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“No, nobody mentions it, but it’s always the elephant in the room. I’m sure it would go away if I had a different job, but I just can’t bring myself to give up.”
I run my fingertips along her arm, wishing I could make it all better, wishing I could find someone who could explain what she saw.
“I’ve never told anyone that before,” she says. “Not even my best friend, Allie.”
“Thank you for telling me,” I answer, reaching down and tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. “I’m honored that you would trust me like this.”
“Now you have to tell me your deepest secret.”
“No, I don’t,” I answer, laughing a little.
“According to the Ty Sterling etiquette book, you do,” she says, lifting her head off me and propping it up on her hand. “Remember our first night together? When you insisted I share something personal because you had?”
“The couch and the cookies?” I ask.
“Yes.”
Shaking my head, I say, “That’s not the same thing as your biggest secret.”
“Of course it is,” she says, sounding incredulous.
“I would’ve had to agree to the terms before you shared yours, but since I didn’t, I’m under no obligation.”
Narrowing her eyes, she says, “I only shared because I assumed we were working under the terms you laid out when we first met, now out with it. Biggest secret, go!”
“Or what?” I ask, grinning at her.
“Or, I’ll … I won’t let you do that thing you did again.”
“Which thing?” I ask, my mind going over all the things we did.
“You know which thing, and you clearly loved it based on how loud you were.”
I glance up at the tent, then back at her. “I did really love that.”
“So?”
“All right, I’ll tell you one. You’re not the only petty person in this tiny tent.”
“I’m not?”
“No. The truth is, I’ve always dreamed of taking away the only thing my father has ever given a shit about.” I stare at her for a moment before continuing on, then I start to talk, telling her things I’ve never told another living soul. “When I was a little kid, my father and I used to watch football together every Sunday. Apparently right from when I was a baby. It was really the only time he spent with me, so I loved it. I’d sit right next to him on the couch, watching every second, cheering when he cheered, even though I didn’t have the first clue what was going on.” I let out a sigh, then keep going. “When Michael came along, it wasn’t long before we realized he was overly sensitive to certain sounds. Football was one of them. He’d just cry and cry when it was on, so my dad would turn it up louder. So he would cry louder. My mom would try to keep him in another room, but she certainly couldn’t do that all day. She had to cook and clean up and do laundry, and the whole time, Michael would be on her hip, crying away. My father decided screaming at him to stop was the right move.”
“Good lord,” she says, looking disgusted.
“Yeah, he was a real winner. My mom yelled at him to just grow up and turn the sound off. He did it, and the crying stopped, but then my father was miserable. The next week, he decided to spend Sundays at the bar, which meant the only thing we ever did together had come to an end.”
“I’m sorry, Ty. He sounds awful.”
“He really was. He was unbelievably selfish, which would have been bad enough, but the way he was with Michael…” My gut churns thinking about it, but I force myself to go on, knowing I need to tell her everything. “He couldn’t accept Michael the way he was. He always wanted him to ‘snap out of it’ and start acting like a ‘normal kid,’” I say, my mind going back to our little bungalow on Pine Street. “Thankfully, he finally left. Moved to Dallas when I was ten and Michael was three so he could spend any given Sunday at the stadium. We were better off without him, except, financially, things were much, much worse. My mom had to work two jobs to keep a roof over our heads, but it was extremely difficult because Michael wasn’t the kind of kid you could just drop off at a regular daycare. Every month, she scraped together just enough to pay the rent and put food on the table, but there was never anything left over.”
Gwen rubs my arm with her hand, and even though her hand is so small against me, it provides a comfort so strong, it spreads through my whole body. “I’m sorry you had to go through all of that, and I’m sorry about your mom.”
“She deserved so much better than to work herself into an early grave while my father was off pretending we didn’t exist.” I pause, my heart aching as it always does when I think of her. Brushing the pain aside, I say, “So, since I was young, I’ve always wished I could find a way to ruin the only thing he loved. Make him hurt the way we hurt.” Shaking my head, I say, “I know it sounds stupid, but there it is.”
“I don’t get it. How could you take football away from him?”
“Not the game. The football club. In my … revenge fantasy, I’d buy the team and ban him from the stadium forever.” I stop short of telling her I’m actually doing those things. I don’t tell her I’m planning to pose in lots of pictures with the players and have them splashed all over the sports news pages, so he can die knowing if he’d only been good to us, he would’ve had his biggest dream come true. There’s no way I can admit any of that out loud. Not just because she’s got every reason to use it against me, but because I know it would change the way she sees me, and I can’t have that.
