never expected him to crumble for a second. But that’s exactly what happened.
    The last few minutes were back and forth between the teams, but the commentators and everyone in the room around me got excited when England were awarded a scrum in stoppage time. I hadn’t understood this at the time, but apparently it was an easy chance for a field goal, especially for a player of Oliver’s quality. 
    The scrum-half took the ball out of the scrum and passed it to Oliver. Players were running straight at him, but I’d seen him score like this plenty of