"Take all the time you need." My mother reached across my father again, this time grabbing my hand to give it a squeeze. Dad shifted forward to speak to the driver and send him away from the Richmond Grande, back to the high-rise where I had my condo.
For the next ten minutes, as the car carried us through the dark Virginia night, my parents carried on with small talk, sharing with me bits and pieces of family news that I might have missed during the season, when the only reality that existed for me was football. I tried to listen, and I even attempted to make appropriate responses, but it was increasingly difficult to keep my mind on what they were both saying. I was relieved almost to the point of tears when the car finally stopped in front of my building
"Gideon, you know, our flight tomorrow isn't until nearly noon, so we could always have breakfast if you'd like.” Mom's eyes were bright with hope. "We could bring something over to you, or you could join us in our suite before we check out."
I hesitated, not wanting to disappoint her once again, but before I could say yes or no, my father answered for me.
"Dear, the boy needs to sleep, and we can give him that much." He smiled to soften the weight of his words. "Let's let him get some rest now. Let him sleep in tomorrow morning, and then when he's home, we’ll have him all to ourselves. You can spoil him then to your heart’s delight."
"Oh, that's true." My mother stretched around my dad to kiss my cheek as I began to climb out of the car. My father offered me his hand, and I gripped it in a quick shake before I stood up.
"Get some rest, son." Dad’s expression was bracing and encouraging. "And we’ll talk to you sometime this week."
"Okay." I hitched my bag over my shoulder and shifted my weight. "I'll be in touch. And Mom, Dad –" I swallowed hard over the lump in my throat. "Thanks so much. Thanks for coming, and thanks for understanding about tonight."
I wasn't sure, because the light in the car was low, but I thought my mother was blinking back tears.
"We're proud of you, Gideon." She repeated the same words she'd used when I'd gotten into the car. "Never forget that. We're proud of you, and that fact will never change."
I jerked my head up and down several times and then turned around before I did something totally embarrassing and climbed back into the car to lay my head in my mother's lap and weep like a baby.
The doorman was waiting for me before I could reach the gleaming brass doors that led into my building. His expression was respectful, and yet I caught the edge of a sympathetic glance. All of the staff here were trained to respect the privacy of the residents. Still, I knew when it came to football, all of the city had been carrying high hopes for the last few months, and I wasn't surprised when he offered me a brief smile and spoke low as I went past him.
"Great game, Mr. Maynard. Sorry about how it ended."
I acknowledged his words with the same short nod I’d just given my parents and practically fled to the elevators that would take me up to the sanctity and blessed silence of my home.
I really hated this room.
That thought kept running through my head as I stared at the ceiling. My bedroom was bathed in shadows, thanks to the dim light coming in from the hallway. I knew I should get up, flip on the overhead light, and maybe read for a while to settle myself down, but my heart was still pounding too fast to move yet.
From where I lay, I could see my clothes strewn over the carpeted floor. Once I’d reached my condo, I’d locked the front door, walked straight to the bedroom and stripped. Then I’d collapsed onto the bed, not certain I’d ever find the strength to stand again. Or maybe even to open my eyes.
That had been four hours ago. Now, as the clock hands inched toward the three AM hour, I was wide awake and miserable.
I wondered idly—and not for the first time—if Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was contagious. After all, it wasn't my own trauma that woke me up so often in the middle of the night. It was the memory of Lilly’s nightmares, the echoes of her screams and the lingering pain of the frustrating sense of helplessness I’d felt every single fucking time she’d suffered another terrifying dream.
Of course, even if PTSD was contagious, it was insane that I was still dealing with the symptoms, over two years after she’d moved out of the apartment which we’d shared. Two years after she’d moved out of my life, running as fast as she could to get away from me.
Any sensible person would've moved on by now. Any sensible person would have shaken off the loss and figured out a way to heal and go forward.
But then again, here, in real life, I was far from being the coolly calculating quarterback that I was often given credit for being on the football field. When I wasn’t playing, that tightly controlled exterior masked a swirling ocean of doubt and insecurity.
With a groan of aggravation, I threw off the bedcovers and stomped across the carpet to the open bathroom door. I’d left a glass on the sink the day before, and now I filled it with water from the tap, swallowing it down in two long gulps. Staring at the man looking back at me in the mirror, I frowned. My face was lined with exhaustion. My hair, even as short as I kept it, was standing on end and damp with sweat. I was a fucking mess.
The nightmares were usually worse during the off-season. That made sense; when I was playing a game every Sunday or Monday or Thursday and had practice almost every other day, I just didn't have the energy to do anything but fall into the sleep of the dead at night. I was too tired to dream. Too physically worn out for any drama.
But I’d been beyond exhausted last night, so maybe my rationale didn’t hold up after all. Or maybe this post-season tradition was just getting an early jump on making my life a misery.
Whatever the reason, I was damn sick of waking up like this, with my body trembling and my heart thudding so hard I thought it might burst out of my chest. It was well past time to figure out how to get over everything that had happened with Lilly.
I wandered back into my bedroom and leaned against the dresser, surveying the room with a scowl, back to my original brooding.
I really hated this room.
This whole apartment, which occupied a prime piece of real estate here in the center of the city of Richmond, had never been a place I’d intended to stay for more than a couple of years. It hadn't even been my choice from the beginning. When I'd signed with the Richmond Rebels at the end of my senior year of college, I had needed a home in my new city. I hadn't thought twice back then about letting my mother and Lilly choose where that home would be. I'd given them free rein to decorate the place, too.
That was why now, it was nobody's fault but my own that the apartment felt like a place where a stranger should live. Maybe it was time to make a change. Maybe finally shedding this empty place would help me transition to a more peaceful life.
I knew that all I had to do was call my mother, and she would immediately get to work, finding me someplace else to call home. She’d jump at the chance to do something, to do anything, to help me. I picked up my phone from the nightstand, my thumbs hovering over the keys as I thought about texting her. She wouldn't see it tonight, but I was sure she would read it first thing in the morning and respond before I had time to make breakfast.
Of course, she might also take advantage of my request to justify a quick drop-in visit on the way to the airport. I wasn’t sure I could handle that right now.
Still holding my phone, I opened the text app, but it wasn’t my mom who I messaged.
Gideon: Hey, you awake?
It would be a stupid question to ask most people at three o'clock in the morning, but my sister was a notorious insomniac. Happily, she’d chosen a career that allowed her to do her best work at night, when the rest of the world was asleep. Artists didn't have to keep normal nine to five hours, and Gabby had embraced that lifestyle fully. So I wasn't surprised to see the three dots that indicated she was responding right away.
Gabby: Yeah.
Gideon: Can I call?
Gabby: Sure.
&
nbsp; I hit the call button next to her contact and waited through two rings before her voice came across the line, low and husky.
"Hey, loser."
I grinned. It'd been her nickname for me as long as I could remember. It was born of one of the many pep talks that my parents had given us both, when they proclaimed that there were no true losers. While they were talking, my sister would cross her eyes at me, stick out her tongue and mouth the word loser until I couldn't keep a straight face anymore.
"Hey, fog face." My pet name for my little sister came from her role in a first-grade play, when she’d played the part of the frog in Noah's Ark. At that point, I’d still been struggling with a speech impediment, and I couldn’t say the word frog—so Gabby had been fog face for the rest of our lives.
"So…" She drawled out the word. "What are you doing awake? When I talked to the parentals, they said you were so exhausted, you couldn't even handle dinner with them. They told me not to bother to call you for at least two days, because you were going to be sleeping that long."
I grunted and rubbed the back of my neck. "I pretty much collapsed into bed as soon as I got home," I admitted. "But then … I woke up."
"Another nightmare?" Gabby's question was sympathetic. She was one of the very few people in the world who knew why I had such bad dreams.
"Yeah." I sank down onto the ottoman at the end of my bed and dropped my forehead on to my hand. "And it was a bad one. I can't sleep now, and I'm walking around this fucking condo –"
"I think you mean, that beautiful home that you're lucky to live in?" My sister’s tone was arch. "I thought you loved your place."
I blew out a long breath. "Maybe I used to," I hedged. "But then again – maybe not. You know, it was never my choice really to stay here for the long-term. I wasn’t the one who picked this out. It was…" I trailed off.
It was my sister's turn to sigh. "Lilly.”
“Yeah.” I was quiet for a moment, letting the expected pain wash over me. “Sometimes I think about how I felt back then." My throat was tight, and I pressed my hand absently over my chest, which physically ached. “You know I would have done anything for her, Gabby. You know that I would've moved heaven and earth to make her happy. And in the end…"
Across the line, in her apartment in New York, regret and sadness tinged my sister's tone. “In the end, you did everything that you possibly could,” she said softly. “You know that none of this was your fault, Gideon. You know that it was just a horrible thing that happened.”
“A horrible thing that happened to her." I couldn't keep the harshness out of the words. “It was a horrible thing that happened to her, and I wasn't here to stop it. So in a sense, it was my fault. It was my job to make sure that nothing bad happened to Lilly, ever –"
"Whoa there." Gabby interrupted me. “Just where the hell is that written? I don't remember you signing anything that said you would be Lilly’s full-time protector and superhero, the person who’d make sure that everything went perfectly in her life for all time. You were her boyfriend. You were in love with her. And she loved you. But Gideon, what if it hadn't been –" She broke off and hesitated. "What if it had been something completely different? What if… I don't know, what if Lilly had been diagnosed with a life-threatening disease? Would you blame yourself for that?"
"If I wasn't there to help her with it, to be part of helping her get through it, then yeah, I sure as hell would blame myself!" I shot back.
"Listen, loser," Gabby said. "If you had been out that night having drinks with the boys, or you'd been playing cards with friends, or I don't know, cheating on Lilly with somebody else, then I could understand you blaming yourself for it. I could understand you feeling guilty. But you weren't. You were out of town because you had an away game. It's part of your job, and it's something that Lilly always knew about you. She understood the football life. What happened… it wasn't her fault. It wasn't your fault. But neither of you could ever figure out how to get over it."
I stood up and stalked across the bedroom, pacing the length of it. "You know what? None of that matters. Because whether or not I'm to blame, I'm still the one who has to deal with the fallout. And going over it again and again, telling me it’s not my fault, isn’t going to help me. Sure as hell isn’t going to help Lilly."
"Then why did you call me?” Gabby asked evenly. “I assumed you needed somebody to talk to. I assumed you needed to get something off your chest."
"Maybe I just needed to know that there was somebody there." I admitted. "I needed to hear a voice and know I wasn’t alone. And to be honest, maybe I wanted someone to talk me down. I might’ve been about to do something sort of crazy.”
“No way,” she gasped, in full little sister smartass mode. “You, my stoic big brother, about to do something crazy? Alert the media. Call the authorities. But first, tell me about this wild thing you’re on the verge of doing.”
“Ha, ha, ha. So funny.” I dropped down to the bed, holding the phone to my ear as I stared up at the ceiling. “Actually, I was about to text Mom because I think I'm ready to sell this place and move."
"Okayyyy….” Gabby sounded cautious but interested. "So you were going to text Mom because you're thinking of moving, but instead, you called me. Maybe I'm not following you, big brother. While I do have a killer eye for space and light and color, I don’t know shit about real estate or the Richmond area."
"I’m fully aware of all that,” I retorted. “The truth is, I think I just wanted you to tell me that it was okay. That selling the condo and moving, getting on with my life – that it's all right for me to do that now."
"Oh, Gideon." My sister's voice was so soft and sorrowful that I felt tears rising behind my eyes. I pressed the heels of my hands against them to make them go away.
"Big brother, you don't need my permission to move on. And no one in the family—or anybody else, for that matter—is going to blame you for closing this chapter of your life and starting a new one. It's perfectly fine for you to be happy again, you know. It's even okay if you find someone else –"
"Who said anything about finding someone else?" I demanded sharply. “I'm not looking for anyone else. I don't need anyone in my life that way. I have you. I have Mom and Dad. I have a whole family… and I have the team."
"The team?" Gabby laughed, but there wasn’t much humor there. "Because they're all your best friends, are they? Tell me, Gideon dear, when was the last time you went out with your teammates after a game? When was the last time you went to a party, or to dinner at one of their houses? Why are you calling me in the middle the night, and not one of your buddies?"
"Because you’re family." The answer was instinctive and true. "The guys… they're good guys. I like them. But we work together. We play the game together, and then they have their own lives. And so do I.”
"Some life you have," mocked Gabby. “As far as I can tell, your big, exciting life consists of either playing football, or getting ready to play football, or sleeping in between times. Oh, and then there are the few times a year that Mom and Dad insist you come home and act like you’re part of the family.” She added that last part as an afterthought.
"Well, maybe that's what I'm trying to change now." I groped through my own murky thoughts to try to come up with what I wanted to say. "When I'm in this condo, all I can think about is the past. I can't get beyond it when I'm living here, and I think I've been fooling myself to believe that anything would change as long as I’m still here. So that's why I'm going to make a move."
Even saying it aloud to my sister somehow made me feel better. I was going to do this. I was going to do something positive that would help me move on with whatever was left of my life.
"You don't know how happy I am to hear you say that!" Gabby sighed happily, and I could almost see her doing her wiggly little joy dance in the messy studio that was her New York home. "But do me a favor, Gideon. Don't text Mom to ask her to help you find a place. If you do, she'll end up talking you into s
ome mansion with lots of bedrooms and stuffy designer decorating. I love the woman, but she has a style that’s more suited to a sixty-year old executive than a twenty-something single guy. It'll be like the condo, only on a larger scale. And in a different place. Isn't there someone else you know who would help you find a new home?"
"I think maybe there is." An idea had just popped into my mind. "You know, Ellie Iversen is always asking me to come over to have dinner with her and Corey. She wants me to be more sociable. I know she's not a decorator or anything like that, but she seems to know a lot of people. Maybe she could point me in the right direction."
"Now that's a fantastic idea," Gabby agreed with me. "From the couple of times I've met Ellie Iversen, I really like her. And you're right, she knows a ton of people." Gabby paused a beat. "Maybe she even knows a realtor or designer who is a single woman…"
"Listen, fog face, enough of that." I was teasing her, but I hoped she understood how serious I was. "I really am not ready to move on in that way. So don't push me. Okay? Got it?"
"Message received, loud and clear." She sounded sarcastic, but I knew my sister well enough to realize that she would respect my wishes. "I promise I won't set you up on a blind date or give your number to any of my very attractive and very eligible friends, but is it so wrong if I hope that something else happens, and you meet the perfect woman?"
"Hope springs eternal, fog face." I yawned, and suddenly, I felt more relaxed than I had in days. Maybe weeks. "And on that note, I sort of think I could go back to sleep now, so I'm gonna hit the hay. I'm assuming that you're going to be up working for a while still."
"Gotta do what pays the bills,” she agreed cheerfully. “Actually, I'm in the middle of a beautiful new sculpture, and I'm so excited that it's hard for me to go to sleep even when the sun does come up. But I'm going to try to be rested by the time you come home for Christmas, so that we can have a really good visit." She sighed. "I miss you, big brother. I know you're a huge pain in my neck, and I know that you're the grumpiest of the losers I know, but I kinda love you."
Sway (Keeping Score Book 6) Page 2
