Eleven
I’m at CVS when Theo texts back, asking me to meet him at the Northside Football Stadium. I frown down at the message, not exactly picturing the night outside my bedroom. The box of condoms in my other hand stares up at me accusingly, as if to ask What’s the holdup, lady? I shake my head and buy them at self-checkout anyway. The night could still take us back to my apartment.
At the stadium, I find him sitting at the top of the bleachers. Thank god the stadium lights are still on, or I’d be looking for him all night. The wide field is deserted, as are the stands when I arrive. He’s staring out at the turf, blue eyes glittering with longing. I wonder if he has any regrets about the way his life turned out. If he wishes he could go back and do any of it differently.
He spots me when I’m halfway up the bleachers, mouth turned up in a grin. He has an assortment of smiles depending on the occasion, I’ve come to realize. This one reaches his eyes; they crinkle at the corners and brighten with affection. His friendly smile, foil to the toe-curling one he showed me this morning.
I settle next to him, and he wraps an arm around my shoulders. His warmth seeps into me, combating the early autumn chill in the air. It’s that time of year when the days are still scorching, but the nights are beginning to cool. My head leans against his chest as I look out at the vast football field.
“How ’bout that view?”
“Yeah.” He chuckles softly, his breath warm on the top of my head. “You never forget your first stadium game. The lights, the crowd. It was a whole new world. Ben and I used to sneak in here all the time in middle school. We couldn’t even run one lap around the field without getting out of breath.”
I laugh. “I can’t imagine you getting out of breath.”
“Well, I came pretty close this morning.” I smack his chest, and he grabs my hand with his strong one. He intertwines our fingers, and I shiver. No guilt. This is how it should feel. “For someone so small, you can be so violent.”
“Don’t test me,” I warn, and he flashes an amused smile. “So, how’d the interview go?”
“I’ll find out Friday,” he says. “But my chances look pretty good. Now I just need to find an apartment and bring my car down here. My dad’s gonna need his back eventually.”
“What about your stuff? Don’t you still need to pack?”
“I’ve been packed for over a month actually,” he tells me. “Did you know your entire life can fit neatly into a ten-by-ten storage unit?” I shake my head, and he blows a breath of air between his teeth. “It’s actually kind of depressing.”
“So you never actually told me the full story of what happened,” I remind him. “Do you want to talk about it now?”
“My knee never healed right,” he explains. “From an old injury in high school. Ben told me to take it easy after it happened, but I didn’t listen. I kept pushing myself, because if I stopped I’d have nothing.” He takes a moment to clear his throat. “But during my last appointment with the team’s physical trainer, he told me that if I kept playing I could permanently damage my knee down the line. Then I was given a choice. I could keep playing and risk endangering myself at any given moment, or I could walk away.”
“Doesn’t sound like you had much of a choice to me.”
“Maybe,” he says. “But that wasn’t the only reason I chose to retire. I made a lot of bad choices to get to where I was. Made a lot of sacrifices I shouldn’t have. My life could’ve turned out differently, if I…”
“Confessed sooner?” I ask tentatively. “To Alice?”
He shrugs, but I know better than to believe his nonchalance.
“No sense trying to change the past,” he finally says. “I wasn’t sure it was a good idea to move back home, but now it feels right.” He glances over his shoulder to meet my eyes.
“Really? Dallas is so much cooler than San Antonio. I’m sure you could’ve easily gotten a coaching position up there.”
“Nah,” he says easily. “I’ve always missed it here, to be honest. My mom most of all.”
“You’re a momma’s boy?” I ask, and even though my voice takes on a teasing tone, inside my heart swells with the new information. His cheeks flush scarlet, but I let him off the hook. “I love that. I’m a momma’s girl myself.”
“Yeah?” he asks. “Not a daddy’s girl?”
I roll my eyes. “Oh, fuck him.”
He barks out a laugh, and I shove at his arm. “Fuck mine, too,” he says.
“They can go fuck each other.” I hold out my hand to high-five, and after his palm connects with mine, he intertwines our fingers again. Funny how a week ago we barely knew each other, but now touching him has become second nature. “Who would’ve known we’d have daddy issues in common?”
Among other things.
“I’m pretty sure there’s a club for that,” he says. “How bad was yours?”
“Well, he left when I was twelve and I haven’t heard from him since.” It’s funny how many ways you can explain the worst day of your life, how many ways it can evolve over the years. Back when it first happened, when all those raging emotions were still fresh, I let other people do the talking while silently fuming in my mind. After a couple of years it came out curt, with no shortage of resentment. When it comes up now, I like to keep it simple and to the point. Try not to let it show how much it still hurts, even after all these years.
For an entire moment, he’s stunned silent. Then he says, “Okay, you win.”
He seems surprised when I let out a laugh. I’m a little surprised at myself, if I’m being honest. Of all the ways I’ve explained my dad leaving, I’ve never laughed about it before. But I have to admit, it feels good to laugh at something that once caused me so much grief.
“What about your dad?” I ask, because even though I’m laughing now it doesn’t mean I’m ready to go into detail. “He doesn’t seem… that bad.” Aside from weirdly commenting on the kind of girls Theo dates.
“I hated the way he treated my mom before they divorced,” he says. “Don’t get me wrong, both of them made plenty of mistakes. But they disagreed on how to move forward. He… called her a lot of names.” He shakes his head. “We’d get into a lot of fights when I tried to stand up for her.”
“That’s awful.” I try not to let on how much I know about his parents’ divorce. When we first met, Ben and I initially connected over our abandonment issues. We used to spend hours talking about all the complicated feelings we harbored over our parents. I know their mom left because she felt stifled by her marriage to their father, even after the fight he put up to work on their relationship. But she’d already made up her mind, leaving Ben to be raised by his dad his last three years of high school.
And then there was the fight. Because it wasn’t just his mom at the root of all his abandonment issues. Theo was there, too.
“And he had the nerve to say football is what tore our family apart, when he’s the one who cheated with his assistant. What a fucking joke.” Theo scrubs a hand down his face.
“What does football have to do with it?” I ask. When he doesn’t answer, I try again. “Because of the way you left?”
I’m prying, but I can’t help myself. Between Alice and this new nugget of information, I’m more curious than I’ve ever been about what happened between them. But if Ben’s never told me the full story, what are the chances Theo will?
“Never mind,” I backtrack. “You don’t need to answer that.”
“It’s okay,” he says. “That’s part of it. My family is… a lot. I needed space from them, but I took it in unhealthy ways. Ignored them for longer than I should have, aside from my mom. She understood why I needed to get away from them more than anyone.”
You ran. It’s on the tip of my tongue to say, but I swallow the words and any judgment they might reveal. I can’t fault him for a past I wasn’t a part of, no matter what Ben has or hasn’t told me about it. His issues with his brother are his and his alone to deal with.
“Great. And I just remembered my dad needs his car back by Friday. Alice was supposed to drive me up to Dallas this weekend, but now…”
“I got you,” I say, resting a reassuring hand on his arm. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Thank you.” He breathes a sigh of relief. “That’s one thing off my plate. It’s all really happening now.” He looks out at the field again, and when I ask him if it’s all right for us to be here by ourselves, he says, “The stadium manager’s a good friend of mine. He lent me the keys so I could have a moment alone up here. Get some perspective on where I started.”
“And did you? Get some perspective?”
He’s silent for a moment, eyes contemplative. “I’m not sure yet.”
I wonder if he’s thinking of Alice, of the friendship they had in high school. Of the moment he knew, undoubtedly, that she was the only one for him. Of the moment he knew he’d lost her forever.
“You can talk about her to me, you know. Alice. There are no feelings between us, so you don’t have to be scared I’ll get jealous or anything. I’m a good listener if you need one.”
“How’d you know I was thinking about her?” He looks vaguely surprised.
“You said you guys grew up together. I assume that includes high school,” I remind him. “She was a cheerleader, wasn’t she? You must’ve seen her a lot on this field.”
I remember her saying as much, because Ben was also on the football team. It’s easy for me to imagine the three of them here in their assigned roles, completely oblivious to how their lives would turn out in the years to come. What a chaotic, jumbled mess it would be.
“Yeah.” He laughs humorlessly. “Yeah, we saw a lot of each other on this field. Spent every lunch of junior year together. She was my best friend, for a time.”
“Who’s your best friend now?” I ask, knowing I’d be nowhere without Angela. When he shrugs, my heart breaks a little for him. He doesn’t meet my eyes. His shoulders slump forward in exhaustion. “Is that why you seem so lonely?”
“Let’s talk about you,” he says suddenly, pulling away from me and shifting until his body is turned toward me. I turn too, until we’re sitting cross-legged in front of each other. “We spend way more time talking about me when we’re together, and I don’t like it.” His voice is teasing, but there’s a noticeable edge to it. He still can’t quite meet my eyes.
“Okay,” I say, playing along if only to appease him, though I am a little scared now that the attention is being turned on me. “What do you want to know?”
“Why the sudden need for a fling? Is there someone you’re trying to get over, too?” I immediately look away from him. When I chance a glance back, he’s smirking to himself. “Not so fun being the vulnerable one, is it?”
“Touché,” I say, relenting, but there’s a hint of bitterness in my voice. Because he’s just given me the perfect opening to confess my feelings for Ben, and I don’t want it. Maybe it’s unfair of me to keep it from him when he’s shared so much with me, but…
The last person I should be going after is someone in love with my brother.
Would he call the whole thing off if he knew the truth?
It doesn’t mean anything, I tell myself. We’re just casual. There’s no trust between us, no loyalty. He’s not going after me the same way he was going after Alice when he nearly confessed his love for her. It’s not the same thing, so what does it matter if he knows the truth or not?
Omitting a name isn’t lying, and that’s all I’m really doing. “Okay, fine. You’re right. There is someone.” I take in a breath. “He’s… a friend from college. We went on a couple dates before deciding we were better as friends. Maybe I thought that was true at the time, but after breaking up we spent virtually every day together. I fell for him without even realizing it. Not until he started going out with other girls and talking to me about them. That was a gut punch I never expected.”
What I don’t say is there was only one girl after me. Alice. But everything else is completely true.
“Yeah, I know how much that can hurt,” he says. “It’s even worse when the person they like better is related to you. Believe me.”
“I’m sure you’re right. But… I don’t know.” I take another breath to gather my thoughts, thinking of every time Ben inserted himself into my relationships. No guy was ever good enough for me, and every mistake they made was a deal-breaker. He said he wished I could see what he saw in me, so I’d know exactly what kind of person I deserved. But as time went on, the more impossible that standard became. I’ve dated my share of shitty guys, but I can also admit there are plenty I never gave a fair shot.
“I was so blindsided by the breakup. I thought we were on the same page, but maybe I just misinterpreted our whole relationship.”
“Or maybe he led you on the entire time,” he says. “Guys are idiots. We do that sometimes, when we don’t know what we really want. Or when we realize it too late.”
“Maybe,” I say, but I’m not sure I quite believe it.
“So, do you still talk to him?”
I hesitate a beat before lying through my teeth. “No. He’s in a serious relationship now, so I thought it was better to keep my distance.”
I only pray I find the strength to actually do this one day, if I never truly get over him. I’d be a much better person, to Ben and to myself. But that’s what this whole rebound is for: to get over Ben, so I don’t end up damaging our friendship later.
“Maybe you need to do the same with Alice. Keep some distance.” I’m a hypocrite for suggesting it, but he’s worse off than me, isn’t he? He’s the one who just tried to ruin their engagement after all.
“Yeah.” He nods, resigned. I’m a bit surprised he doesn’t try to put up more of a fight. “You’re probably right.”
“And you know what a good start would be?” His brows crease in question. I bend down and pull out the box of condoms from my tote bag. His jaw drops as he looks between me and the box. “Wanna get out of here?” I give him my best teasing smile.
“Are you kidding?” His arms close around my waist, spinning me off the bleachers. I let out a loud squeal, grasping his arms for dear life. “Let’s get a move on, woman!”