I shook my head, even though Mary wasn’t in the room to see me. From the other side of the wall, I heard Kate rolling around in bed. My loins twitched; part of me wanted to return to her, hang up with Mary, and forget that my best friend since childhood was in trouble. But I couldn’t do that. No way. I knew what I had to do.
“I’m sorry, I don’t,” I said in a plain voice. “I had no idea he was even having these bloody problems with drugs. How long has it been?”
“God knows,” Mary said. She let out a heavy sigh. “We barely talk anymore, my brother and me. I wish things weren’t like that, I wish he’d bloody listen to his family. But not anymore, he hasn’t listened to us in a long time.” I could feel her resentment coming through the phone. “He moved to Manchester to be near you, didn’t you think about looking him up every now and then? Or too busy balls-deep in women?”
“It’s not like that,” I said, even though there was a grain of truth to Mary’s words. It was true that I hardly ever saw Connor anymore—and it was partially my fault. We hadn’t gotten together in donkey’s years. When he first moved here from Belfast, I thought we’d see each other all the time. But practice with my mates had taken up a lot of my time, Connor always seemed to be ‘busy’ whenever I called him to catch up, and then there were the women….
“Well, you’d better get up and go see him,” Mary said. She didn’t sound nearly as friendly as she first had when she’d called. “And give him my love, will you?”
“Of course, I’ll be right there, Mary,” I said. She’d given me the details of Connor’s arrest, and then we’d hung up.
Now, I couldn’t believe I’d missed so many signs. Connor had always liked partying hard, and I should have paid more attention to his activities over the years. It was true that our lives went along separate tracks, but I should have taken it as a sign when he stopped calling me every week, asking to get together for a pint.
I frowned as I shifted the car into gear and drove it away from my flat. I wondered what I was going to tell Kate. Sure, she was sympathetic and smart, but having a best mate with a drug problem wasn’t going to be something she could overlook easily, I could already tell. She was the type of woman who didn’t condone drug use, and I didn’t know how she’d react to my story. Besides, we’d only been seeing each other for a couple of weeks. It felt right to me, but I didn’t know exactly how she felt yet—for all I knew, she’d think it was way too early to be having deep, serious discussions about friends’ problems.
You’re getting ahead of yourself, mate, I thought. No time to worry about the future yet. We’ve got to take care of Connor right now.
I had no idea what I was going to say to Connor, and the more time I spent in the car, the more guilt I felt consume me. I should have known, I should have paid more attention to my friends…this was all my fault. I cursed the day I’d ever become famous and stopped listening to everyone I’d known from Belfast. I didn’t like to admit it, and I would never have told Connor, but ever since I’d been picked up by Manchester United, I felt distant from my roots. It was easy to forget that my parents had died in a car bombing, that I was from one of the poorest neighborhoods in Belfast. It was easy to forget who I was, especially when I was drunk on the notion of becoming someone else.
I remembered a party that Connor and I had attended, right after we’d both moved. I hadn’t yet started playing with the team—I knew they were interested, but nothing formal had happened at that point. I’d attended a practice session or two and I’d been amazed at the swarms of girls that took over the team afterwards. These hot, amazing young women would wait out in the parking lot of the field for hours, pouncing on the sweaty players as soon as they were done kicking a ball around.
Connor met me after one of these practices. We were going to a party together, in downtown Manchester. The girls seemed to know I wasn’t one of the team yet so they mostly left me alone, but I caught lingering, appreciative glances from a few of them. I winked.
“Hello, ladies,” I said with a grin. “Fancy a good time tonight?”
Connor whistled through his teeth. “Come with me and my mate,” he called loudly. “You’ll never want to be a WAG ever again!”
Most of the girls had rolled their eyes, and a few had blown kisses, but they’d all stayed away. As soon as Connor and I had climbed into my beat-up Fiat, Connor peppered me with questions.