“You actually said that?”
My uncle Kevin tried not to laugh as he asked, sharing a glance with his husband who was sautéing mushrooms with one hand and sipping red wine with the other. It was a look that said can you believe he’s talking to us about a girl instead of football?
“I’m as surprised as you are,” I admitted, shifting Joanne in my arms.
My cousin was tiny — just eleven pounds and three months old — and she slept cradled against my chest. I could have put her in her crib or bouncer, but I liked having her there, liked having someone so soft and sweet and innocent to look down at as I confessed my unfortunate stupidity.
“I cannot understand what’s going on with me, honestly,” I said, exasperated. “When I’m away from her, I’m my normal, logical self. I recognize that there is no point in even entertaining the thought of her. But when I’m around her…” I made a face, struggling for words. “It’s like she scrambles my freaking brain. All I want to do is get a rise out of her, get her to do anything other than float by me like an emotionless ghost.”
“A ghost?”
I nodded. “I can’t explain it. She just seems… haunted.”
My uncles glanced at each other before pretending like they hadn’t, as if I didn’t already see.
“Did she end up coming out with you?” Uncle Nathan asked before carefully adding the thin-sliced steak to the pan. It sizzled when he did, the steam that hit my nose making my mouth water instantly. Uncle Nathan was a phenomenal cook — which was exactly why my Uncle Kevin had married him.
Because he’d be living off Easy Mac, otherwise.
“Of course not,” I answered. “And thank God she’s smarter than I am and didn’t, because it would have only brought on more trouble.”
“I think it would have brought on fun,” Uncle Kevin said, smirking.
“That’s because trouble and fun are synonymous in your book,” I pointed out.
He shrugged, as if it should be that way for everyone.
“Can you grab the asparagus out of the oven and start plating?” Nathan asked him, and my uncle hopped up from his barstool, smiling at his daughter as he passed by where I sat. He reached out and ran a hand over her soft baby hairs.
My Uncle Kevin was just eighteen years older than me. My dad, his older brother, was only twenty-one when I was born. Now that I was twenty-one myself, it was impossible for me to wrap my head around that fact. I couldn’t imagine having a serious girlfriend right now, let alone a child to raise.
But my father had been different from me in that way.
Where football was everything to me, my mom had been everything to him.
They were high school sweethearts, and Dad used to tell me all the time how all he’d wanted was to marry her and have a family. He wanted it so much so that he couldn’t even wait until after college to get started. They were married their junior year, and by the time they graduated, I was born.
My sister came two years later, and they had what they’d always wanted. They had a house with a yard, two kids — one boy and one girl — and each other.
The All-American Family.
For years, it really did seem like we were living the dream. I was too young to appreciate it, to understand that not every kid had two adoring parents who actively participated in their lives. I didn’t know how lucky I was that my father spent every evening after work with me and my sister, playing with us in the yard or helping us with our homework.
On the weekends, he and Mom never made plans with their adult friends. It was all about us as a family. If we weren’t taking a road trip or camping or going out on the boat, we were hanging around the house, watching movies on rainy days or spending the sunny ones in the pool.
My sister and I both had our own special connection with Dad.
My favorite weekends were the ones he spent working football drills with me in the park down the street while Mom and my sister, Hannah, painted their toes or read books together under one of the big oak trees.
Hannah’s favorite weekends, though, were the ones when Dad took her out sailing.
While sailing never grabbed me the way my father hoped, Hannah’s eyes lit up the first time she was carried onto that boat as a baby. As she grew older, she also grew thirstier for the knowledge that every good sailor needed to survive. She didn’t just want to help Dad by learning how to tie the right knots — she wanted to be his first mate.
And eventually, she was.
Every weekend, Dad would spend one day with me — usually doing something football-related — and he’d spend the other day on the water with Hannah.
Mom would join us, of course, but as we got older, it became clearer and clearer that she preferred the low-key days around the house to the adventure-seeking on the water. And so, sailing became Dad and Hannah’s special time together, and Mom and I had our time while they were gone.
Everything in my life was perfect. Perfect parents, perfect sister, perfect grades at school, and perfect opportunity to play football for life. I was good, even when I was young, and as I inched closer to playing in high school, I could feel it in my bones.
I was destined to play pro ball.
I didn’t realize it then, how fortunate I was to have all that comfort and energy to focus on football because I had the best support system in the world.
Not until my entire life crashed down around me when I was thirteen.
It was a normal summer Sunday morning the day it happened, our kitchen loud and chaotic as Mom whipped up breakfast while also simultaneously packing a lunch for all three of us. I had football camp, and Dad and Hannah were headed out on the water.
They didn’t usually sail much in the summer, because in Florida — where we lived at the time — it stormed almost every day. But the forecast was clear and the water was calm and there was a perfect ten-to-twelve knots of wind blowing through the bay, so they decided to make the most of it.
“Sunscreen,” Mom had warned Hannah as she scrambled up the eggs in the pan. “And bring your SPF shirt, too.”
Hannah hadn’t even whined or complained. She was so excited to have a morning on the water that she hopped off her barstool where she was drinking her orange juice and sprinted upstairs to get her shirt.
Dad had chuckled, wrapping his arms around my mother from the back and kissing her neck. I’d smirked and looked away, out the window to where the clouds were breaking and the sun was streaking a ray of light over our back yard. I couldn’t wait to get outside and play football.
Mom made sure we were all fed and had plenty of snacks and drinks to take with us before we all spilled onto the driveway. Dad and Hannah went in the truck, Mom and I took the SUV. I gave my sister a wet willy on my way to the car and she screamed and swatted at me all while Mom and Dad shook their heads before kissing each other goodbye.
That was our last perfect moment.
Because that morning, Dad and Hannah went out on the boat.
And they never came back.
“I think you should ask her out on a proper date,” Nathan said, his words snapping me back to the present.
“Retweet,” Uncle Kevin said from where he was plating dinner. He looked even more like my father from this angle, his profile showcasing the sharp edge of his jaw, the thickness of his brows.
“That’s because you’re both sappy romantics who don’t think about consequences before acting,” I pointed out.
Neither of them argued.
“What’s the worst that could happen by asking her out?” Uncle Kevin probed.
“Other than her saying no, which at this point she definitely would?” I shrugged. “Oh, you know — Coach sitting me on the bench my last season, or worse, kicking me off the team altogether.”
“He couldn’t do that,” Nathan tried.
“Oh, but he could,” I argued back. “And he would. He’s made that abundantly clear.” I sighed, shifting Joanne in my arms as she curled into my chest. “No matter how I spin it, Julep Lee is off limits. Besides, I don’t have time to date anyone.”
“Here we go,” Nathan murmured.
“I don’t even know why I brought this up to you two,” I said, shaking my head. “I should have known I couldn’t mention a girl without you trying to plan my future wedding with her.”
“I was picturing more of an elopement, actually,” Uncle Kevin said, sweeping his hands over the air in front of him like they were making a screen. “Italy. Or Greece!”
“Oh, I love a destination wedding,” Nathan chimed in.
I chuckled, standing as steadily and quietly as I could before maneuvering Joanne into the bouncer. “Sorry to crush your dreams. You’ll have to settle for football being my true love.”
“For now,” Nathan said, and he winked at my uncle Kevin as if they knew all the secrets in the world that I had yet to unveil.
But I knew no matter how optimistic my uncles were, this was one love match no one could make — not even them.
It didn’t matter that my dead heart sparked at the sight of Julep Lee, or that I found it impossible to stay away from her, no matter how much I knew I should.
In the end, it would never be us.
So, I’d settle for the annoying quarterback who could get under her skin.
And maybe, with time, a friend.
The first couple weeks of the fall semester blew past like a fresh New England breeze.
As it did every season, my life became a tornado of football practice, weight training, film and meetings peppered in-between a full schedule of classes, nights of unending homework, and checking in on my teammates to make sure they were all on track. A sacred piece of me fired up in the fall, coming to life beneath the pressure to perform not just as an athlete, but as a student and a leader on the team, as well.
I didn’t have time to think about anything other than football, and that was just the way I liked it.
My favorite of it all?
The games.
We won our first two, the home opener against one of our rivals and our first away game against Buffalo University. After our embarrassing Bowl loss to end last season, the wins set us up with the momentum I’d prayed for all off-season, the entire team buzzing with the notion that maybe we could get to the championship this year, after all.
For me, there was no maybe.
There was only the undeniable fact that we would make it to that game.
And we’d win it, too.
I was a red-shirt freshman, which meant that technically, I could stay another year and play next season for NBU if I wanted to. But after my last two seasons, I had the attention of scouts and general managers across the National Football League, and I knew if we performed the same way this year, if we won championship?
I could graduate, shift my focus, and go into the draft at the end of the season.
And I could go pro in the first round.
Nothing lit me up like that possibility. Nothing made my head clearer. Nothing wiped away any and all distractions like having my dream within reach.
It was barbarically hot the Monday practice after our win against SHU, fall teasing us by bringing in cooler nights without bothering to do the same for our afternoons. I knew in the blink of an eye we’d be playing in the freezing cold rain or sleet or even snow. But today, sweat dripped into my eyes as I huddled with the regular offensive squad to call our play.
“Okay, regulars. Blue lizard wing right, forty-six, full cross, on two. Ready?”
“Break,” they all chanted with me, and then we were jogging to our places on the line.
The heat was dizzying as the sun moved out from behind the clouds, and I scanned the defensive line up, the play I’d just called like a movie on the screen in my mind that I ran back over and over again, making sure there was nothing in the way the defense was lining up that would cause enough issue for me to change.
I felt confident with the call, so I called out the cues again to each side of the line before I bent and waited for the snap.
“Set… hut!”
All noise, all motion on the line fell into the background of my mind as the ball hit my hands.
I stood, ignoring the grunting and digging of cleats into the field right there in front of me as I pulled back into the pocket and searched for my receiver. It was the perfect play call, and Kyle Robbins easily found an opening before I set the ball sailing through the air.
I only had time to watch him catch it before I was taken to the ground, not in a sack but in the aftermath of an offensive lineman being brought down by two defensive players.
It should have been an easy fall.
It should have been nothing more than an uncomfortable pressure of weight as those players toppled on top of me.
It was a hit I’d taken more times than I could count, something I’d hopped up from unfazed each and every time.
But this time, my right hand shot out for the ground to break my fall, and instead, it got twisted up in the legs of one of the defensive players going down with us. I knew before we hit the ground that it was bad — the angle of my arm, the added weight throwing me rapidly toward the field. But I couldn’t do a damn thing about any of it.
All I could do was brace.
Snap.
I felt the rip through the front of my shoulder, adrenaline pumping in the next breath enough to make me question if I’d felt it at all.
You’re fine. You’re fine.
Panic zipped through me for only a moment before the players were off me, and for a split moment, I thought I really was okay.
Dominic Bartello reached down to help me up.
But when I lifted my right hand, pain shot through me like a lightning bolt.
I grimaced, gritting through my teeth as I fell back on the turf and covered my right shoulder with my left hand as if applying pressure to it could make it stop radiating agony through my entire body.
The pain ebbed quickly enough.
It was the panic that stayed.
I knew that particular ache as well as I knew every playbook I’d ever been handed. I knew when I tried again to raise my arm and heard a pop, click right before the pain intensified what had happened.
I glanced up at the players hovering over me, at their pale faces as it sank in for them, too.
Then, the training team was sprinting across the field.
They were professionals. They did their best to keep their faces schooled as they reached me, two of them bending down to my level and immediately reaching for me. One was JB, who held my gaze to try to comfort me as he moved my arm in different directions while firing off those questions I was so familiar with.
Does this hurt? How about this? Scale of one to ten, what’s the pain level? What kind of pain do you feel, sharp, dull, pins and needles? Can you bend your arm, straighten it, lift it, apply pressure?
Each question was drowned out more and more by my rapidly beating heart, by the blood pounding in my ears. Coach Lee was standing over me, too, with his arms crossed and a frown etched into his brows.
I knew by just one glance at him that while he was concerned for me, his primary worry right now was who would fill my spot.
I ignored the way my gut bottomed out at that, at how the show would go on without me. It had to. And just like I had my freshman year, I felt defective. Worthless. I was no longer the nucleus of the team.
I was a liability.
All in the blink of an eye.
My vision blurred as the moments ticked on, as JB moved me through the sequence of testing the pain. I wanted to lie. I wanted to fake that I was fine and ignore that familiar pinch of pain every time it spiked through me. But my face gave me away before the lie could find my lips, each grimace worse than the last.
Through the chaos, I saw Julep.
She was standing just behind the trainers, behind her father, her face expressionless as she listened to them run through the drill. I knew they were trying not to concern me, but I heard the panic in the trainers’ voices the more they worked through the questions, saw the looks JB exchanged with Coach that said more than anything else could.
But Julep was as steady as a steel bridge in a storm.
When her eyes flicked to mine, I held that serene gaze, willing it to calm me, too.
But it was no use.
My heart rioted, fear of the truth prickling my skin like a thousand needles.
I was hurt.
I was injured.
I wasn’t just shaking this one off.
“You’ll be okay, kid,” Coach tried to assure me once the trainers helped me to my feet, and he carefully squeezed my good shoulder before giving the trainers a knowing nod.
My entire future flashed before my eyes as JB and the rest of the crew silently led me off the field, Julep quietly rounding out the back of the group.
