12. Bree
Bree
Gavin was not playing well.
He missed an easy throw. The ball sailed too far to the left. His receiver was wide open. Gavin just missed him.
He looked confused out there. He kept looking around like he forgot the play. His feet were not moving right.
The other team sacked him twice in a row. He hit the ground hard both times. He got up slow. He looked tired already, and it was still only the first half.
Then it was the last minute of the game. Everything came down to this one play. Gavin dropped back to throw.
He lost the ball. It just slipped right out of his hands. The ball hit the ground and rolled away from him.
He pulled off his helmet. His hair was soaked with sweat. His face looked wrecked. There were dark circles under his eyes, deep and heavy, like he hadn’t slept in days.
He looked so sad. He looked so lost.
He scanned the stadium. His eyes moved fast, row by row, like he was searching for something.
His teammates were yelling at him.
“Pick up the ball, Gavin! Pick it up!”
The crowd was yelling too. Thousands of voices, all yelling the same thing.
He ignored every single one of them.
“Bree,” he said instead. Just my name.
“Bree, where are you?”
He said it again, louder this time. “Where are you, Bree?”
And then he saw me. I was standing by the exit door, far off in the distance.
I turned and started running.
Behind me, I could hear him.
“Bree! Bree! Stop!”
I woke up with a jolt. My whole face was covered in sweat. My pillow was soaked through. I felt like I was burning up.
Brrr brrr. My phone was going off.
I looked outside. The very first rays of sunlight were just barely coming up over the horizon. For one second, I had no idea where I was, or what day it was. Then it hit me.
It was Sunday. Gavin’s game.
I glanced at the screen.
It was Gavin. I answered right away.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Bree.” He sounded so tired. “Thank you for picking up.”
“How are you doing?” I asked.
“Hanging in there. Today’s the game.”
“I know,” I said. “All the best, Gavin.”
“I already know you’re not going to be in the front row today, like you always are.
I already know that. I’m not calling to guilt you about it, I promise.
I’m calling because I finally realized something.
I don’t deserve to see you in that front seat today.
I don’t deserve to have Melvin being the loudest guy in the whole stadium, cheering me on.
I don’t deserve Lauren’s pinwheel sandwiches.
I’m going to miss all of it. All my lucky charms. The cheering.
The sandwiches. But mostly, Bree, I’m going to miss you. ”
I didn’t say anything. I just listened.
“I wanted you to know something,” he said.
“You are my biggest lucky charm. You’re the reason I walk out onto that field with any confidence at all.
You’ve always been the reason I play my best. And the funny thing is, I never really sat down and let myself see that.
Not really. I never let myself understand that the one thing I have that literally nobody else in that whole stadium has is You.
Your support. I’d say it in interviews, sure.
Oh, Bree’s my lucky charm. But I only said it on the surface.
I never appreciated how deep it actually went.
It’s almost spiritual, honestly, watching you sit there in that front row every single time, refusing to sit in the box with everyone else’s wives.
It was like there was some invisible thread connecting the two of us.
And as long as you were there, I always knew exactly what to do out there. Not anymore, though.”
He paused.
“But I’m not telling you any of this to convince you to come today.
I’m going to play with whatever love and connection I still have left in me.
I’m going to use every reserve I’ve got.
” He laughed, a sad, tired sound. “And I’m going to imagine you there, Bree.
Sitting in that front row. Blowing me a kiss every time we score. ”
A tear slid down my cheek. I wiped it away with my free hand.
“Bree? Are you still there?” Gavin asked.
“Yes, Gavin,” I said, and my voice cracked right in the middle of it.
“I don’t know if we’re going to win this game,” he said.
“But as soon as it’s over, I’m coming back to ask for your forgiveness.
I’m not giving up on you. I’m going to fight for us.
I’m going to do everything I possibly can to show you I understand exactly how much I hurt you.
I’m not going to stop hoping I can turn this around.
We are not done here, Bree.” Silence. “Bree?”
"I'm here," I said quietly.
"There's something else I need to tell you," he said. "I found out last night that Wren was planning on using your illustrations in the documentary. The ones from your very first project. The ones from Harley and the Magic Marker."
I went completely still.
"I never gave her those, Bree. I need you to know that.
I never gave her a single thing that was yours to share.
I told her from the very beginning, anything involving you, anything at all, goes through you first. You make that call.
Not her. Not me. I just found out last night that she went behind both our backs and planned to use them anyway.
I'm so sorry, Bree. I'm so, so sorry this happened.
And I want you to know, I already terminated the documentary with her. It's done."
I didn't say anything.
It's so easy for him, I thought, to just say sorry, after everything.
But underneath that thought, something else was settling in too. Wren hadn't just manipulated me. She'd manipulated Gavin. She'd manipulated Lavi. She'd probably manipulated half the people at that company without any of them even realizing it until it was already too late.
I should have known, somewhere along the way, that I was never her only target.
“Bree?”
“I got your fifty-nine bouquets, Gavin.” I said.
“Did you read the notes?”
“Yes,” I said. “All fifty-nine of them. Even Wren was impressed by how many there were. That was right before she had an allergic reaction to them.”
“Wait. Wren came there?” His voice went sharp, angry.
“Yeah. She wanted me to convince you to restart the documentary with her.”
“Did she misbehave with you?”
“Misbehave is a very generous word for what she said,” I told him. “But let’s just say she did, and she got it right back from me.”
Gavin went quiet for a second.
“The bitch,” he finally said.
I felt this weird little spark of satisfaction hearing him say it.
But it didn’t actually fix anything. It wasn’t going to undo the fact that when I needed him the most, standing in his corner, he’d sided with her instead.
That word wasn’t going to erase what his words, and his choices, had already done.
“All the best for your game, Gavin,” I said.
“I’ll miss you, Bree.”
I hung up the phone.
When I came downstairs into the kitchen, Dad was already there, wolfing down eggs and toast like he had somewhere to be.
“Did I miss something?” I asked. “Are you going somewhere?”
“I’m heading to the deli,” he said.
“It’s Sunday,” I said.
“Yes. Today is Sunday.”
“So?”
“So?” he echoed.
“So, isn’t Sunday supposed to be your day off? Is Erica out sick or something?”
Sundays were sacred in this house. Mom and Dad would have a lazy breakfast together, go on a short hike, grab lunch out somewhere, and then Mom would curl up in her favorite chair, inside or out back if the weather was nice, with a book, while Dad watched football.
On Gavin’s game days, the two of them made the whole drive down to the stadium, and they were always the very first ones there, ahead of even me.
Every single game, Dad showed up with some new cheering prop he’d ordered off Etsy.
Sometimes it was a gigantic cutout of Gavin’s head.
Sometimes it was a giant foam hat that said “Gavin’s My Son,” with the tiny word “in-law” squeezed in so small nobody could actually read it, so anyone glancing over would assume Gavin really was his son.
Gavin never minded that one bit. He’d lost both his parents a long time ago, and Dad was about the closest thing to a father he had left.
He’d even go along with it when strangers referred to Dad as his dad, no correction, no hesitation.
“But aren’t you at least going to watch the game on TV?” I asked. I already knew how badly he wanted to.
He waved me off. “Nah. I don’t want to look at that jerk’s face today. He’s a stupid, good-for-nothing heartbreaker. I’d rather be at the deli.”
I looked over at Mom. She just held both hands up, shrugged, like, what can you do.
“Gavin called this morning,” I told them. “He said he’s going to miss seeing you in the front row, Dad. And he said he’ll miss your pinwheels, Mom.”
Dad’s eyebrow went up. “And?”
“And what?” I asked.
“Did he say anything about you?”
“Yes,” I said. “He said he’s going to miss me too.”
“His lucky charm,” Dad said.
I looked at him. “Should I go?”
Mom came around the table and sat down, putting her hand over mine. “What do you actually want to do, Bree? Ask yourself that. Do you want to go? And if you do, why?”
“Only you know the answer to that,” Dad added.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I can’t forgive him for what he did. But some part of me, deep down, wants to be there. It’s such a huge day for him, and I’ve always been the one there. Maybe I should be.”
Dad smiled. “Think about it, Bree. It’s going to take a lot more than a game and some flowers for him to actually earn any real forgiveness from you.
That’s your call to make, whether he deserves a second chance.
But — and this is a big but — I also believe you should listen to whatever your heart’s telling you.
If it’s telling you to be there today, then you should listen to it. ”
“I had a bad dream this morning,” I said. “Gavin was falling apart out there because I wasn’t there. It was really disturbing.”