by Tracey Ward
“I researched it, okay?” He puts his arms around my waist to bring me into a loose hug. His body feels deceptively solid against mine. He feels unbreakable, but I can’t shake the image of him hunched over me just a minute ago. I can’t stop hearing his voice over and over again in my ear, calling my name in a slur that sounded like he was drunk. But he’s not drunk. Tyus doesn’t drink anymore. He quit for me to make it easier.
“An inner ear thing doesn’t explain why you couldn’t speak,” I remind him.
Frustration flashes across his face. “I got it under control, Mila.”
“Has that ever happened on the field?”
“Fuck no.” He chuckles, shaking me gently. “You know I take care of me before I go out there. I eat the right foods. I do the right warmups. I’m the healthiest a man can be when I’m on that field. Tonight was asking for trouble. We didn’t finish dinner and I took one of those Percs Sloane gave you. I shouldn’t have done that on an empty stomach.”
“Why’d you take a Percocet?”
“My head hurt.”
I look at him impatiently because he’s making my point. “I thought you were dizzy from the vertigo, but now it’s pills on an empty stomach? Pills you took for a headache caused by the vertigo you think you have because you get dizzy, but the pills made you dizzy. Which is it, Tyus? You’re looping all this shit around to make it fit, but maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it’s not vertigo.”
He kisses me briskly before letting me go. “It’s nothing. Let it go.”
Tyus turns his back on me. He leaves me alone in the bathroom with my worry and my fear. The light in the bedroom snaps off almost immediately and I hear him shuffle in under the covers. He’s going to sleep. End of discussion.
My phone buzzes quietly on the counter. It’s the ESPN app.
“Tyus,” I shout weakly.
He takes a long time to answer, like he’s debating whether or not he actually wants to. “Yeah?”
“Seahawks are out. Falcons beat ‘em 36-20.”
“Thanks, baby.”
I close my eyes as my stomach churns nervously. “You’re welcome,” I whisper.
I shut down the app to open my text messages. My heart is in my throat as I type because I know Tyus would be pissed if he found out what I’m doing, but I can’t handle this alone. I need advice and there’s only one person I can turn to with this.
Tyus has had more headaches. He’s been having dizzy spells. He says it’s nothing. I’m nervous. What do I do?
Sloane replies in under a minute. You’re here in the Hyatt?
Yeah.
Meet me in the lobby in five.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
TYUS
January 15th
Lambeau Field
Green Bay, WI
“Who dat?! Huh?! Who dat?!”
“The Kodiaks! What?!”
“Who dat, huh?! Who dat?!”
“The Kodiaks!”
“The Kodiaks!”
“The Kodiaks!”
“The Kodiaks! Hoo!”
The fans in the stadium in yellow and orange shout the cheer with us as we huddle, our heads pressed in close together. A cloud forms from the fog of our breath, crystalline and shining in the sub-freezing temperature. The air is almost painfully dry. Before we hit the field, they warned us it’s only twenty-eight degrees out here. It’s warmer on the field because they heat it, they have to, but the fans are going to freeze to death. I worry about Mila. She said she was going to sit with Sloane and Hollis instead of in the skybox with her dad, but I wish she wouldn’t. She has no body fat. She’s going to be an ice sculpture by the time the game is over.
I’ll have to come up with creative ways to defrost her, one small stretch of skin at a time…
“You ready, baby?!” Lefao shouts at me.
I slam my helmet against his excitedly. “You know!”
“You know!”
Across the field from us, the Packers are doing the same thing – riling themselves up. The game is just about to start and my heart is running like a Formula 1 racecar. I’m purring, vibrating in every nerve, ready to leap off that line and smoke the competition. The Packers are good but we’re better. We’ll take them today and next week we’ll come for the Falcons. They won’t get the drop on us the way they did with Seattle. We’ll be ready for them. All of them. I can feel it in my gut when they blow the whistle, signaling the start of the game.
This is our year.
The Packers won the coin toss and chose to receive first. Our defense takes the field with them and when I hear that first crash of helmet against helmet, man against man, I feel lit. They gain two downs right away, but then the D locks it down. They find their stride and they pull the rug out from under Green Bay. At the forty-two yard line they’re out of downs and they have to kick it just to get on the board. It’s wide to the right but it’s good.
Packers 3. Kodiaks 0.
I bounce on my toes to stretch my calves. I’m warm. I’m hot. I’m ready.
“Offense in!” Coach Baily shouts. “Pyramid run formation. Go! Go! Go!”
We rush the field as the defense is leaving. Hand, helmets, and asses are slapped. I take my place on the line. When I crouch down to touch the field to steady myself, it’s weird how warm it is compared to the air above it. Just as I’m listening for the snap, my ass rising up in the air behind me, I think I see a small, downy flake fall to the field.
“Hut! Hut! Hike!”
I shoot off the line like a bullet from a gun. The defense tries to tie me up, my coverage a monster of a guy with long black hair hanging in a curling mess out the back of his helmet. He tangles with me for just a second before I’m able to shake him loose and dart down the field. I cut in hard, turning to catch the pass that I know is coming, and it’s there right when I need it.
Thunk! Right into my chest.
I tuck it in under my arm as I turn to run. My coverage is coming for me but I’m already on the move. I’m darting to the left toward the line just as one of their guys starts to close in on me in the backfield. I could cut to the right to avoid him, but I’d lose too much ground. The guy behind me would catch me. He’d take me down hard. I have to gain yards, not lose them, and the only way to do that is to push it. I hit my reserves and sprint as hard as I can down the white line on the left of the field. I’m at the thirty. The forty. The fifty. I’m crossing the center line and heading into their territory. The numbers start counting down now, like I’m ringing in the New Year all over again, kissing Mila in the dark corner of a bar in a neighborhood we’d never been to before and will never go to again. She tasted like the candy canes she’d been eating all night. She felt like winning. She’s my omen of good things to come, and I hope she’s watching as I dart my ass over the forty, heading deep into Green Bay territory.
The hit comes out of nowhere. I didn’t see the guy who got me, but I feel him. He tosses me like a ragdoll out of bounds and into Green Bay’s camp on the sidelines. The whistle blows, calling an end to the play, and a ref is immediately there to help me up and make sure the Packers don’t take some cheap shots to injure me while I’m down.
When he yanks me, I mumble a ‘thanks’ and hand him the ball.
“Anthony!” Trey is shouting at me. He hitches his thumb toward our sideline. “Sub out!”
I frown at him, confused. “Why?”
He doesn’t answer. He only taps the side of his helmet to tell me where the call came from. Coach Allen.
I jog toward the other side of the field. On my way in, I pass Ramsey on his way out. He’s careful to give me room and he definitely doesn’t look at me. He hasn’t spoken to me since the day I showed him he wasn’t shit. Since then he’s taken his place on the bench with a silent scowl. But today, he’s running out onto the field with a spring in his step like he just won the lottery.
I pull my helmet off, heading straight for Coach Allen.
Coach Bailey cuts me off. “It was my call, Anthony,�
�� he warns me. “Take it easy.”
“What the fuck. Why’d you take me out?”
“I’m being careful with you. We need you healthy for the next three weeks and the Packers know that. If they get a chance to crush you or Domata, they’re taking it. It’s my job to make sure it doesn’t happen.”
“I’m not hurt.”
He slaps me hard on the shoulder. “Let’s keep it that way. You’ll be back in in a minute. Stay tight, alright? We can’t afford cramping today.”
Coach Bailey touches his ear, his eyes going unfocused. He’s listening to something coming over the radio. He nods once. His eyes dart to me, then to Hibbert standing with his hands on his hips behind me. “Hey, do me a favor, would you? Talk to Hib about the Texas Turnaround play. You know the one?”
“Yeah. I know all the plays.”
“You’d think he would too, but he’s driving left when he should be going right. Walk him through it a few times, will you? We gotta keep things tight out there.”
“Sure thing, Coach.”
He bumps my shoulder with his fist. “Thanks, Anthony.”
He runs off down the line toward Coach Allen. He’s done with me for now.
“Dammit,” I mutter in disgust. I feel like throwing my helmet but the cameras are watching. I can’t lose my shit. Not in the first five minutes of the game.
But as the game goes on, I notice a pattern. I’m in every third play or so, but only if the game needs me. Otherwise it’s Ramsey out there tearing shit up. He actually catches a pass from Domata that he threw in a panic when the play fell apart. Ramsey was the only one open and when the ball hit his chest, he curled in around it. He took a massive blow protecting it, but he held on. He got us a down.
But by halftime, we’re down six points. It’s not a good way to be and I feel myself spiraling out as we head to the locker rooms. I keep my head down, trying to do the same to my temper, but then Coach Allen touches my shoulder as I pass him and I almost implode.
“I want to talk to you, son.” His voice is low in the chaos on the field. I can barely hear him but his eyes tell me more than his words – shit is serious. “Privately.”
“When?”
“Right now. While the team is getting settled.”
I lick my lips, glancing at the sky. Snow is heavy in the clouds. It’s coming. The storm I’ve been feeling all year is about to unload and it’s going to be ugly.
And still, it’s almost a relief that it’s finally here.
***
“This is fucking bullshit!” I shout at the wall.
Mila sits perched on the edge of the bed. She doesn’t flinch when I shout. She knows it’s not at her.
She sits up on her knees, reaching for me as I pace the room. My arm slides through her fingers before she can catch me. “You guys won. You played a great game. This is a good day. Don’t get hung up by this one little thing.”
“It’s not a little thing. It’s a big fucking thing.”
“What exactly did he say?”
I stop pacing to take a deep breath. My hands are clenched tight on my hips, my eyes on the blurry, ugly pattern on the hotel room floor. “Coach says if I want to keep playing, I have to submit to an MRI. And he wants to see the results. He wants Luxe to look at them too.”
“Okay. It’s not a big deal. You had to get a physical to be cleared to play at the start of the season. Same deal.”
“They don’t do an MRI at the physical. This is insane. This is—he’s fishing. He’s looking for a reason to drop me.”
“No, he’s not. He’s just worried about you. It’s not the worst thing in the world. So you’ll get the MRI, you’ll let them look at the results, they’ll see it’s vertigo like you thought, and everything will be fine. If they let you play with back spasms they’ll let you play with vertigo.”
“I don’t have back spasms,” I laugh chaotically.
Mila blinks up at me. “What are you talking about?”
“I’ve never had back spasms. That’s some shit my doctor and I agreed on.”
“I don’t understand.”
“My doctor is dirty,” I tell her plainly. “That’s why I picked him. He’s willing to tell the NFL anything they need to hear to let me keep playing, and Coach knew something was up with me, so I told him it’s back spasms. I told him I forget shit sometimes because of the meds I take for the pain.”
“And he bought that?”
“Fuck no, but he couldn’t say anything about it. What was he going to do? Call bullshit? He didn’t have any proof.”
Mila stands slowly. “Wait, so how long have the headaches and dizziness been a thing? If you have a fake doctor—”
“He’s a real doctor, he just doesn’t have any integrity.”
“—then it’s been a long time. You’ve been hiding this for how long?”
“Months. Almost a year. Maybe longer.” I run my hand over my face, blowing against my palm in frustration. “Probably longer. I don’t remember when it started.”
“Tyus,” she says darkly, her voice dripping with disappointment, “you have CTE and you know it.”
I drop my hand, glaring at her. “I don’t have fucking CTE.”
“You have something and it’s terrifying!” she cries. “You scared the shit out of me last night!”
“That was nothing.”
“It was not nothing! Stop saying this is nothing!”
“Stop shouting at me.”
“You have to get this MRI,” she insists quietly. Her anger is barely contained in her small body. It wells up in her eyes that shine dangerously. “And you have to get it done by a real doctor with real integrity. I’ll go back to Coach Allen if you don’t.”
I freeze, put on pause. “Whoa, wait a minute.”
Mila’s face contorts violently. She looks horrified. Afraid.
“What do you mean you’ll go back to Coach Allen?” I ask carefully.
She shakes her head, her lips pinched tightly shut between her teeth.
I take a menacing step toward her. I need her to see my face. I want her to look me in the eyes and tell me what she means by that.
“What did you do, Mila?” I ask her tightly, my head still spinning. I feel sick. Like I’ll lose everything in my stomach on the floor if I actually heard her right.
She’s crying. The tears pour from her eyes as her body shakes with silent sobs, and I know the answer already, but I have to hear her say it.
“I told Coach Allen about the headaches last night,” she tells me quietly, though not meekly. Her voice is firm. Her choice staunchly made. “I told him about the dizziness. I told him everything and he told the rest of the staff. The other coaches, the trainers. Everyone. That’s why they decided you have to have an MRI to keep playing.”
I can’t gauge the anger that runs through me. The boldness of the betrayal is too big, too blunt. What she’s done, it’s not a knife in the back. It’s a hammer to the face. It knocks me back a step, throwing me off balance. I can’t see straight, can’t think straight, and for one agonizingly hopeful second, I think maybe I heard her wrong. Maybe I don’t understand what she’s saying, because there’s no way in hell she did what she says she did. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t.
But she did.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” I snarl softly.
Mila looks me in the eyes. Hers are shining, round pools of pain, but there’s no repentance. She’s not sorry. Given the chance, she’d do it again. She’d destroy me a hundred times over, and she’d never be sorry. “I was thinking you’re killing yourself and I couldn’t stand to watch.”
“Then go away.”
She flinches, her fingers digging sharply into her arms as she tries to hold herself together. “I couldn’t stand to do that either.”
I roll my jaw, rubbing my hand over my mouth roughly. I’m choking on my rage. I can’t swallow it down. It sits in my mouth like burning ash searing my lips closed, clouding my mind with smoke that rolls up
inside my skull.
“I can’t fuckin’ believe this,” I mutter into my palm, my breath hot against my skin.
“Tyus, I—”
“My career is over. There’s not a team worth a damn out there that will touch me if it gets out that Allen forced me to get an MRI to prove I can play. I’m finished. This is the end for me.”
“Your body has been finished for a while now. Coach Allen knows it. Luxe knows it.”
“You talked to Luxe too? You have been busy!”
“No,” she replies calmly. “I didn’t talk to anyone but Allen, but Coach told me what he already suspected. Him and Luxe. There’s no way he was going to play you next year, even if they did re-sign you, which they’re not. I know they’re not. Daddy and Keith, they planned all along to use you to win the Championship, even if it broke you, but Allen doesn’t want to see you destroyed on that field any more than I do.”
“It’s not your call.” I slash my hand through the air between us. “It was never your call. What is this? Is this you pushing again? You’re testing me?”
“No.”
“Well, guess what, Mila? It worked,” I barrel forward, not listening to her. I can’t hear her. I can barely look at her. “I’m done. This was too goddamn far for me.”
Her lower lip trembles traitorously. She bites it between her teeth to stop it, to hold herself inside as she starts to fall apart. And the fucked up thing about it is that I hate seeing it. Some stupid part of me wants to comfort her. Wants to lower my voice, put my arms around her, and hold her until she’s steady again; like she’s the victim here, not me.
“It wasn’t a test,” she vows, her voice cracking. “I did it for you.”
“What made you think you had the right?”
“Because I love you.”
It’s a simple thing to say. Four words. Five syllables.
One day too late.
“Fuck you.”
She closes her eyes in agony. A tear escapes, rolling down her flushed cheek.
I don’t stick around long enough to see it fall. I turn my back on her, storm out of the hotel room, and practically run for the stairs. I don’t bother with the elevator. I can’t be boxed in right now. I’ll go insane. I don’t even know if I want to be inside my body. I can’t breathe, I can barely see, and all I can hear is the sound of my blood rushing in my ears, mixed with the symphonic sweet sound of her voice.
