25. Declan
Declan
The most precious gift you can give
to the one you love is your true presence.
~ Tich Nhat Hanh
I lay back on the weight bench, settling my grip on the bar.
My strength coach, Mac, is right behind me.
I’m benching three-fifty. Nothing showy, but it’s more than I’ve been set up to do for weeks.
“Five by five,” Mac says. “I’ve got you.”
I unrack the bar, lowering it toward my chest. Then, I press upward with a full exhale. On the inhale, I lower the bar to my chest again, and press up with another strong exhale.
My cast comes off in ten days. Somehow the finish line on this stage of my healing feels both like a massive relief and an impossibility. I’m itching to get back to practices and games.
I’ll be spending more time at the facility.
More meetings. More workouts. More check-ins with my treatment team.
And that means less time with Winona, even though she usually drives me here and either waits for me while she studies, or goes to work and circles back to pick me up.
I never would have believed it was possible to miss someone when I’m seeing her so consistently, but here I am—missing her in the middle of a workout.
“Focus,” Mac says, as if he’s a mind reader.
I extend the bar overhead and return it to the rack and breathe.
“How’d that feel?” he asks.
“Good. Like coming home.”
“That’s what we want to hear. Now stop slacking and get to your next set.”
“You married?” I ask Mac before I lift the bar in the air and slowly lower it to my chest for the next set.
“Focus, O’Connell.”
I do. I push all the way through the next set, feeling the promising burn of each press.
When the bar’s back on the rack, Mac says, “Divorced. Never intend to settle again. Women are a complication. Finding the right one is a myth.”
“Ouch,” I say.
I am beyond certain Mac has never met the right one.
I focus on my body, putting Winona out of my mind as best as I can. She’s still there, though. Her smile. The way she feels in my arms. Her outlook on life. The way she makes me laugh.
Mac taps my pecs and then my delts. “Are you smiling over these or these? Because whatever else might have you smiling like that is not going to prepare you to be back on the line. And it sure won’t win you a Super Bowl.”
He’s doing his job. And he’s not wrong.
“Don’t my pecs make you smile, Mac?” I tease.
“Your pecs pay for my house. Now let’s get them back in game-ready shape.”
We finish my workout over an hour later, moving through pull-ups, shoulder presses, modified squats and a full core workout.
“You’ve got one job right now, Declan,” Mac says before he releases me to the treatment room. “Focus on rebuilding your strength. And don’t do anything foolish. You’re about to be back full-time. You can’t afford any distractions.”
I know he’s right. If I don’t put my all into recovery at this stage of the process, I won’t be ready when I’m back on the field.
They’ve got me coming in four days a week to the facility now—an extra day of workouts and treatments. That one day somehow manages to make it feel like I’m practically living here.
“We’re playing the Falcons this weekend,” Winona says when she picks me up a few hours after my workout with Mac.
“We are,” I say, smiling over at her.
“What?”
“You said we.”
“Is that wrong?”
“No. It’s so right. I really don’t have words for how right it is.”
She smiles. “You know what?”
“What?”
“You’re a romantic, Declan.”
“For you, I am.”
I wag my brows at her playfully, grateful tomorrow’s Saturday. I’ll have a whole day with her.
She smiles a smile that makes her eyes practically sparkle. “I would have never pegged you as a romantic.”
“Why not?”
She pins me with a side-eye, her brows raised, and adds a playful grin.
“Okay. I get it. I’m reserved and intense.”
“To be fair,” she says. “We met when you had just found out you were out for most of the season.”
“I would have spiraled into a depression if it weren’t for you.”
“What?” She looks baffled.
“You have to know that.”
“No.” Her eyes narrow and her brows draw in. She’s focused on the road, but I can tell she’s scrolling through memories. “You were withdrawn. That’s natural.”
“You came in like a ray of sunshine.”
“More like a wrecking ball,” she says. “Isn’t that how the song goes?”
“You didn’t wreck anything. You showed up—and just by you being you—you made a real difference.”
I can’t read the expression on her face from this angle.
“Declan,” her voice is airy with a slight hitch when she says my name.
“What?”
It’s not until she lifts her finger and dabs at her eye that I know she’s tearing up.
“Hey. Winona. It’s a good thing. I’m complimenting you.”
She laughs lightly, sniffling once. “I know. And I am awesome. I know that.” She lets out another soft laugh. “It’s just … I want nothing more than to make a difference. And knowing I made a difference for you of all people. It’s just … everything.”
I reach over, resting my hand on her knee.
“No one—not one other person in the world—could have made the difference you made. And I’m not saying that because I’m your boyfriend. I’m saying it because it’s true.”
She flattens her lips together, drawing them tight. Then she says, “Thank you.”
“I think you’ve got that backward. I was thanking you.”
“Well, you’re welcome.”
We ride in silence, my chest a different kind of tight and full. Not from today’s workout, either. This feeling is something I don’t have a name for yet. But I know one thing. I’ll do anything to keep her safe and to show her what she means to me. Anything.
Saturday, Winona and I spend the whole day together. She comes over mid-morning and we watch some college ball, we throw the football in the back yard and we hang out, talking and relaxing together.
When she goes to leave, I kiss her with a kiss that I hope conveys all the consuming feelings I have for her.
Sunday, we win against the Falcons in a home game.
Winona and I watch together, screaming at the television through the most intense plays.
By the end of the game, she's wrapped in my arms on the couch.
I reluctantly walk her to the door during the recap so she can go home to spend some time with Cass.
The following week, I spend nearly every day at the facility. I'm exhausted and antsy by the time Friday comes.
We have an away game against the Forty-Niners that Sunday, which Winona and I watch together from my couch. I'm going to miss watching games with her once I'm back on the field.
We win against the Forty-Niners and Winona and I celebrate both the win and our one-month dating anniversary with pizza and root beer.
The following Wednesday, Winona shows up at my house at six in the morning.
“Did I mention I’m not a morning person?” she says in a groggy voice. “Especially when morning is as dark as night. Darkness equals sleep. Being up this early is unnatural.”
She’s wearing a sweatshirt, jeans and a ball cap with a winter coat over all that. Her pony tail’s a bit untamed. She looks like she possibly only just rolled out of bed to make it over here on time—still gorgeous, just softer around the edges.
“Can I get you coffee?” I ask.
“I came armed. My to-go mug is in the car. Are you ready?”
“I had a hard time sleeping, I’m so ready.”
“It’s your big day,” she says, holding her arms overhead and waving them back and forth.
In a few hours, I’ll have my cast off. Finally.
We step out into the chill November air. I swing over to the car with one singular thought. In a week, I won’t use these crutches again—hopefully never again in my life.
The sun is barely coming up as we drive the two-lane roads out toward the facility.
The sky is washed in pale peach and powder blue, the sun still low enough to cast long ribbons of light across the rolling hills off in the distance.
The trees still look like wire silhouettes, most of their leaves gone now—a reminder that I’ve spent most of fall cooped up in my house instead of playing football.
When I glance over at Winona, I can’t help but smile. If I hadn’t been stuck in my house, I would have never gotten to know her the way I have. We might have met, but I wouldn’t have known her—and she wouldn’t have had the chance to steal my heart.
She’s quiet, focusing on the road.
“You really aren’t a morning person,” I say, obvious affection in my voice.
I wonder if I’ll always feel this rush around her—if every quirk and idiosyncrasy will endear me to her even more than before. Is there a limit to how much a man can feel for a woman or does it just get infinitely deeper and wider over time?
“I can be a morning person—under the right conditions. I’m probably part bear. The colder it gets outside, the more I want to hibernate. I’d just burrow in my cave, and you could call me out in March. But my cave has to have lots of soft pillows and an amazing comforter. Like your guest room.”
“So, you’re saying you want to hibernate in my guest room?” I tease.
“In a perfect world, yes.”
“What about my condo in Vail? Would you come out of your cave for that?”
“I make exceptions,” she says. “For Vail.” Her voice softens and she looks over at me. “And for you.”
We pull into the parking lot a few minutes later.
I check in with the training staff and they direct me to an exam room.
I’m one of the few players here this early.
Winona walks through the space like she belongs here.
No one questions her presence either. She’s my home health aide, after all.
But I think most of them know she’s become so much more.
A training staff member helps me get situated on the exam table with my leg supported. Andrew, our orthopedic surgeon, comes in and walks through what he’s going to do. Then he turns on the cast saw. A loud buzz fills the room as he goes about cutting off my cast.
Winona’s in a chair along the wall, her eyes fixed on the procedure.
Cuts are made down both sides of my cast and then Andrew uses a cast spreader to gently pry the cast open. After he cuts through the cast padding, he pulls the cast off in two pieces.