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I mean, it’s not something that's hard to understand – she got to the point where she couldn't just take the media trashing our names anymore. And she realized that the longer our names were out there, getting dragged through the mud, the closer and closer we came to both having to depart her lives forever.
She didn't want that. And neither do I.
My dad was a fucking idiot. I still love him, but he never understood me. And I’ve been letting his prejudice affect since childhood. It’s colored everything in my approach to life. It’s colored how I’ve treated women. And it’s colored how I’ve treated Colt.
My concern over what other people thought of me have gotten me to the point where I didn’t realize how great a thing I had, until it was almost ready to go away.
My bias is what led me to sit back and listen to Larry Summers hatch AJ’s plan, not realizing that I was hurting those that I loved by my absence.
But I know that. It’s time the world knows that. And its time I defeat the forces that stand against us.
It’s just like football, in a way.
AJ stands up, “Ethan, thank you for that. I’m sure it’s heartfelt and all, but I still maintain that you were coerced…”
I cut him off before he can say anything more. This man is a cancer poisoning American football. And I’m going to cut him out of it.
“AJ,” I say and pause and people move their heads back and forth to see what the latest matchup will bring. “AJ you’re basing your statements here today on the words of Larry Summers, who worked for me for a grand total of one day,” I say out loud and there are murmurs. “And he was working for me at your behest,” I finish.
Now there are more murmurs and I smile.
All of a sudden, AJ looks sick.
“I know this, because Larry Summers told me point blank that you would be running with what he told you, and that he’d be telling you the sexual assault and coercion story. In fact, that you’re the one that came up with it yourself, back when the first tape came out of Julianna and I.”
AJ is frozen. People are starting to take his picture now. “He told me how you’ve had a stick up your ass about the first woman owner in the NFL since the day Julianna bought the damn team,” I continue. “And I’ve checked. Since Julianna bought the team, you’ve never had a good word to say about the Nailers – even when they’ve won. Now that’s ironic for newspaper based in the same city as the team, don't you think?”
AJ is shaking in his shoes at this point. Even from where I’m standing I can see beads of sweat start to form on his brow. I press on, “Larry Summers also told me that all I needed to do was go along with the story he was concocting with you about this and I’d have a spot on the Nailers forever, that none of this scandal would tarnish me, that people would keep me on long past after I’m done being the best.”
“Th-That’s a lie,” AJ tries to fight back and all of a sudden the tables are turned. As Colt would like to say, ‘the tables have fucking turned’.
“Actually, AJ, I think it’s not,” I say and people start to turn from me to look at AJ. “You’ve hated Julianna because she’s a woman. You’ve made comments about women in the past, calling them pigs, dogs, farm animals…”
“Only about the ugly ones,” AJ tries to defend himself and that’s when I know I’ve won the news conference.
“AJ, last year at the ESPY’s you completely ignored me,” Julianna pipes up, understanding where I'm going now.
“And AJ, you used to call me the golden child that you’d defend to your last breath when I played for the Devils, but all of a sudden I’m a sexual predator now?” Colt chimes in too.
AJ looks at me. Then he looks at the three of us.
See, by ourselves or individually, the world might try and tear us down. And they might very well succeed.
But when the three of us stand next to each other, when we’re shoulder to shoulder, there’s nothing in the world that can keep us down.
Colt gets that. Julianna understands that.
And now, I get that too.
AJ tries one last defense. He runs his hands through his hair and looks at us, and then focuses on me. “Maybe I was wrong about you, Ethan,” he says. “Maybe you’re not the victim, but part of a wider problem at the Nailers…”
“No, AJ,” I say, ready for this to be over. “I’m not. I think you’re the problem here with your conspiracy to destroy the team.”
AJ is shaking visibly now. People sitting next to him move away while others start training their cameras on him.
As if understanding that he’s walking a very slippery slope now, he turns red but manages to get one last sentence out, “You’re lying!”
I got to hand it to him – he put more effort and emphasis on that than I gave him credit for.
