I didn’t know how long I sat there for. I didn’t cry, but part of me felt like it had shattered. I had been hoping that my parents would be angry but at least supportive, and that they’d realize how difficult this was for me.
Instead, I felt so incredibly alone.
I heard a noise over toward the bedrooms. Harper was standing there, frowning at me.
“You okay?” she asked.
I nodded.
She walked into the room, sat down next to me, and wrapped her arms around me. She held me like that for a few minutes.
“It’ll be okay,” she said. “It was just a shock. They’ll come around.”
“Maybe,” I said.
She pulled back. “I have a surprise for you.”
“Oh yeah?” I asked.
“Stay here.” She got up and walked into her bedroom. She came back a second later, holding something behind her back. “Ready?”
“Ready,” I said.
She pulled two tickets out. “Ta-da!”
“Wow. Tickets.”
She laughed. “Tickets to the game tomorrow.”
I perked up a little bit. “I thought those were sold out.”
“They were, but a girl in my short story class was selling them. And since I know you love sports now, I thought you’d want to go.”
I smiled at her and nodded. “Thanks, Harper. You’re amazing.”
“I know.”
She sat down next to me and I laughed. The pain of the phone call was still there, but the loneliness wasn’t. I had my friends, I had Harper, no matter what happened. My parents would have to come around one day.
At least I was going to get to see my baby’s daddy playing football tomorrow.
15
Gibson
The locker room was empty. Cups, clothes, and other crap littered the floor and the benches. People had come and gone, and the space felt all the emptier for it.
I sat there staring at my phone and finally worked up the courage to hit send on the text. I sighed and put my phone back in my bag.
My whole body was fucking sore. Playing a football game was like getting hit by a fucking truck. Every muscle ached, from my pinky finger down to my toes. I had taken a few heavy hits in that first half to top it all off, and I was pretty sure I had bruised ribs.
The taste of grass and dirt came back to me. The crowd’s roars had felt muted, dull, as Hynes pulled me up from the ground.
“You okay?” he called over the din.
“Fine,” I said. Coach was already signaling the next play.
The first half was a wreck. Mountain scored on their first possession, barely squeezing out a field goal after driving down the field. When it was my turn, I managed to get sacked once, hand the ball off for a loss once, and throw a pass that was short of the first down marker.
Coach’s yells at halftime rang in my ears. We were losing ten to seven, and he was pissed. We’d never gone into halftime down to Mountain State before, and coach was embarrassed for all of us.
Especially me. I was playing lousy, throwing weak passes, missing routes, basically looking like I didn’t know what I was doing. He chewed me out so hard that I was just as angry with myself as we left that locker room.
But that second half, well, I decided to actually play.
The mafia had been appeased. I had fucked around that first half, but I wasn’t about to lose the game.
The ball felt light in my hands play after play. I threw it hard and straight, finding my players all over the field. I picked apart their weak defense, finding the seams and holes that I had purposefully ignored in the first half.
And I felt fucking good. I felt free, like a weight had lifted from my shoulders. It was done, that first half was over, and now I could do what I was born to do.
And I was born to fucking win.
It was twenty-seven to seven by the end of the game. Every touchdown came from a pass I threw, and every field goal was set up by my feet. I was all over that field, running and passing and diving. I took hits, but I got back up because I wasn’t letting my team down.
We won that game, and the locker room was a circus. Everyone was jubilant, excited, beyond happy that we walked away from what had looked like a potential loss. I celebrated along with them, though in the back of my mind I knew that I had almost cost them the game, had almost let my team and my coach down. All because I needed some money.
I was angry with myself, but I didn’t regret it. I did what I had to do.
Slowly, the locker room emptied out. Guy after guy left, most of them heading home to rest before going out to the celebratory parties tonight. Eventually I was alone with just my phone as company.
This was my post-game ritual. I sat in the locker room and went over the game mentally. Normally I didn’t text anyone, but for some reason I needed to see her.