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“If you think I find any of this easy,” I grind out. “You’re wrong.”
Mom sets her cup on the coffee table. “Maybe so. But you’re still safer in your misery than going out onto that unknown limb.”
I’m on my feet before I can think about the action. “I’m going to bed.”
My feet eat up the plush carpet, propelling me away from my mother’s claws. But her reach is far, and I cannot block out her final remark. “That’s fine, Anna. Run away. But you’ll only feel worse for it.”
Sometimes I really hate my mother. But not as much as I hate myself.
thirty
Anna
I return to campus Saturday night and come to the realization that I need to quit my job. I decide this the moment I open an email from Dave and read the catering schedule. I’m signed up for the football game tomorrow night. What the hell?
“I’ve got a family thing,” I blurt out when I call Dave. Besides being the poorest excuse in the world, it’s a total lie. My plans for the weekend include making a large batch of brownies, watching a movie that has absolutely no romance in it, then climbing under the covers and hiding there until class starts again.
He’s supremely unhelpful. “Then you should have said so two weeks ago when I was doing up the schedule.”
“Can’t I change shifts with someone else?”
“Who? I’ve got all-hands-on-deck working. This is the last game before the playoffs.”
Other team losses have put Drew’s team in contention. Something everyone but me takes very seriously. For Drew, this is one of the final steps to the National Championship. For a fleeting moment, I wonder how he feels, if he’s nervous. Then I remember that I’ve put a ban on thinking about Drew.
As for the rest of the world, he’s all they can talk about. Excitement over the game and discussions about the team’s chances have been buzzing around campus for weeks.
Dave’s tone is far from compassionate. “Sorry but you’re shit out of luck.”
And so I’m stuck working the luxury box during Drew’s game.
Fuck. A. Duck.
Usually this is a good gig. The luxury box is heated, while everyone working outside freezes their asses off. I simply have to set up the buffet and wine bar and then keep it clean. Only I can’t avoid seeing the game. Or hearing it. Our college sports radio pipes in through speakers, giving me a play-by-play update on Drew’s progress as I try to concentrate on my work.
University bigwigs and their friends are relaxing, stuffing their faces, and giving their opinion of Drew and his teammates.
“Grayson is looking good,” one of them says. “But Baylor’s off. Don’t know what the hell he’s thinking—throw the damn ball, boy!”
I want to tell the man to shut the hell up or get down on the field and play the game himself. But I hold my tongue.
“He’s open. Johnson is open. Throw—Damn it!”
The room groans as the radio announcer calls an incompletion. I can’t help but look. Drew, both the real man and his doppelganger on the TVs, has his hands on his hips and is looking down at the grass. He clearly utters a ripe curse and then turns back to his team.
“He’s been off for the past few games,” insists Mr. Know-It-All.
And though the guy next to him is quiet about it, I still hear him mumble, “Pussy problems.”
Fucking pig.
But, God, is that what people think? My stomach roils.
It must be, because the pig isn’t the only one who complains that Drew is off his game. The radio announcer goes on about how Drew hasn’t been himself for the past month or so. And how he needs to get his head back into it, because this game is brutal.
And it is. Every hit Drew takes has my entire body clenching in sympathy. The box is close enough that I can hear the impact of flesh upon flesh, the grunts. The opposing team, big fucking brutes from Alabama, are pummeling Drew and his boys.
Grayson is limping after a particularly vicious takedown, clearly trying to shake it off, and Drew is slower to get up every time the defense hurtles into him. But he’s holding it together. He’s winning, even if it’s obviously taking everything he’s got.
