Bear
Intramural football is just about the only thing keeping me alive.
Once school started, I found that the hole I’d slid into over the summer was deeper than I realized.
I couldn’t focus in class — which I really need to do, considering I’m in my cornerstone courses now that I’m a senior — and even with most of my nights spent exploring Becca, the hole continued to grow, and I fell in deeper.
It wasn’t until the first IM football game with my Omega Chi brothers that a small spark of my old self came back to life.
Now, it’s the only thing I look forward to.
The Alpha Sigma quarterback hikes the ball, and I slam into the offensive lineman across from me, overpowering him in seconds and sliding past him. I growl, thighs burning as I run as fast as I can, and I launch for the quarterback, taking him down before he has the chance to throw the ball.
It’s my seventh sack of the game.
Cheers break out from the crowd of Greek students watching the game from the sidelines, and I’m almost positive I hear Skyler screaming above all the noise. I don’t celebrate, though — in fact, I remain stoic all game as if I’m not even playing at all.
Because the biggest part of me is still numb, no matter how I try to bring it back to life with the things I used to love.
By the time the game is over, we’ve outscored the A Sigs by seventeen and clenched our second win of the season. I shake hands with the other players and immediately strip out of my helmet and jersey, desperate to get my pads off.
Every muscle is aching. I know I’ll need an ice bath and I’ll still be paying for it tomorrow, but that pain reminds me that I’m still here.
I’m still breathing.
I’m still alive.
I’ve barely peeled my pads off when Skyler is on my back, her legs wrapped around me and fist in the air.
“My best friend is a fucking BEAST!” she screams, chanting my name until a small crowd joins in.
I muster the best smile I have, tickling her sides until she falls off me and lands on the ground, hanging her hands on her hips.
She nudges me playfully with a wide smile. “You murdered them today.”
“Just doing my job,” I said on a shrug.
“Well, you’re doing it well. I don’t think anyone can overpower you now that you’ve beefed up to twice your original size — which was already ghastly, by the way.
” She squeezes my biceps, but when I don’t smile, her eyes grow sad.
“Hey, I know you already know this, but… you can talk to me. If something is going on.”
“It’s not.”
She frowns. “It’s just… you don’t seem like yourself since we came back to school. I know I was busy with Kip and his dad over the summer, so I’m sorry if I wasn’t—”
“You don’t need to apologize, I’m fine,” I clip, shoving my shit into my gym bag with more force than necessary. I don’t know why I’m pissed that she’s asking if I’m okay when, clearly, I am not, but for some reason, it fires me up. “I gotta run.”
“Bear…”
“I’ll see you around.”
I don’t look at her again, don’t let her get another word in before I sling my bag over my shoulder and start the walk across campus to the Omega Chi house. Most of the guys drove, and a few of them offer me rides, but I decline, looking forward to the alone time.
When I pull my phone out of my bag, there’s a few missed texts from Becca wishing me luck on the game. She’s at work, and her last text asks if I want her to come over after. I don’t answer, switching instead to the missed text from my little brother.
Clayton: Call me when you get this.
My stomach drops. Clayton is still living with Mac and his family in Pittsburgh, and though I’m happy he can be with his friends, and I know from my time spent with them that there’s no better place for him to be than at Mac’s, it still hurts to be so far from him and know he has no one in our family.
I dial his number from my favorites list and plug my headphones into the phone jack, popping the buds in my ears just as he answers.
“Hey,” he answers, and I can tell by the sound in his voice that my stomach lurching wasn’t for nothing.
Something is wrong.
“Hey, Little Bro. Sorry I didn’t call sooner, was at an IM game.”
“You clobber them?”
“Naturally,” I answer. “What’s going on?”
I get straight to the point, and Clayton sighs on the other end before I hear what sounds like a door closing and then the faint sounds of him being outside.
“Mom messaged me.”
My heart stops, along with my feet, and I stand frozen for what feels like an hour in the middle of the sidewalk trail that leads around our circular-shaped campus before I find the will to speak.
“What the fuck do you mean, she messaged you?”
My mother had disappeared the fall semester of my sophomore year — immediately after I’d given her two-thousand dollars, thanks to Skyler’s help — and she’d taken my older brother, Carleton, with her.
Other than them occasionally checking in with Carleton’s wife and two sons, none of us had heard from them.
I had seen his kids more than he had, and I’d given up on ever seeing Mom again.
Hell, I’d lost every ounce of care I had left for her when I realized what she’d done to Clayton.
How could she just leave him there? He was alone, staying on Mac’s couch until his parents really took my brother in and made a new home for him.
What kind of mother could leave her teenage son like that, without so much as a phone call every now and then to check in?
“I mean, she messaged me. She’s on Facebook now, I guess… she made a new profile.”
“What the fuck did she say?” I ask, and already I’d pulled over to one of the benches near the reflection pond, plopping down and pulling up Facebook on my phone. I search her name, gulping when her profile comes up and I realize she sent me a friend request, too.
“She just said, ‘Hey, son. It’s Mom. How are you?’” Clayton answers, and then he pauses a moment. “I just got the message late last night, around three in the morning or so. I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t respond. I wanted to talk to you first.”
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter, swiping through the few photos she’d uploaded. One is of her on a beach, the other is in front of some old, run-down house. She’s somehow even thinner than the last time I saw her, and she’s cut all her hair off.
My heart breaks at the sight of her frail form, of her sad, drugged-out eyes.
But then it hardens right back up, remembering what she’d done.
“Don’t message her back,” I say finally, grabbing my bag as I close Facebook and resume my walk again. “Not until I figure out where she is and what her intentions are.”
“Okay,” he says, not arguing, but I can hear the disappointment in his voice.
“I know you miss her,” I say on a sigh, eyes rolling up to the sky and fists clenching at my sides.
I want so badly to hurt my own mother, and I know what a twisted, fucked-up thing that is, but I want her to know this pain we’ve felt as her kids.
“Just let me figure out a few things first, and then you can talk to her if you want. Okay?”
“Yeah,” he says. A pause. “I do miss her, but I think I miss who I thought she was. You know? Not who she really is.”
I inhale a stiff breath, blowing it out as calmly as I can as I scrub a hand down my face. Clayton is around the same age I was when I realized who my mother truly is, and I remember how badly it killed me.
I hate that it’s doing the same to him.
“Hey, we have each other, right?” I remind him. “What else do we need?”
“Not a damn thing.”
“That’s right.”
I change the subject to football, asking how his season is going so far. He’s a sophomore and already on the varsity team, a wide receiver with stats more impressive than I ever had when I played in school.
After a while, we end the call, and I walk the rest of the way to the house in a fuming silence. As soon as I get back to the Omega Chi house, I lock myself in my room, text Becca that I’ll see her later in the week, and then run a shower so hot my skin is a bright red when I finally emerge.
I might as well have steam wafting off my skin with the anger still sourcing through me, and I can’t get my thoughts straight to figure out what I want to do next.
Before I realize what I’m doing, I have my phone in my hand, Erin’s name on my screen, and a text message written in the box below it.
Me: Are you free? Really need someone right now.
I stare at the words, eyes welling with tears that burn as I try to figure out why the hell she was the one I thought of, why she was the name I typed, why she was the one I wanted to talk to.
None of it matters, not anymore.
Not since I realized everything I thought we had between us was a lie.
The truth is I can never lean on her.
She’s the last person I can trust.
I delete the text, swiping at the one tear that managed to slip free from my eye before it has the chance to roll down my cheek.
Then, without a plan or a single fucking clue as to what I want to say, I open my laptop, pull up Facebook, and message the woman who gave me life.