Thirteen #3
Eventually, he continues, eyes trained on the wet stones in front of us.
“I remember being really confident going into our first game. The other team was coached by some guy from church, some guy that Dad had beef with, and I could tell Dad wanted to win. My brothers—Charlie was in high school at the time, and Justin was in college—even showed up to watch. I scored the first touchdown, and they cheered from the sidelines, and I remember the way Dad looked at me.” He was quiet for a moment, looking out over the water.
“In the fourth quarter, it was a close game, and every point mattered. I remember catching the ball, and then this huge kid from the other team rushed at me, plowing into me so hard I flew off my feet and landed flat on my back. I thought that my helmet must have cracked or something because my head hurt more than I thought it could. I wanted to puke right there on the field, but there wasn’t any air left in me, and before I knew it, I was crying.
Everything was so painful and I was dizzy, and I just wanted to be done.
“My dad ran to me across the field. For a second, I thought he was going to help me up, that he was going to hug me and tell me that everything was okay, that I had done my best and could sit out for the rest of the game. But when he got to me, he glanced over his shoulder at the bleachers, and I saw it: He was embarrassed. He was embarrassed by me. He reached down and pulled me up but only because that’s what he was supposed to do.
“He leaned in close and told me, ‘I didn’t raise a pussy. Wipe those tears away. Get your ass back out there.’
“I did, and we won. I scored the winning touchdown, and he was proud of me again. Afterward, when the whole team was getting pizza, Dad didn’t bring up what he said on the field.
My brothers were proud. My mom was proud.
But I knew they had all seen me cry, had seen how hurt I was, and none of them wanted to talk about it.
“That’s when I started working to get really good at football.
I signed up for every camp. I started lifting.
I went for long runs. I never cried in front of my family again.
I decided to kick ass on the field, and that’s what I did.
Now I’m good enough that I might get money for college. So yeah, I like it.”
I can’t think of anything to say. Imagining a ten-year-old Garrett lying on his back crying and his father calling him a pussy makes me feel a protective surge for the seventeen-year-old version next to me.
He stops walking and turns to face me, his hair feathering in the wind. “Sorry for dumping all that on you. I’m not even sure why I thought of that stupid story.”
“You thought about it because it’s important,” I say.
I look out at Superior. We’ve reached the breakwater, a quarter-mile-long structure of stone and concrete jutting out into the lake.
Waves crash along one side, sending violent sprays of water fifteen feet into the air; the other side—the protected harbor that contains the ore dock and marina—remains relatively calm.
I return my focus to Garrett. “You don’t always have to kick ass, you know?
” I say. “You can just be you. That’s enough. ”
“Is it, though?” he asks, and for a fraction of a second he is uncertain and vulnerable in front of me. But before I can answer, he closes himself off with a cocky grin and a joke. “It’s all good, bro. Kicking ass just comes naturally to me.”
I don’t laugh. His smile fades, and we stand there looking at each other.
Garrett is impossibly beautiful in every way, and I am the idiot who’ll tell him about catastrophic global warming but doesn’t know what to say in response to his story of childhood pain.
I am the idiot who almost kissed him while he was too drunk to know any better.
“Now you’re the one who looks cold,” he tells me. “You could borrow my jacket.”
“I’m fine,” I say. “If the wind isn’t bad enough to give you a brain freeze, then it doesn’t count as chilly.”
He shifts to the left, trying to block the wind with his body. The dimple comes out. “Now I know you’re messing with me.”
I’m actually not. Cold-weather brain freezes really suck, but I’m self-aware enough to stop telling him about the climate. Then, before I can change my mind, I ask, “Are we going to talk about what happened the other night?”
His face scrunches in embarrassment. “What? About how I was a douche on the field or about how I was a douche with Tyler and got way too drunk?”
I watch him for a second, as he stands there with his hands stuffed into the pockets of his coat. Either he doesn’t remember, or he’s trying to tell me that what almost happened between us isn’t something he wants to talk about.
Whichever it is, I think I have my answer.
It hurts more than I thought it would. I hadn’t realized how powerful the small kernel of hope I held had become, how much I wanted him to want me like that.
The rejection feels colder than the wind whipping at my face, and I’m suddenly weighed down by the sense that I’m the one who’s not good enough.