Chapter 38
Landon
I’m numb during the last few days of training camp, able to keep up my playing level only because my brain welcomes mindless physical activity. My leadership, however, suffers.
“You okay, Battle?” I hear a few too many times in meetings during the last couple of days, when I’m unusually quiet. The final time from a veteran center, one of the captains this year.
I’m grateful for Johnson because he knows my struggles and doesn’t hesitate to cover for me. “Yeah, the dude has a bug or something and is tired. I mean, we’re all a little fried. The D’s looking strong though,” he says, slapping me on the back.
After muddling through the last day, I hop in my car and drive home. My duffle bags in the back of my car are unzipped, overflowing messes, because I couldn’t even muster the energy to pack them properly.
I won’t miss this year’s camp.
When I pull into my house, I see that Grace’s car is here. She knows just enough about what happened to be worried about me, I suspect. The day after Rori broke up with me from Canada, she had checked in to see how I was doing at camp, not knowing that Rori and I had split.
GRACE: Here’s your picture of the day with Grover. I tried to take him on my run, but he wasn’t having it. How’re you doing?
Her text included a picture of a scowling Grover on his leash, seemingly pulling her back to my yard.
LANDON: Camp’s fine. Otherwise not good. It’s over with Rori.
Twenty seconds of three dots appearing and disappearing passed, indicating Grace was trying to figure out how to respond. Finally, a message came through.
GRACE: You want to talk about it?
LANDON: Not yet.
Grace put a heart emoji on my message and let it go.
So when I walk in the house, I’ve got a feeling she’s there to make sure I’m okay.
“Hey,” she says as she sees me, looking up from the dining table.
“Hey,” I say back as I throw my duffle bags by the laundry room.
She stands up and walks over to me, giving me a big hug. I wrap my arms around her in turn.
Grace and I’ve been through so much together at twenty-three and twenty-two. She knows exactly what I need in times like this. Nothing better than a Battle family hug.
“I’m here if you want to talk about it,” Grace says inside the embrace. “Love you so much.”
I stay silent, and after another few beats, we break apart. She sits back down at the dining table, and I grab a bottle of water from the fridge before sitting down next to her.
Letting out a pained groan, I bring my hands up to my face, then push them back over my hair before they drop back down to my side.
“I don’t know what to think anymore, Gracie,” I whisper, unable to keep the hurt out of my voice. “Maybe I’m meant to be alone.”
Grace’s face twists in sympathetic pain. “Oh, Landon.”
I sit back in the chair, bending my head slightly back, and close my eyes. Just keep breathing.
“I don’t think I’m ready to talk about it yet.”
Suddenly I hear Grace clicking on her phone. She sets her phone back down, and I hear a ringing sound, indicating she put the phone on speaker.
“Hey,” Rawley says through the phone.
“One second,” Grace tells him. “Let me add Connor.” Within a minute, he’s joined the call.
Grace has called in the cavalry.
“Boys,” she says. “Landon’s had a rough week. Let’s pick him up a bit.”
“Shit, whatever’s going on, I’m sorry, Landon,” Rawley jumps in. “I know we’ve texted a bunch, but I just gotta say how grateful I am. You did everything you could to fix my situation.”
The interview with Jalen hadn’t gone perfectly, with Rawley not hitting his talking points as well as Jim had wished.
But we’re hoping that his clear-eyed and passionate words about loving football will be what sticks, as long as he doesn’t screw up during the rest of his time in college.
Only time will tell what the NFL teams will care about come draft day.
“Just doing my brotherly duty,” I say back, my voice more muted than it would be normally.
“You do a lot of that,” Connor says. “Love you, Landon.”
Neither of my brothers know about Rori, but that doesn’t matter. We spend fifteen minutes catching up on everyone’s lives, including Rawley and Connor’s preseasons so far. It’s exactly what I need.
As we start signing off, I share as much. “Thanks guys, this helped a lot.”
“‘Better together,’ right boys?” Grace adds, referencing our rally cry when we were going through everything with our parents.
When we finally hang up, Grace studies me. After a beat, she puts her hand lightly on top of mine.
“We’re the Battle family, Landon. You’re never alone.”
I give her a small smile, and she heads into the kitchen, grabbing something before walking by me again.
“C’mon,” she says, gesturing to the living room, holding two bowls in her hand. “Let’s watch a movie.”
I follow her there, willing my brain to forget all that had happened over the last few days.
Being at home, with Grover and Grace to keep me company, my body recovering from the rigors of camp—the combination of those things work to balance out my hurt a bit.
Most of the time though, it’s like I still haven’t even accepted Rori and I are over. Like Rori’s on a trip to a tournament or something, and busy. Denial in full effect.
However, I still feel a deep emptiness in the moments when my mind slips back to her. When I want to talk to her, but remember that she isn’t here, isn’t reachable. Which is way too often.
Basically, I’m an emotional shitshow.
After a couple of days, using all of my compartmentalization skills, I force myself to function again. Also, it’s Wednesday, which means it’s time to get back to the team facility. Time to do my job.
And with the couple of days off, as much hurt as I am navigating about Rori, I do feel renewed energy this morning for the upcoming season. Our next preseason game is Saturday, and it’s go-time.
My sadness over Rori forcibly pushed aside, I make my way into the facility. The guys milling around look at me and give warm greetings. The excitement and hype for the new season is palpable, spelled out on their faces.
When I bump into Johnson later in between obligations, he checks on me, and I try to stay stoic about it all.
“You okay?” he says to me quietly when we finally manage to catch each other alone.
“Hanging on,” I say, holding up my hands. “What can I even do? She made her choice. And I need to show up for the guys.”
He nods and puts his hand on my shoulder briefly. “I’m here if you want to talk.”
I appreciate his gesture, but I don’t have the capacity to open up about Rori while at work yet. So I steer us back to football topics, like I’m hoping will happen inside my mind too.
Helpfully, the days of preparation fly by.
On Friday, we travel to Atlanta for the preseason game as a team on a mission.
While the starters didn’t play in the initial preseason game, we do for the second game, so it’s my first time helping to guide the defensive formations on the field.
If it didn’t feel so right, I would be nervous, but I love it.
Every moment from pee wee football to Alabama led me to this exact point in my career.
After the first defensive sequence, the starters are pulled, and we watch as the rest of the guys take care of business, winning 37-18. Preseason games don’t mean anything, but they can absolutely impact morale. The win consolidates the optimism many of us are feeling.
“This is our year,” Johnson says loudly in the locker room to everyone after our head coach gives a congratulatory speech. “One-Two-Three…”
“WAVES,” we all say in unison before gathering our gear and heading back to the bus, which will deliver us to our plane.
Sitting on the plane as we head back to Florida, I suddenly have a flash of longing to text Rori and tell her about the game. I stare at her name in my phone, with the empty feeling from our lack of contact rearing up again. My reply “OK” from ten days ago is the last thing in our text chain.
I shake my head and swipe away from her name.
We have one last preseason game left on the schedule before the real games start after Labor Day. I play only a quarter in the third game, but it’s enough to feel confident about where I stand in my prep. In the meantime, everything is clicking for the team, as we win 30-6.
I typically have Tuesdays off once games start, the usual schedule for pro football.
I spend this one doing housework and errands that will be impossible to accomplish once the real season begins.
The guys make fun of me for doing my own shopping, but I started doing it in my teens when our family fell apart and our parents would forget the basics. I find it cathartic now.
After I get home, I take Grover down to our community park and throw a stick for him until he is completely spent. In the August Florida sun, the heat doesn’t give, so we both meander home and drink a bunch of water.
“Good boy,” I say to Grover as he laps up the water in his bowl.
I’ve been a ‘good boy,’ too, arguably boring. My heart’s still slowly coming back together, the key word being slowly. So I’ve just been heading home to keep mending when not on football duties.
True to her words, Grace doesn’t let me ever feel alone, eating dinner with me almost every night I’m not on the road.
“How was practice?” she typically asks as I come through the door. Food made, her textbooks out on the couch, where she usually works while waiting for my arrival.
Today, since I’m already home for my day off, I make dinner, but she still pops over to join me. She also finally ventures into more sensitive questions.
“It’s been a couple of weeks, so don’t hate me for asking. How are you doing with everything about Rori?”
I sit back in my chair. Yeah, I can talk about this now with Grace.
“I think I need more time to release the hope that she may still be in my life. You know? I still haven’t wrapped my head around it. That it’s over. That I can’t talk to her.”
Grace puts her hand over mine. “It’s a lot to process. The first woman who really meant something to you. Give yourself time.”
“I don’t even know if I’m angry, which seems weird. Just hurt. Hurt that she wouldn’t try to find a way to make it work,” I explain.
“Sure,” Grace says, otherwise staying quiet, probably to give me the space to keep talking.
“And frustrated. I’m frustrated that she didn’t trust me, trust us, to figure it all out.”
She nods, but still stays silent.
“Now it’s football season though, so I’m sucking it up. A little time has definitely helped, being able to focus on the guys, the team. I’m largely pushing the stuff with Rori to the side. At least when it comes to football.”
Grace speaks up then. “It’s natural to compartmentalize. You know, I’m the queen of that. Just get stuff done. Keep talking with me as much as you need to when you’re home, though. I’m here.”
We move onto lighter topics, but it feels good to have given words to some of what I’m thinking.
Still, once Grace leaves for her condo, the nights are hard. It isn’t the sex I miss as much—though that, too, my hand’s getting a workout—I miss our late-night conversations even more. By the time I left for training camp, we could talk about anything and everything, for hours at a time.
Not to mention the understanding that we shared of what it took to navigate our unique lives as pro athletes.
The pressure, the drive, the commitment, the reality of losing, the fame, the scrutiny, the critics—it’s incredibly difficult to comprehend the lifestyle unless you live it too.
For the first time, I was with a woman who “got” these dynamics, and I, in turn, really connected with what she faced.
I could also let my guard down with her. I knew she wasn’t using me, a trust that I didn’t take for granted. I recognize that this trust allowed us to relax into our friendship and to be ourselves, even in our goofy, fun moments, in a way hard to duplicate with others.
As I head to my home gym to get in an evening stretching session for the off-day, I turn on the TV.
The universe must be angry at me today because who is on the screen? Rori.
The highlight shows her pumping her hands in elation, having won her match in Ohio, during a smaller tournament that’s prep for the U.S. Open.
“Reilly wins the Cincinnati tournament in straight sets, 7-6, 6-4, against a very tough opponent, world #3 Ilsa Gregorvic. Nice bounce back from the early loss in Canada, and a positive sign for the U.S. Open,” the announcer says.
They cut to a shot in the stands of Julie standing and clapping. Oh awesome, she’s there for Rori.
The announcers move on quickly to baseball updates, but the image of Rori doesn’t leave my head. Her beautiful hair in a bouncing ponytail, a light green tennis dress on, and a big, happy smile.
The visual re-tears a piece of my heart.
Snap out of it, Battle, I tell myself. Thinking about it isn’t doing any good.
I force myself to the mat to start stretching and push on.