3. Happy for Them
Chapter 3
Happy for Them
Eight Months Later
B efore I have the chance to knock, the door swings open and a 250-pound ex-lineman slams me to the marbled tile. Tyler stands up, huffing like he’s out of shape.
“Pu-” I start, about to call him a vulgar word.
“You shut your mouth!” He points his finger at me. “You don’t get to talk. Two years. Two whole years passed without a word from you, and you suddenly reappear back in our lives.” My eyes fall to the ground in shame. When I texted Callum and Tyler out of the blue asking if we could have dinner, a hopeful part of me wished everything could be normal between us. That maybe during those two years, the hurt I’d caused would have dissipated.
Sam pokes his head out and points to the only other door on his floor. “Can y’all do this inside? You’re going to piss off the neighbor.”
Tyler shoots a glare at me, signifying that the conversation isn’t over, and gestures for me to go inside first. When the door slams behind us, I turn to see Callum, who is supposed to be the reasonable one, in the corner with his arms crossed.
“You’re pissed at me too?”
“You ghosted us. How many of our texts and calls did you ignore? Of course, I’m pissed.” He steps forward to stand beside Tyler, both of them looking down their noses at me despite the inch I have on them both. I stare back, taking in Callum’s brown beard and Tyler’s face thinned from that last little bit of roundness. They’re no longer the college kids I once knew. I wonder how different I look to them.
Smiles slowly creep over their faces, dissipating the gloom in the room, and my shoulders relax. “But we missed you too, so we can’t stay mad for long.” Callum shakes my hand and Tyler tries to tackle me again, but I anticipate the hit.
“Come sit and explain yourself. We have time before the game starts. And the pizza is already on the way,” Callum instructs me as he leads us all to the living room with a massive TV on which the NBA pregame plays. He gestures to a black leather armchair for me to sit in while he takes the other, and Tyler joins Sam who’s leaned back against the couch scrolling through his phone. A black and white photograph of the Houston skyline adorns the black accent wall behind them.
“So? What the hell have you been up to since you disappeared?” Tyler asks.
“Most recently, working in construction.” I rub my hands along my jeans, nervous to admit to them my job. There’s nothing wrong with working in construction. But, I promised myself long ago that I wouldn’t end up like my father—pissed off at the world because life didn’t go the way he planned, wasting away instead of working toward his dreams, and taking out all of that anger on his wife. His loyal wife, whose dreams were also forgotten so that she could fully devote herself to keeping our bills paid.
“Construction, huh? Highways, houses, what?”
“Remodeling houses, building fences, painting, pretty much whatever work is available. The owner takes whatever work comes his way.” I’m from a small town where the gas station is also the only restaurant, the plumber also works on air conditioners and does pest control, and the grocery store is combined with the post office. At some point in the past two years, I’ve worked at all of those places, including the auto shop doing oil changes.
“So why the sudden appearance back in our lives?” Sam asks, eyes narrowed in my direction.
“It’s just time for a change. I took a job at a machine shop close to Houston.” I pause, wondering if I should wait a little longer before asking what I came to ask. But getting it out of the way would allow for a stress-free evening without the question hanging over my head. “I need a place to stay.”
“So, you’re moving back?” Sam clarifies.
“Yep.”
Tyler excitedly pumps his fist in the air while Callum says, “I’ve just got a one-bedroom, but you could take the couch if you need to. Or, Sam has an extra room.”
“Well, you’d have to pay rent,” Sam says. I almost laugh, assuming it’s a joke. Obviously, I’ll pay rent, but his expression remains stoic, never breaking into a grin like I expect.
“Yeah, I planned on it. I could get my own place too, I just figured I’d ask if any of you needed a roommate first.”
“Am I going to wake up one morning to find you gone again?” he asks.
Out of the three of them, I was always closest with Tyler and Callum. Tyler was the friend you asked to go out with when you needed to let loose and forget about the test you bombed, or about the girl that broke your heart. He’s not one to turn down a shot, and he’ll dance with anyone to anything. I used to be just like that, always up for adventure, never said no to anything. However, quiet evenings at home have become more appealing.
Callum is a much calmer presence, the one back at the table watching over everyone’s drinks. The one you go to for advice or the answers to philosophical life questions. He’s a closed book himself, but easy to open up to. I had to ignore his calls the most while I was gone because he constantly wanted to check up on me, to make sure I was eating and showering. I don’t deserve his friendship.
Then there’s Sam. He’s an arrogant bastard who thinks he’s the main character in everyone’s story. Not that I deserved it, but I haven’t heard a word from him since I left town. He never came to the hospital, he was never home when I was released, and I never received any worried texts or voicemails from him after I left. Out of all of us guys, he was the one that had changed the least and, simultaneously, the most. His arrogance appears exactly the same, but it’s lost its charm. He acts smug. Like he’s disappointed in the way I acted after my accident two years ago because he would never have been so childish and run home to his mommy. He never would have allowed the anger to consume him the way I did, and for that, like so many other reasons, he’s better than me.
Then again, maybe I’m reading into things that aren’t there.
“Not without a heads-up this time. I promise.”
Sam strokes his chin, thinking. “Alright. Move in here.”
I let out the breath I’d been holding, waiting for his rejection. “Thanks, man. I appreciate it.” It’s a weight off my shoulders. Although, living with Sam might turn out to be a different weight on my shoulders.
“You want to ask Cori first?” Callum asks, eyebrows raised at Sam.
“Who’s Cori?”
“Sam’s girlfriend,” Tyler sings, mockingly.
Sam rolls his eyes and leans back, crossing his leg over his knee.
“Really? How long have you been together?”
“Only eight months. But we’ve known each other since we were kids. We reconnected last summer.” Eight months is a long time for someone like him. In the three years I knew Sam in college, he never dated seriously. It was always casual hookups with attractive women who deserved much more than Sam was offering.
“It’ll be a good story if y’all ever have kids,” I say. Sam shifts uncomfortably but nods his agreement.
“Except that’s not how their story ends. She’ll leave Sam for me one of these days.” Tyler smirks until Sam kicks his leg.
“So, will she be okay with me moving in?” I ask Sam.
He brushes off the question. “She doesn’t live here.”
“Cori’s cool,” Tyler explains. “A little shy and awkward, but nice.”
Shy and awkward is not Sam’s type at all, at least it didn’t used to be. But it was only a matter of time before his tastes changed—two years have passed and we aren't in college anymore.
“So, give us the rest of the story. You’ve been doing more than just wielding a nail gun and a paintbrush. I see you have a sleeve.” Sam points to my left arm, covered in tattoos of trees and a river. “I see you’re still in shape.” He points to my other arm, the muscle still toned from manual labor and lifting weights to relieve stress. Then he points to my face. “I see you’re still very much alive and didn’t fall off the face of the Earth like we thought.”
I run a hand through my hair. “Look, I’m sorry. I was in a dark place. I just needed to get away from it all to heal, clear my head, figure out a new plan.”
Callum nods. “I get it, man.”
I know he means it. Tyler too. Sam is the one who could never understand what it was like for me. How bad it hurt.
Football was his kingdom. He ruled the field and everyone on it. But for me, it was my ticket to freedom. It was money, it was my career, it was life.
“And then Kenna and I broke up.” I don’t miss the guys shifting uncomfortably. While football was my ticket to the life I wanted, I was hers. And when I couldn’t play anymore, she found someone else to give her what she was looking for.
“So, why trees, exactly?” Callum asks, pointing to my arm.
I pull up the sleeve of my shirt to show off the whole tattoo. The mountains start at my shoulder with an airplane flying above them, the tops of the pines at the middle of my bicep, and the trunks end halfway down my forearm. “It’s really not that significant. A friend of mine from high school does tattoos now and I was looking at some of his drawings. I just thought this one looked cool. Although, I asked if he’d add the airplane.”
I’m grateful that no one mentions the tattoo of my football number that used to be on this arm. The number that was supposed to take me pro. I needed it gone and was lucky that my friend was able to work it into the design of the new one so that you can’t tell it had ever been there.
Sam takes me on a quick tour of the apartment and shows me the room that will become mine once I move in. It’s a big place with laundry, a full dining room, and three bedrooms, one of which is Sam’s office. There are light wood floors throughout, covered in some places by blue rugs, and black metal light fixtures hang low from the high ceiling. It’s masculine and a much nicer apartment than I ever imagined living in.
I’m moving from the double-wide I grew up in with outdated, mismatched furniture and wallpaper from the nineties. Although, I’d prefer the double-wide to the cold, staged vibe of Sam’s place if the walls back home weren’t stained with all the years of struggling Mom and I went through. I almost moved to my own place, a tiny house rental just down the street from Mom’s, but I figured there was no sense in being lonely or spending more money on rent and bills for a separate house when I could help Mom pay hers. Give her a bit of reprieve after letting her down with football.
“So what is the new plan?” Sam asks when we’re back in the living room. “You said you needed some time to clear your head and figure out a new plan. That’s why you ran away. So? Are you going to finish school? Are you going to work at a machine shop for the rest of your life? Or are you going to continue to bounce around from job to job like you’ve done for the past two years?” There’s judgment in his tone.
I shrug. “I don’t know. A machinist is a good job. I probably won’t ever love it, but does anyone actually love their job?”
“I do,” Callum states.
“Me too,” says Tyler.
They add context, filling me in on their careers. Callum is a case manager for a charity that helps children from low-income families join sports programs, or take music lessons, pretty much any extracurricular activity. It’s a charity Mom and I could have used when I was a kid. Tyler is a PE coach at a junior high, working his way up to high school. And Sam works for his dad in developmental real estate, like he always planned to do.
I’m happy for them, but it’s hard not to be jealous. Growing up, I dreamt of being one of those people who loved what they did. Who looked forward to going to work every day instead of coming home on Friday needing to get drunk to forget the week. Who lived to work instead of working to survive. I was supposed to be happy to be like these guys.
But life had other plans.
* * *
Two Years Ago
T his is what I live for.
The roar of the crowd, each cadence of the drum line, the energy pulsating through the stadium, the adrenaline rush from being part of the team as we burst forth from the tunnel. It’s the height of an orgasm, it’s riding the Texas Freefall at Splashtown, it’s water-sledding through a flood in the street on a trash can lid tied to a bumper. It is unlike any other high I’ve ever felt.
And it’s everything I’ve worked toward since I was a kid.
When I was five years old, I sat on my Uncle Jonah’s lap and pointed to the football players on TV. “I want to be one of them when I’m old.”
He tickled me until I almost pissed myself. “Those guys are my age, you knucklehead. And we ain’t old yet.”
“You are to me.” That earned me a noogie.
“You sure you don’t want to be an oil man like me?”
“No,” I said, unapologetically.
“Yeah, it’s not as fun as playing football.” Uncle Jonah always came over for lunch after Church and would stay to build blanket forts or have Nerf gun wars, as long as I let him watch the game when it came on.
“You know, I think you could make it, kid.” At that point, I hadn’t done anything football-related except throw one in the yard, but he still believed in me. I probably could have said I wanted to be an Underwater Flamethrower and he would have supported me one hundred percent.
Now, only a couple more games and one more season stand between me and the NFL, happiness, and enough money to pay back Mom for all the extra shifts she picked up when I was a kid.
Enough money to move her out of the double-wide where my Dad abandoned us.
Mom and Uncle Jonah don’t get to come to every game, but they’re in the stands today to watch us take down the Spartans in our biggest game of the season. After kickoff, we had possession of the ball. We do okay during the first quarter, but it’s the second quarter that things pick up. They’ve kept us at bay enough to prevent us from scoring, until Sam makes a smooth pass right into the hands of our wide receiver, just a few yards from the end zone.
After he makes the touchdown, the crowd. Goes. Nuts.
Callum stands just feet away, shouting his excitement to me, but I can’t hear a word he says from all the cheers, screams, whistling, and chanting. The score now stands 7 to 3 after a field goal. We wait on the sidelines while the defensive line does its job, and when they succeed, we go back out. Another touchdown, this one earned after three first downs. Then it’s halftime.
“We could be up by more if Bennett was given more protection.” We hear from the offensive coach. “But keep doing what you’re doing, keep your eyes open, and finish the fight!”
After the band has their time on the field, something I always hated missing, we run back out of the tunnel. Kickoff has the ball flying past the goalpost, so the play starts at the twenty-yard line. The defensive line isn’t able to hold them back this time, and the score is 14 to 9.
But no worries, because we’ve got this.
“I don’t care what the hell y’all have to do, do not let me get hit,” Sam calls to us after he tells us the play in the huddle. He’s running the ball this time. We line up, and the world falls away around me, my eyes, my ears, my soul, only for the game and the play we’re about to run. The ball is snapped, Sam fake passes it to Giles, and we take off ready to block for our quarterback. We make it eleven yards before we lose our hold on their defense. Callum goes down, I go down, Sam goes down. Except our goal was to get the yards to advance, and we did that.
But as I move my arms to push myself from the ground, smile on my lips, pumped for the next round in the ring, the defensive lineman I blocked stands up and takes a step backward.
I’ve been stepped on a million times throughout my football career. My body’s been slammed into the turf, I’ve torn my ACL, pulled my hamstring, and had a few concussions. This time is different.
This time, when he steps back onto my leg, he loses his balance and falls on my other leg.
And because I was already in a strange position, bone snaps, breaking my heart in ways it’ll never mend from.