6. Jamie
“Man,can’t you run any faster?” I yelled at Dallin. His thick legs, built more for staying in one place than running, churned up the field.
“Just throw the ball, Barnes!” he called back, stretching out his arms to catch the pass. Itfell right into his hands.
“I could throw it farther if you could run faster,” I taunted as he jogged back where I waited. It was late, after the football team’s second practice of the day. Dallin’s car wouldn’t start, and he’d called me to pick him up. I told him I would as long as we could toss the ball around for a while.
“I could run faster if I hadn’t just finished my second practice of the day.” He passed me the ball once he was close enough. Dallin wasn’t an accurate passer at long distances. In my backyard? Yes. On the football field, thirty yards out? Not so much. He was an excellent blocker, though. His thighs were thick as tree trunks.
“Excuses, excuses, Ralston.” I tossed the ball in the air, easily catching it again. “Come on, one more. You can even walk most of the way.” I called out a route I’d learned from him from the team’s playbook.
Dallin rolled his eyes but started down the field, anyway. It was a play from last year when the team had a quarterback who could throw.
Once Dallin had gone twenty yards, I back-pedaled. Five yards, ten yards. Dallin cut across the grass, picking up speed. Cocking my arm back, I waited until he was right where I wanted him and let the ball go. It hung in the air, making a high arc. Without adjusting his pace, Dallin reached out. The ball landed in his hands exactly where I’d aimed. Holding it in one hand above his head, he called out in an imitation of anannouncer’s voice and continued running into the end zone.
“Ralston makes the catch. He fakesleft. He fakes right. And he scores!”
Laughing, I jogged to give him a high five. “Nice catch.”
Dallin collapsed in the grass, breathing hard. “Nice throw, but I’m done.”
“Wimp.” I sprawled out a few feet away.
“Whatever.”
“You should start running with me.” I knew how he’d respond to that.
“No.” Dallin was more of a gym junkie. He loved lifting weights and was strong as an ox. He had explosive speed in short bursts but wasn’t a fan of endurance running.
Neither was I.
“So…” Dallin began.
And here it came.
Groaning, I rolled onto my stomach. A face full of grass was bound to be better than what Dallin had to say.
“You don’t even know what I was going to say.” Dallin pulled up a clump of grass and threw it at me.
“If it has anything to do with me playing football, then yes, I do.” I didn’t even bother to brush the blades off my face.
Dallin blew an annoyed breath. “Why can’t we just talk about it?”
“Dude, you know how my mom feels about me playing football.”
“Dude,” he imitated me. “You’re eighteen, now. You don’t need her permission to play.”
True. I’d turned eighteen the first week in August. I could have graduated last year, but my parents kept me home an extra year before kindergarten so I wouldn’t be the youngest kid in my class. Instead, I was the oldest.
“I know I don’t need her permission to play, but I want her blessing.” And I didn’t have it. Our family had suffered enough. I wouldn’t add to her heartache.
Dallin stayed silent for a long time, long enough that I figured he was done talking about football.
“Coach is having tryouts on Wednesday. A mass email is going out to all students tomorrow morning.”
That spark of hope I’d felt earlier that morning was still there. Dallin’s words fanned the flame.
“Good for him.”
Dallin snorted at my less-than-mature response. “You could try out, Jamie. You’d get the position.”
Rolling over, I sat up. “I’m not trying out.”
Dallin sat upas well. “What’s next, Jamie? What else are you going to let her fear keep you from doing? Going off to college? Flying on an airplane?” His direct gaze met mine. “Hiking in Hawaii? Rock climbing?”
I flinched. He wasn’t just throwing out random things. Everything he said was a direct hit to my heart. “That’s not fair, Dallin.”
“No, what’s not fair is not living because you’re afraid. What’s worse is keeping someone else from living because of your fear. And you know that’s what’s going on here, man.”
Again, he wasn’t wrong. And I hated it. I hated that I had to deal with this. I hated that I couldn’t just live my life and make my own choices without worrying about hurting my mother. In so many ways, we were doing better. But there were other times—dark times—when we weren’t.
How could I rationalize being the reason for more of her pain? I couldn’t. I wouldn’t make that choice.
Would I?
I helpedDallin give his car a jump and then called Leah Collins. I’d been talking to Leah all week, flirting at cross-country practice and texting. I’d picked her up, and within minutes, we were back at the school. It was dark, and Leah smelled good. Her lips were talented, and she knew this was just a one-time thing.
For a few hours, I forgot all about missing my dad, worrying about my mom, and wanting to play football more than I wanted anything else.
Later that night, lying in my bed, I couldn’t forget Dallin’s words. What would I do? I’d been living in a bubble. A bubble that would burst in about ten months when I graduated from high school. Graduation had always seemed so far away, this nebulous thing I wouldn’t have to worry about for a long time.
Now, it was staring me down, taunting me, forcing me to face decisions that were beginning to feel all too real. Moving away. College. My ownlife. Making my own choices. Leaving Mom.
Would I let her influence my choices indefinitely? When would it end? When would I not feel guilty? I knew she was afraid of losing me. I didn’t blame her. I didn’t. She’d been through a lot, and not just this last year.
I was five when it happened. I remembered it clearly: packing my SpongeBob suitcase, riding in the back of the car to my grandparents’ house, waving goodbye as Mom and Dad drove away for a weeklong trip to Hawaii. I hadn’t minded being left behind. Grandma made the best homemade cinnamon rolls. There was never a shortage of cookies at her house. And helping Grandpa in the garage was my favorite thing to do in the world.
My parents had never left me for a whole week before. To this day, I clearly remember my mom hugging me before they left. I remember she held me a little longer, and I struggled to get away. I was excited to begin the adventures at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. I remember waving as they headed to the car that would take them to the airport. It was the last time I ever saw my mother walk.
One week turned into two and then three. I remember being confused and restless when my parents still hadn’t come to pick me up after such a long time. I talked to them both on the phone, and they sounded fine. Why weren’t they coming home?
But they didn’t come home because my mom had been in an accident. During a hikein Hawaii, she’d slipped down a muddy embankment and tumbled halfway down a mountain before getting caught on a tree. Rescuers had to get her out by helicopter. She’d lain there for two hours before being transported to the nearest hospital equipped to handle her injuries. Injuries that left her paralyzed from the waist down.
When Dad finally came to get me and take me home, it was to a home I’d never seen before, in a neighborhood I knew nothing about. There was a cool ramp outside, though, next to the stairs leading to the front porch. It was fun to run up and down. The doors were extra wide, and the living room was filled with weird equipment that I later learned helped Mom since she couldn’t use her legs anymore. The biggest difference was that Mom still hadn’t come home. Dad explained that she had to stay at a rehab facility for a couple more weeks to learn how to get around without using her legs.
It was a lot for a five-year-old to take in, and I think it took a year or sobefore I finally came to terms with the fact that my mother couldn’t do the things she’d done before the accident. She was still my momandloved me, but she was very sad, and things were so different.
The only good thing about moving to our new house was meeting Bailey. She moved into the house next door to mine shortly after we moved in. Her mom had just married her stepdad, so she was also dealing with major life changes. We bonded in the patch of grass between our two houses; the rest was history. We’d been best friends ever since. Dallin joined our little posse in the third grade when his parents moved in across the street. We were the three amigos.
After Mom’s accident, she became even more protective of me. When it was time to sign me up for peewee football, Dad signed me up against her wishes. I played for six years, and neither missed a game, but she worried.
The end came crashing down toward the end of my eighth-grade season. I played quarterbackandstarted during seventh and eighth grade. Connor had gone to the other middle school in our district, thank goodness.I was good. Maybe not as good as Connor, but good. It didn’t matterin the end.
It was a quarterback sneak, and I ended up at the bottom of the pile with a concussion. Out of the game. Out for the season.Out forever.
My dad couldn’t talk her around after that. Our family had been broken enough, he told me. She couldn’t handle it if I got broken, too. So, they forced me to quit. I took up running to deal with my frustration. It was a poor substitute. But Bailey was there, and that helped. A little.
I wished Dad had taken his own counsel about not doing things that might break one of us. I had to give up football, but he kept going on his annual rock climbing adventures with his roommates from college. Mom spent a month before the scheduled trip every year ignoring him, breaking down only a few days before to beg him not to go. I guess he figured we’d given up enough.
Every year, he ruffled my hair and kissed the tears from her cheeks before driving away.
It was always a long few days until he drove back into the garage, until the one time, he didn’t. Even after receiving the call about the accident, she still sat at the window watching the street in front of our house for hours. Hoping. Mom still hadn’t forgiven him for leaving us.
Yeah, so that’s why I didn’t play football. Because my mom was a wreck. I got it. I knew better than anyone.After all, I was the one she kept awake at night with her sobbing. That was when I moved my room down to the basement.
I’d never been more thankful for Dallin and Bailey, who stole into the basement I’d turned into alittle apartment every chance they got. I didn’t think our parents realized how often they stayed the night, trying to distract me from my grief while my mother wallowed in hers one floor above us.
So much about the whole situation sucked. There were so many things I couldn’t change.
But man, I loved the game. It flowed through my veins as surely as my blood. On the field, it was like everything clicked into place. Like a puzzle piece you turned this way and that, trying to get it to fit. My life only turned in the right direction to fit into that spot when I played football.
I sounded like an idiot, even in my ownhead. Football wasn’t everything. I knew that. But I still loved it. I was good at it. I wasn’t just good; I was talented. Football was more than just a sport to me. It was an opportunity.
One I’d given up.
I was tempted. Dallin had dangled a carrot tonight. And not just any carrot, the carrot.
What was I going to do about it?