31. Mason
Ipush myself harder on the treadmill after practice. Leaving Kamryn this morning was tough. And while I’m grateful for how early practice was, I was also grateful to put some space between us. Hearing that Liam bought a ring for her makes me realize that I could have lost her for good.
I’ll never be able to express how badly I felt when I broke her heart. When I broke our hearts. The amount of rookies that came into the league with the support of a significant other made their game that much better. While I didn’t struggle my first couple of years, I didn’t enjoy it the way I hoped I would.
I’m not a vengeful person. But seeing my teammates having that support spurred something in me. When I had a break from football I jumped on the phone with the athletic director at CSU. I let him know of the conversation Coach had with me and how unethical it was that I should not have any type of romantic relationships while attempting to go pro. I may have been two years too late, but someone else needed to know. The repercussion of that life shaking moment has affected my game more than it’s helped. As the athletic director is a former NFL pro-bowler, who proposed to his then college girlfriend and now wife of twenty years, he made it a point to listen to my frustration. I didn’t want what happened to me to happen to anyone else that declared for the draft.
“Brooks!” Someone shouts from behind me and breaks me from my thoughts from that time in my life. I stumble to a stop and grab the towel next to me to wipe off my sweat.
Rolling off the treadmill I see my offensive coordinator standing in the doorway.
Panting out a “Sir” while I drop to the floor for some body weight exercises. This goes beyond what I’m set to do for the season.
I feel him burning a hole through my head. Knowing I won’t get away with pushing my body further. “What’s on your mind Mason?” His voice is closer as he takes a seat on the bench beside me.
“Personal things, sir.”
“Alright. Stop working yourself to the bone. And tell me what’s going on. That’s an order.”
Stopping myself from more bodily torture, I place my arms overtop of my knees and say, “I found out my girlfriend could have been engaged had her previous boyfriend not died. And I kicked myself for breaking up with her to be able to get drafted.” The silence is louder than the loudest football stadium as I look at my coach and wait for him to say something.
“I question your college coach’s morals for having you do that. Is your girlfriend going to affect how you play this season?”
“No sir. I played better when I was with her in college. She pushed me to become a friend, a teammate, and a better captain. My stats improved. She was the best part of playing in college.”
“For that I hope your coach gets reprimanded. But why are you beating yourself up? Running yourself ragged is not a healthy way to let out your frustration that life could have gone in a different way. You can’t change the past anymore than you can predict the future.”
“I don’t know,” I huff out. “I guess it just got me thinking that I could’ve lost her forever, you know?”
When I didn’t think other people were in the cards for us, her getting engaged to someone was not something I mentally prepared myself for. Had Liam lived would they have gotten engaged? Would Kamryn even live in Cincinnati?
“Don’t dwell on the ‘what ifs’ because it’s not healthy. All you’ll do is drive yourself crazy. My advice is to talk to your girlfriend. You’re both adults and communication is the key to a successful relationship.”
Coach gets up to leave and I thank him before he’s out the door. I really have no reason to feel any type of way about Liam and Kamryn. But it doesn’t sting any less to know about the ring.
Kamryn: Hey, are you coming back to my place?
I left her asleep in her bed with a short text of ‘Practice. Be by later.’ I had no clue what else to say.
Me: Yeah, baby. Let me clean up here and then I’ll be over.
“Kamryn?” I question when I walk into her house. She never locks the front door when she’s home and I, along with her sister and friends, have told her how unsafe it is.
I distantly hear, “In the backyard.” So I empty my pockets, give Poppy some head scratches, and make my way to her backyard. Her patio doors are open and I lean against the doorframe as I watch her work. Seeing this new side of her: the focused and wholly talented side of her, brings me more joy than I could possibly explain.
Pushing off where I’m leaning, I make my way to her. Luna brings the stick over to where I sit and I toss it back out into the yard.
How do I bring up my feelings? Do I just say what I’m actually feeling or just get straight to the point?
Kamryn notices my struggle, “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know, Kam. To hear that Liam had bought you a ring. Knowing that if he were still alive you’d probably be married to him. You and I would have been a moment in history.”
She places her sketchpad on the seat next to her and comes over to where I’m sitting, straddling my lap. Her hands rest on the sides of my neck as her thumbs caress my jaw.
“When I found the ring, I was angry. And so hurt. I was led on by Liam into thinking that we had no future. Do you want to know what I did with the ring?”
Do I? If she tells me she kept it I might just turn her house upside down to find it. But instead I give a little nod. Letting her know I’d like to know.
“I wore it for about a year. I think it was a way of me holding onto him since I couldn’t physically do that anymore. But in one of my therapy sessions, I was advised that by wearing that ring I was holding on to a past that was no longer written in the stars for me. The ring was keeping me from reaching my fullest potential. It was a day in March that I went and visited Liam. As I was talking to him, I slowly dug a hole in the ground. When it got deep enough, I took the ring off, and I buried it. As much as I loved Liam, that ring was not mine in the real sense. Could it have been mine? Maybe. But since he’s dead I have no way of knowing. You two were the greatest loves of my life. I’m not sorry for saying it. But your ring is the only one I can see wearing for the rest of my life. When that time does come.”
I let out a woosh of breath that I had been holding in. How Kamryn has a way with words that alleviate my own fears, I will never know. Leaning forward to press a quick kiss to her lips.
“I’m sorry I left this morning. I needed my thoughts in order. And comparing myself to a dead guy and wanting to kick his ass isn’t fair to either of you.”
“You came back,” she points out.
With a subtle nod, I tell her the words I said once before. Words that held more weight when I broke her heart. “Kamryn, I love you. I always will.”
“I love you too. Always have.” She buries her face in my neck and wraps her arms around me just as tightly.
We sit like this for what feels like hours although it’s probably only minutes. Kamryn in my lap with her face buried in my neck. My arms anchoring her to me as our hearts sync together.
The past month with Kamryn has been as easy as breathing. We’ve managed to work at our relationship with our schedules as busy as they have been. While the road trips for games have made having a relationship tricky, FaceTime has made it so we can be with each other without being with each other.
But now our schedule is lightening up for the next two weeks. We have our Thursday night game at home and then a ‘Bye Week’. I have last minute plans that I’m hoping I won’t have to cancel.
I walk down the hallway to my offensive coordinators office the Wednesday before our game.
“Hey, coach. Do you have a minute?”
He looks up from his tablet. “Yeah. Come in Brooks.”
Taking a seat in front of his desk, I don’t beat around the bush. “I was thinking about taking a trip after the game.”
His eyebrows scrunch together. It’s very uncommon for any athlete, let alone one that’s a starter and in a good seed spot.
“Mason, you know that’s not how things are run around here.”
“I know. But hear me out,” I plead. If I need to get on my knees and beg I will. He sits back in his chair and gives me a short nod. “When we win on Thursday night, we’ll be put at a higher seed in the division. This ‘bye’ week couldn’t come at a better time.”
He regards me like I’ve gone insane. And maybe I have. Going out of the country while the season is still happening is ludacris.
“Come talk to me after the game.”
It’s not a no. But it’s not a yes. I feel like I just asked my parents to go to the mall.
“Yes sir. Alright, well I’ll let you get back to what you were doing.” Heaving myself out of the chair, I tap the top of his desk and walk out towards the team locker room.
“Alright boys, I know we’re all tired. Jamison, theyve been double teaming you all night. Let’s use that to our advantage.” The noise of the sold out crowd hopefully drowns out what I’m telling my guys. We’re up by a touchdown in the fourth quarter. The other team came to play, but so did we. We just need another touchdown to coast into a win.
“Break.”
I stay back from the huddle as my O-line heads to their positions. When they’re settled, I take my spot behind the center. Taking a breath I call out the play. The ball is snapped into my hands and I drop back a couple of steps, looking for my open guy.
I don’t see it. I don’t see the hit coming before it’s too late. It feels like a semi has crashed into my body. The sharp sting of pain that happens when the force of our bodies landing on the side of my body. And I know that I just cracked a rib.
I try to move my body once the weight of the defenseman is up, but I can’t feel the left side of my body.
The roar of the crowd fades to nothing as I try to get my brain to send waves to unresponsive body parts.
“Mason. Can you move?” One of the athletic trainers asks me.
I move my right arm and leg.
“Good. How about the other side?”
I manage to twitch my left foot. “I can’t move my arm Jeff.”
“What about your neck?”
I turn my head left and right. The team doctors continue their on field assessment. Jeff comes back mournfully with a, “We’re going to have to cart you off the field.”
My nod is all that I can give. I went my whole career without a major injury. Hamstring, quad, and shoulder injuries were easy to come back from. But can I come back from this? The sound of the gator getting closer gets my heart rate pumping. If I could walk off this field to alleviate myself, my teammates, the fans, my family…and Kamryn I would.
I drown out the noise around me. As if that hasn’t already happened with the crowd falling to a hush. The only time it’s been silent in this stadium is when I come here for solo drills. But now, the silence is because of me.
I’m jostled around as my body is flipped onto a backboard. I keep my stare on the night sky. Not wanting to look at my teammates or my opponents. I distantly hear the crowd of applause as I’m loaded onto the gator. When the cart moves I give a thumbs up to the crowd. Not truly knowing if everything is okay. But knowing that this injury may be the one to take me out of the game.
“Please let me back to see him,” a feminine voice says.
“It’s against protocol, ma’am. I can’t let you back there,” a burly voice says.
I look over at Jeff, “If that’s Kamryn will you let her back here?”
They have me laid up on a table. The team doctor did a quick evaluation and said there was no explanation for the numbness that I experienced, but an MRI would answer all of the questions.
A flurry of dark chocolate hair and worried eyes enter my line of sight. My girl is trying her best to hold off her tears. I told her I never wanted to make her cry again. This is why.
“Baby, come here,” I beckon with my right arm. My left arm is in a sling and I have an icepack on my ribs. It hurts to breathe but I can’t stand not holding her.
Kam slides onto the bed next to me. Too carefully for my liking but I know she’s doing it because of my injury. When she’s settled next to me I feel her body relax.
Her touch is delicate as it slings low over my waist.
I voice the fear and realization, “I think this might be it for me.”
“What do you mean?”
“When I got hit, I couldnt feel the left side of my body,” I run my free hand up and down her back soothing her. “The team doctor doesn’t know why it happened but that an MRI would hopefully explain it more.”
“But you can rehab right?” Her voice is so hopeful. This game is what brought me to the city. It’s what brought me back to her. I can survive without the game, but I can’t survive without her. I barely did before but not anymore.
“I think it all depends on what the doctor says. I’d want to avoid surgery at all costs, so PT would be the best route. But I don’t want to think about that.”
“Watching you from the box, not knowing what was happening, I was terrified Mason.”
One of the biggest risks of playing professionally is getting hurt. College was slightly easier. But I’m playing against guys with way more experience under their belt. So when my O-line fails the other team will take advantage of that.
“I’m sorry baby.”
Kamryn leans up to kiss me. I can’t move too much towards her so one kiss is all we can do. We lay here until the game ends and I’m set to go to the hospital. By the sounds of the team, we at least won the game. I send Kam home because she has a big meeting regarding her holiday line. But the fact that she was here tonight meant the world to me. Now I wait for news to whether or not I can keep playing a game that took me away from the one person I ever loved.