The MVP Who Left Me At The Alter

Chapter 2 Five Years Ago

Zevran's pov

(Flashback)

“Do you love me?”I looked at her.Isolde stood in the middle of the hotel suite in her wedding dress. She had been trying it one last time before tomorrow.

“Yes,” I said.She didn’t smile. She just watched my face the way she always did when she was trying to read past whatever I was trying to hide.

“Then why do you look like you’re saying goodbye?”I crossed the room, took her face in my hands, and kissed her like I still had the right to.

“I’m not saying goodbye.”

“You look like you are.”

“I’m just… tired. Long week. Finals pressure. Everything.”She rested her forehead against mine. Her voice dropped.

“You’re a terrible liar, Zev.”

“I’m not lying.”

“You are. You’ve been somewhere else all night. Distant, quiet, like you’re already halfway out the door.”I brushed my thumb across her cheekbone.

“I’m right here.”

“Are you?”I kissed her again instead of answering. My hands slid down to the open zipper of the dress, I started to pull it the rest of the way down.She caught my wrists.

“Talk to me first.”

“I am talking to you.”

“No. You’re kissing me so you don’t have to talk.”I laughed.

“You know me too well.”

“I do. That’s why I’m asking.” She stepped back just enough to look at me properly. The dress slipped off one shoulder.

“Do you still want this? Tomorrow. Us. All of it.”

“Yes.”

“Say it like you mean it.”I took her hands and pressed them flat against my chest, right over my heart.

“I love you. I want to marry you. I want every version of the future that has you in it. I’m not going anywhere.”She studied me for a long moment. Her eyes were soft and serious at the same time.

“Then why does it feel like you’re already grieving something?”

“I’m not.”

“Zev.”

“I’m just… thinking about how fast everything is moving. It feels big.”

“It is big.” She smiled a little, “That’s the point.”I cupped the back of her neck and pulled her closer. “I want the big things with you. The house. The arguments about whose turn it is to do the dishes. The mornings where you steal the covers and I pretend to be mad about it. I want all of it.”

“Then stop looking at me like you’re memorizing my face for the last time.”I didn’t have an answer for that, so I kissed her again. This time she let me finish unzipping the dress. It slid down her body and pooled at her feet.She stepped out of it in only the thin white slip underneath. I picked her up, carried her to the bed, and spent the next hour trying to memorize every inch of her.Afterward she lay against my chest, tracing slow circles over my skin.

“You’re still quiet,” she murmured.

“I’m happy.”

“You’re thinking.”

“I’m always thinking.”She lifted her head and looked at me.

“About what?”I almost told her, instead I pressed my mouth to the top of her head and held her until her breathing evened out into sleep.At 2:17 a.m. my phone buzzed on the nightstand.The email was from the private cardiologist I had seen two days earlier under a fake name.The message was direct; Chronic arrhythmia. High risk of sudden cardiac events under extreme physical stress. Continued elite-level play would significantly increase the probability of career-ending injury or sudden death.

My hands started shaking so hard I almost dropped the phone.I was twenty-four years old. League MVP favorite. About to marry the only person who had ever seen past the performance. And my own heart was quietly planning to kill me.I stayed out there until the cold forced me back inside. Isolde had rolled onto her side in her sleep, one hand still reaching for the empty space where I had been.I stood in the dark and watched her breathe and tried to imagine telling her. I couldn’t do it.

The anonymous message came the next afternoon.I was alone in the suite. Isolde had gone to the final fitting with her sister. The wedding was in sixteen hours.My phone lit up with a text from an unknown number.Attached was a PDF of the same medical report I had received the night before. Underneath it, a single sentence:“If you marry her, her future ends with yours. Walk away while you still can.

We’re watching.I stared at the screen until the words blurred.We’re watching.”I called the number.Disconnected.I tried again. Same result.If I stayed, Isolde would spend her life waiting for the call that said I had collapsed on the court. She would rearrange her entire career around monitoring my heart.If I left, she would hate me… but she would be free.I wanted to tell her the entire truth, instead I wrote a note, “I’m sorry. I can’t do this. Don’t look for me.”

*Present day*

I stood in the hallway outside the exam room and stared at the closed door I had just walked through.“You thought I left because I didn’t love you… but I would do anything to keep you safe. Even if it means leaving you.”