"Kaden?"
"Yeah?"
"You're not going to do anything stupid, are you?"
"Stupid?" I asked. "Like what?"
"Like calling her up and making promises you haven't really thought through, that would be my first guess."
"Don't worry," I reassured her. "I'm still an idiot. But I'm not as big of an idiot as I used to be."
That was the basic truth of it, too. When I got back to my dorm after practice and had a few moments to myself I lay on my bed and scrolled through the contacts list on my phone. There was Tasha's number, still there because I'd never quite been able to bring myself to delete it. But I wasn't going to call her - and not just because Jess told me it would be a bad idea.
Tasha probably had a whole new life for herself. New friends, new daily routine, maybe even a new man. In fact, almost certainly a new man. She was young and gorgeous and smart. The exact kind of girl who gets snapped up right away. I put the phone down eventually, unable to deal with the way it made me feel to think of her with someone else. My brain refused to let it go, though. It did that a lot. I'd be sitting in class or hanging out with friends or in the middle of a conversation with one of my football coaches and an image of her with a man - a man who wasn't me - would pop into my head. Was someone else putting their hands on those curves? Was some other man enjoying the way her breath quickened when he touched her in a certain way?
I almost ran into the kitchen to find a beer - a beer we weren't allowed to have but that everyone knew we had and no one cared to stop us having - and twisted the cap off, taking a big, long swig and praying the alcohol would take effect before any more gruesome scenarios decided to play themselves out in my mind's eye.
When was I going to get over her? It had been almost two years at that point. Everyone always said time heals all wounds but I was starting to wonder how much time. Wasn't two years enough? How much longer was I going to have to wait?
There didn't seem to be anyone home so I slumped down on one of the sofas in the common room with a second beer, trying to distract myself, trying to think of anything so long as it wasn't Natasha Greeley. The NFL draft was coming up, that should have been the main thing on my mind. I'd already met with representatives of three or four teams. Middle-aged men with a slightly sleazy, salesman-y air about them, hinting at all sorts of perks and profits to choosing their team, even if I ended up drafted by another.
I'd done the NFL Combine in February with all the other NFL hopefuls, but everyone knew that for me it was mostly a formality, one last checkmark in a long list of boxes that had already been definitively checked by my performance as Brooks' main quarterback. Training camp started in July - so although I had no idea where that would be, I knew it wouldn't be at Brooks.
Lying on my bed I was seized with a weird kind of regret. Maybe it was fear. Wherever I ended up I still planned on finishing my degree - eventually. But what about everything else? The college 'experience'? Had I just wasted two years of what I was probably going to look back on as the best years of my life pining for a girl I lost before I even left Little Falls?
No, that was stupid. I'd participated in all the usual college shenanigans. All except girls. And I didn't regret it - how could I, I just didn't feel the interest that my fellow students and players seemed to. But what if I did regret it, one day far in the future?
The sound of my phone ringing finally succeeded in shaking me out of my mental spiral and I picked it up. It was my dad's number. That was odd. My parents usually called on Sundays, sometimes on Wednesdays if I was around. It was a Monday. A little tickle of fear ran through me.
"Hello?"
"Kaden, son. It's your dad here."
My dad sounded weird. His voice was oddly thick. Was he - was he crying? Alarm bells suddenly started blaring in my head.
"Dad?" I asked, pleading with the universe to let it be nothing. "Is - is something wrong?"
Silence on the other end, followed by the sound of throat clearing.
"Dad!" I shouted, sitting straight up on the sofa. "Is something wrong? What's going on? What's-"
"Kaden, it's your mother."
My head started spinning as soon as I heard the word 'mother.' I listened to my dad take another deep, shaky breath.
"She's been in an accident. A car accident. I'm at the - I'm at the hospital."
"I'm coming home," I said, half-expecting my dad to protest. When he instead agreed and told me that that was probably a good idea, it freaked me out completely.
"Dad?" I asked, as my stomach started to feel heavy with dread. "Is she OK?"
"They don't know, Kaden. It just happened. They - the doctors told me they don't know. She's in surgery right now."