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So I let him leave. I watch him walk out the door, wincing as he slams it shut, and continue to stand there, staring at the door, for far too long.
The night grows darker, and I put myself through the motions of all the things I'd normally do after work. I shower, reheat whatever meal I prepared over the weekend, and eat without really tasting anything. I notice Jack found the lunch I left behind for him, and stare at the note he left while I clean up after myself. My hands itch to put the container back where it belongs, but I leave it there to torment myself with. Because that's what I like to do.
To exemplify my torture, the next thing I do is grab my fifteen-year-old bottle of scotch and a glass. I set them on the table and stare at them while I turn my five years sober token in my hand. I haven't been to a meeting in over two years, but maybe now is the time. A glance at the clock tells me it's too late for tonight, anyway.
Truth be told, I'm not sure Alcoholics Anonymous is what I need, or what I ever needed. I started because it was court ordered, and kept up with it because it gave me something to focus on. I definitely needed to get clean from the booze and pills, and I needed to get my life straight. AA helped me find purpose, although I struggle with the religious aspect of it. Fifteen years ago, I was on a downward spiral. I fell into a deep depression when I was told that I couldn't do the only thing I ever loved, and my football career was wrenched from my hands. I overused my prescriptions, and asked for more, for stronger, and I was given them without question, however much I wanted, but it was never enough to numb the pain. So I started drinking, drowning out my own thoughts.
I'm not sure that I was ever truly addicted to the alcohol itself, but I know it turned me into a different person. It turned me into a sad, pathetic, lazy sap. When my wife left me during my first stint in rehab, it didn’t even surprise me. She’d always wanted to be a rich NFL wife, and while I still had plenty of money saved, I could no longer provide her with the lifestyle she wanted. So she left, and divorce papers were delivered the day I checked out. I checked back in about a month later when I found out she was already dating one of my ex-teammates, someone I once considered a friend.
Slowly, I lost contact with every person who ever meant anything to me, squandered what remained of the money that Penny didn't wring from me in the divorce, and I lost contact with myself for a long time. Giving myself over to the oblivion that drugs and alcohol promised, always emerging on the other side in more pain than I was before the bender. I had no prospects, no future. I didn't even have a home, since Penny had won that, too.
Rock bottom hit when the paparazzi took photos of me fucking some random woman behind a dumpster. I wasn't popular enough of a story to be breaking news, but it did lose me my last endorsement deal. I suppose I could think of it as saving me from embarrassing commercials about erectile dysfunction that I clearly didn't have, but whatever the case, I lost the last good thing I had going for me and knew then that I had to clean myself up.
Spending the last of my savings on a crappier, but more effective, rehab facility, I started going to AA consistently just to have something to focus on. I learned that my addiction didn't actually have anything to do with the substances, only with abusing my body, so I took up a new form of abuse—exercise. I started pouring all of my excess energy into forcing my body to go longer, harder, faster. I ran until my legs felt like limp noodles, lifted until I broke blood vessels, and plunged myself into frigid ice baths, not to sooth my aches, but to revel in the feeling of being fucking alive. My new addiction, my addiction to pain, is what really saved me.
Five years later, the dean of Groveton College approached me. His team was the laughingstock of college football, and he remembered the days when I’d brought the Jackals to a national championship. He could see that I was floundering, that I had nothing left to lose, so he offered me a job under one condition: I make the Groveton College Jackals champions. If I didn't, I was on my ass again. He didn't even care about the photos of me with my pants down, even helped cover them up. As long as I won them some football games and did what he said, he didn’t care.
What I didn't expect was to love the job this much. As much as I loved being on the field as a player, coaching brought something new out of me. I quickly got a reputation for being a hardass, and for sometimes going overboard, but I knew how far to push my players, taking them to their limits in order to help them strive for greatness.
Unfortunately, I lost sight of limits when I met Jack Perry. Maybe it's because he didn't seem to have them. Or maybe it's the way he challenged me. I knew the moment I watched the recruitment footage that he was something special, but I didn't know that I would feel something for him. It’s more than pride. More than something a coach should feel for one of his students. More even than the physical need he makes impossible to ignore.
At first I just wanted to beat him down, make him feel small so I could build him back up again. Then it became an encouragement for him to keep performing, and an indulgence for me. But the day he kissed me, it became something different. Something real and terrifying and far more addictive than the bottle of scotch I like to tempt myself with as a reminder of my own strength.
And that's why I don't think alcohol was ever my issue. Because I don't crave the burn of the scotch anywhere near the way I crave Jack Perry.
He dominates my every thought, and the only comparison is my need to dominate him. I want to hurt him and soothe the pain in the same breath, own him and set him free at the same time, push him away while pulling him so close we merge into a single being.
Unlike the stupid bottle of scotch that my reflection mocks me through, he's a true addiction that I can't seem to let go of.
In a fit of rage, I roar my pain into the empty room and throw the bottle as hard as I can. It hits the granite countertop and cracks, but doesn't shatter the way my heart is right now.
When I catch my breath from my little tantrum, half embarrassed even though I'm home alone, I go to pick up the bottle and examine the crack along the side. The thick glass is a fitting metaphor for how I'm feeling—holding something dangerous and volatile inside, but slowly cracking, my weakness starting to show. Because however thick and strong I am, I'm still just made of glass.
I look again at the note Jack left on the counter and the bag of his things still sitting on the floor near my office door. I should go apologize. It's late, but if I don't get all this off my chest, I know I won't be brave enough later. The last thing I need is Jack getting pissed off and doing something foolish. He needs to understand where I'm coming from, why this can't happen between us. He also needs to understand that fighting back or outing me could undermine all the work he's done. I'll follow through on my part of the deal and make sure the scouts come to see him, and I'll give him every leg up I can to get him on that draft board, but it's his talent and effort that will lead the way.
I'm shocked at how many people are still awake and milling around when I get to his dorm. There seems to be a party of some sort happening in the room across from Jack's, even though it's a fucking Monday, for fuck's sake. Maybe I should see about securing a room for him at a different dorm or even one of the frat houses. The music and groups of people hovering in front of his door, having loud conversations over the thumping bass, can't be helping him get any rest. Not to mention how distracting that would be for studying. Some asshole wearing fake fangs and a cape bumps into me and keeps moving without saying a word. What the fuck is wrong with these people? Kids these days… Wait. Is it Halloween?
Knocking tentatively on Jack's door, I feel eyes on me, but when I turn around, it's just my imagination. None of the students pay me any attention, unconcerned that a staff member has walked in on their party.
He doesn't answer, so I bang my fist on the door louder, trying not to draw attention to myself. I'm just about to walk away, wondering where the fuck Jack is, when he walks up behind me.
"Coach? What are you doing here?"
His eyes are guarded, and I can't read his expression. It might be angry, and rightfully so, but he's also clearly exhausted. He's wearing only a towel, drops of water falling from his wet hair and rolling down his chiseled torso. In one hand, he holds a small basket of toiletries and he's wearing flip-flops. This dorm must have a communal shower. I hold up the bag of his stuff, momentarily tongue-tied and feeling like an idiot.
Jack watches the way my eyes rake over his bare body before he looks at the people around us. While no one noticed me, there are more than a few girls blatantly appreciating his body. It rankles my nerves, as if I have the right to be jealous or angry about the way he's being openly ogled.
A blonde girl in a tight tube dress and bumble bee wings walks over to him and whispers in his ear, trailing her finger across his abs. I have to bite my tongue, trying to arrange my face into an expression of annoyance over the interruption, rather than upset about some random girl touching something that I perceive as being mine. Or is her presence here not random at all? Did he call her? Does he know her well? She looks vaguely familiar, but this isn't that large of a campus.
Jack steps away from her, pushing her back gently. "Sorry, babe, I'm contagious. Got the flu."
She recoils a little, but pouts. "I heard you got hurt. Aniyah and I have been coming by to check up on you, but you haven't been here."
"I'm alright. Takes more than a bitch hit like that one to take me down. I'll be back on the field for the next game. Won't I, Coach?" Jack says, turning their attention to me, standing there like an idiot. When she looks over at me in confusion, Jack actually has the nerve to wink at me. "Coach came to check up on me, yeah? Let me grab some pants and you can do whatever inspection you need to do."
Jack enters his room and closes the door, effectively dismissing both of us. The blonde sighs and flounces off down the hallway. I'm starting to wonder if I should leave too, but Jack opens the door, peeks around at the people still milling about in the hallway, and pulls me inside before anyone notices. After pulling me into the room, he closes the door and leans against it casually. He has not, in fact, put on any pants. He's still only in a towel, wrapped low around his waist.
Not helpful.
