by Ginger Scott
“Start over. I missed that. You said…you said neck?” A wave of sickness knocks into me, and my face begins to perspire, beads of sweat dotting along my hairline.
“Noles, he took a big hit. He’s being taken to University Hospital, and I’m right behind the ambulance. I knew you’d want to know. I didn’t know how else to call you, so I just kept dialing…”
I hear bits and pieces. Reed was trying to take the ball in himself. Some Matthews guy broke through the line. The hit was helmet to helmet. His neck twisted as his body fell, and when Reed was pinned between the ground and this defender, another player hit him from the other side. He laid there for several minutes because they didn’t want to move him too quickly. His neck. His back. Spine, spine, spine.
“Meagan’s already working on getting you a flight. I wasn’t sure if you’d want Peyton to come too—so if I should cancel hers, let me know. Noles…”
He says my name a few times, each time it sounds like he’s calling out to me from a long tunnel. Music kicks in from the gym across from me, and the heavy thud of bass drums at my ribcage.
“Noles,” Jason says again.
“Yeah, no…flights. Thank you. Yes, I want Peyton to come. She’s competing. I don’t know what to do. Do I pull her right now? Do I let her finish? Is he alert? Jesus, Jason…was he talking and moving? Oh my God…”
My mouth waters as my body shudders. This is my worst nightmare. It’s why I can’t watch Reed’s games anymore. So many concussions…all when other players’ wives are telling me stories about how their husbands are changing from their head injuries. This is his last extension. He’s done—this was it. God don’t take him away from me now. We have plans. We have dreams.
“Listen, Noles. He’s okay. He’s alert. He’s in a brace, and this is probably just precautionary. But he might have a fracture. He was moving, though.” Jason’s voice holds calm and steady, and that’s the only reason I don’t cry.
I nod and whisper, “Okay.”
“Let me find out from Meagan when the flight is. There’s no reason Peyton can’t finish her competition. Just keep the phone handy, and I will call you right back. And Nolan…it’s going to be okay.”
I nod again, knowing he can’t see me. I can’t verbalize; all I can do is picture the absolute worst. If Reed can’t walk, or if he loses some part of him…I stop myself there because I know none of it will matter. I will be right there, holding his hand through every single moment until he feels whole again.
Jason ends our call, but I sit with the phone pressed to my cheek for several more minutes, angry at myself that I wasn’t watching. If I was watching, maybe this would have happened differently. I know he would have been hit no matter what, but if I’d just seen it, then I would know how bad it really is. My mind conjures up visions that are far worse than what probably happened.
My phone buzzes against my skin and I let it slip down to my lap so I can read the message. Nothing from Jason yet. It’s a text from Morgan.
The girls are starting. I’m doing my best to hold your spot.
My legs feel numb, but I drag them into my body so I can stand anyhow. I clutch my phone in both palms against my chest and wait for it to buzz with news, for Jason to call me back. I can’t fake it. I’ve never been good at pretending I’m fine when I’m not—so when I step back into the space next to my friend, her eyes widen in concern.
All I can see to do is shake my head at first.
“Are you okay, Nolan? You look awful. If you’re sick, I can take video and just share it with you.” I reach out and grip Morgan’s wrist, unable to lift my gaze to hers.
“Reed’s being rushed to the hospital. He’s hurt. He’s really hurt.” I glaze over as I say the words out loud, shouting them so my friend can hear over the heavy bass and music.
She says something back to me, and I’m not sure what it is, but within minutes, my daughter is running out to the center of a stage in Minneapolis so she can finally land an element she’s been working on for months. I bring my phone to my face and position the camera right on her as I begin to record. I keep my face blocked from her view. She’s in bliss right now, and she will be for the next seven or eight minutes.
Then I am going to ruin it all with chilling news about her daddy.
Chapter Five
Nolan
Present Day
My fingers still smell like apples, and there is no amount of perfume that’s going to combat that. I massage my hands into the back of my neck and just go with the fragrance. I spent three hours slicing apples and baking the cobblers for tonight’s booster cookout. It’s still the only thing I make just as well as my mom, so whenever Peyton has to contribute for a bake sale, this is what she gets.
It’s hard to believe Reed has to leave again so soon. He spent Monday at Peyton’s practice. Tuesday, Coach Baker got wind that he was in town and held him captive all day and well into dinner with the team that evening. This trip home for him is so temporary. I hate it. But at least he isn’t leaving me to go get sacked all week. The Jeep will be done by morning, but Reed was planning to stay through the homecoming game anyhow, driving through the night and rolling into the stadium in time to report Saturday—still on that disabled list.
Thank God!
“You about ready, Suzie Homemaker?” Reed smirks at me in the reflection of our bathroom mirror. All I can do is glare at him because he knows I hate to be teased over anything domestic.
“I baked two fucking cobblers; I’m hardly a Suzie anything.”
I step into him and kiss his lips lightly. He slaps my butt as I walk by him and out the bathroom door.
“You know I love it when you talk dirty like that…Suzie.” He laughs at his own teasing and I shake my head and roll my eyes.
“Please don’t embarrass me by being all gross in front of my friends,” Peyton says, overhearing us from her room.
“We wouldn’t dream of being gross in front of your friends,” Reed says, tugging my hand to pull me into his chest so he can kiss me and dip me backward to overexaggerate and needle at our daughter.
“I’m walking,” Peyton huffs, slinging her backpack over her shoulder and moving toward the stairs.
“She’s going to take that out on me, you know.” I bump my elbow into Reed while he chuckles as we follow our daughter down the stairs.
He shakes it off, but there was more to my comment than just chastising him, and he knows it. I don’t mean to rattle off little passive-aggressive things, but they just slip out sometimes. Like just then, when I subtly pointed out that he won’t be here.
Despite Peyton’s threat, she climbs into the backseat of my Tahoe and slams the door shut while she waits on Reed and me to drive her to school. I carry the stacked cobblers and hold them on my lap when I get in the car, letting Reed drive. It’s strange riding to our old high school like this. The familiar memory—of so many trips we took just like this—needles at me along the way.
“So, this Bryce kid…he ask you to homecoming yet?” Reed leans up to stare at Peyton in the mirror, and I sink my neck in between my shoulders a little embarrassed on her behalf. Sometimes, Reed really reminds me of my dad.
“It’s not like that,” Peyton says, her words clipped. I know my husband isn’t dropping this topic, though. One day she’ll see his questions like this coming. Not today, though.
“Not like what? A guy doesn’t have to ask a girl out?” Reed glances at me and all I can do is shrug with tight lips.
“Oh my God!” Peyton’s frustration comes out with a heavy breath.
“I always had to ask girls out,” Reed starts, and I can’t help myself—I laugh hard, my head jerking back with the force.
“What? I did…” he starts, but I cut him off there.
“Bullshit!” I twist in my seat and look to Peyton for a second. She folds her arms and looks out the windows at her side, but her mouth smirks. She’s glad the heat’s off her for now.
“Reed Johnson you never direc
tly asked a girl out once in your life. They simply fell in your lap.” My mouth hangs open with my personal shock, and when Reed’s mouth twists and his brow wrinkles in disbelief, the fire in my chest grows a little wilder.
“Ummm, you didn’t,” he says, and by some miracle, I don’t tip the glassware filled with sticky apples and crust onto him while he drives.
“Only because your lap was already taken up.” I move my neck to emphasize my words and gnash my lips together as I mentally run through every swear word I want to throw at him right now too.
“Okay, that’s not fair. Besides, you were dating Sean.” Reed glares at me as if he’s made a good point, and I start to unravel his logic, but before I can, Peyton reminds us she’s still here.
“Oh my God, Mom went out with Uncle Sean?”
I glance sideways and take in enough to see my daughter’s eyes opened wide with shock. When I look to Reed, he nods slowly, and my eyelids flutter in frustration as I twist and sit back in my seat. We never told Peyton about things like that because none of it was real—it was adolescent high-school stuff, just like she’s going through now. I guess at the time, though, it seemed like everything to us.
Maybe some of it was. Reed—he was everything to me then. He still is, and that’s why I hate being apart so much.
The three of us ride the rest of the way to the school in silence, and Peyton escapes the car the moment Reed shifts into park. We both sit and watch her walk away in her too-short shorts and oversized sweatshirt that, deep down, I know she stole from Bryce.
“You really think girls just fell in my lap?” Reed’s gaze stays on the scene out our windshield as he speaks. It’s been two decades, but the setting and the players are exactly the same. Boys pull up in pickup trucks, their friends piled in the back still hungover from the party the night before. Girls stare at other girls with judgment on their faces, and the shy ones find corners to hide in. Peyton disappears into the crowd, and I think about the heartbreak that is coming for her. It’s a rite of passage, and if not this boy, then the next one. I’m jaded.
“I guess it just felt like that to me, because I was always off to the side waiting for you.” I feel him look at me, so I don’t turn to meet his eyes. It’s old wounds that Reed has spent twenty years healing. He’s a good man, and he did a lot of dumb things as a teenager. That’s what growing up is—it’s learning from our mistakes.
“Come on; let’s take your cobblers inside.” He reaches over and takes the dishes from my lap. I lock gazes with him for a few seconds.
“I’m sorry. It’s just that I know you’re leaving, and I think I maybe took it out on you a little,” I say, breathing in deep and letting the air spill out slowly through my nose. I hold Reed’s stare for as long as I can in silence, which is only a few more breaths. “I hate this,” I confess.
His eyes flit down to his lap, and he nods slowly.
“I know you do.”
We both let that conversation sit in the air for a moment before finally leaving it behind in my car to suffocate behind our closed doors. We’ll have that same talk again, I suspect. I’ll hate it then, too. I hate it when he leaves, and I hate it when that game clock starts and I have to pray for three hours that he doesn’t step foot on that field.
I hate this game that we both used to love. I hate it for putting him in jeopardy.
And I hate Reed a little for being so addicted to the high it gives him that he can’t let himself leave it behind.
Most of all, though…I hate that I hate him—even that tiny little bit.
Chapter Six
Reed
There’s a bond that happens between a coach and his player. It’s always there. Sometimes, it’s coach yells, player listens. Other times, it’s coach ignores, player quits. The bond isn’t always a positive one, but for me and Coach Rudy Baker, it’s rare. I won’t say he’s like a father to me, because he’s not. But there’s this thing that happens for us, no matter how many years pass between visits—all it takes is a handshake and a hug, and it’s like we’ve been shooting the shit for years.
That happened at practice last night. I watched him work with the little turd who wants to date my daughter. Damn if I didn’t miss the simple life—district lights, hand-mown grass, and stripes painted by the janitor on the morning of the game. I promised I’d come by today to check out some films.
I left Nolan with the other booster moms in the cafeteria, and from the glare she gave me, I know that I can’t leave her alone in there for long. There was a hot debate happening over what shape the tables should be pushed into for tonight’s dinner. There’s always some control freak in every squad—my wife isn’t it. She’s merely the victim, held hostage. If films didn’t bore her half to death, I would have told her to come along with me.
The same buzzing sound that shot panic through my sixteen-year-old heart echoes through the halls now, sending the last rush of students squeaking their sneakers along the dirty floor as they race to first hour. Coach Baker’s door is propped open, the lights off—just like it always was.
“Still teaching health, huh?” I tap on the glass inset of the door as I slip inside to announce I’m here.
“Ha. Yeah, more like teaching ‘please don’t make the same sex joke they make every year for this unit.’” Coach clicks the remote to pause the television and leans back in the chair until the front legs tilt up.
I nod toward his angled seat.
“You know, it’s true what all those teachers told me. If you’re not careful sitting like that, you’ll crack your head.” I chuckle and rub the back of my skull, remembering the time I fell back in art my junior year. I got an enormous lump from the table behind me, and I hid it from my coaches because I didn’t want to miss from the concussion I’m sure I had.
Not much has changed. Still hiding my wounds and leaving shit up to chance on the field.
Coach tips his chair back and drags the nearby chair over for me to sit next to him.
“Nolan didn’t want to come?” He laughs at his own question because he knows better.
“It was a tough call for her between this and dealing with Cathy Tolbert,” I say.
“Christ, that woman’s up my ass every morning and night. Someone gave her my cell number, and I’ll be damned if she doesn’t text me her every thought and whim about the team and her boy Zach.” He rubs his face at the thought of the stress she causes him.
“Why’d you make her president then?” I ask, and he starts to laugh instantly.
“I didn’t! Crazy woman was the only one to run!”
We both chuckle at the politics of high school football for a few seconds, but soon his face turns more serious. A tightness takes over my chest, probably because I sense it coming. I try to head it off anyway.
“So, what’d you want to show me?” I prompt his attention toward the TV. He chews at his lips for a few seconds and eventually gives in, clicking the video back to play and pointing at a formation on the screen.
“We play St. Mary’s in two weeks. It’ll be our toughest game, probably tougher than whoever we end up seeing in state, since we’re in different divisions. They’ve got this kid—six-foot-three and fast as hell.”
Coach quiets for a second while we watch. He runs his hand over his mouth and chin, chuckling lightly. His mouth ticks up on the right. “He catches everything, and I don’t think we have the manpower to cover him. This crop—they’re small as shit, Reed.”
I puzzle over where this is going. I’m not really much of an expert on strengthening defenses. I’m more about seeing the holes and maximizing the passing game…or at least, I was…before.
“You’ve gotta get to the ball before it leaves QB’s hands, I guess,” I say, circling my finger in the air in a signal for him to play the film back for me one more time.
“That’s what I was thinking, but I just figured, since you played with Trig and all…”
I start to nod, and he doesn’t have to finish. I see it now, wat
ching this kid on the screen. He’s just like Trig, only younger and going up against boys instead of amped-up men. I watch the play through again two more times, then let Coach show me two or three more. It’s almost like watching an alternate past, and I start to smile.
“What’s got you so amused?” Coach asks.
“Ah, sorry. It’s nothin'. Just…I was thinking this is what it would be like if I had Trig to throw to in high school.” I let myself imagine it while Coach hums at the thought.
“Nah, that woulda made things way too easy,” he says, clicking the pause button and tossing the remote on the metal table in front of us as he leans back again to perch on two chair legs. I do the same, only leaning a little less and keeping my hand close to the nearby desk so I can catch myself if things start to go the wrong way.
“Nothing wrong with easy,” I say, meeting his eyes. His mouth forms an amused smile while his eyes wrinkle at the edges, the lines matching the ones filling the skin on his forehead and cheeks. Years of waking up every morning with the sun to run seven miles have kept him fit, even into his sixties. He’s got the build of an active army general, but his smoking habit has taken its toll on his skin. I can smell the Marlboros on him even now.
“So, what do you think? Double team? Force them to run? Give up the two…three…maybe four touchdowns he’s going to get even through our coverage?”
I consider his question and shrug because if it were Trig Johnson out there catching those passes, there’s nothing any team could do to stop him.
“Ah hell, that’s what I thought,” he says, pulling the pencil from its perch above his ear and tossing it at the paused TV screen.
After a few more seconds of silence, his focus lands on me again. I look up to find his scrutinizing eyes waiting and I try to shirk his stare off a few times before giving in.
