by Imani King
Why did it make sense, now that Jess was saying it? How hadn't I figured out that Tasha's behavior was most likely due to how strongly she felt about me? And not about her losing her feelings for me at all?
"I could have taken care of her," I said to Jess, almost cringing at the begging note in my voice. "If I get drafted next month I could take care of her whole family. I would have! I just didn't - I didn't think of any of the things you're telling me right now."
"And do you think that's what Tasha or her family wants? I mean, I don't know them at all so maybe I'm wrong but they sound pretty proud to me. It's not always as easy as paying the bills, Kaden. So if you're thinking of calling her when you get home tonight and promising to pay off their medical bills, I suggest you think about that."
I couldn't help but chuckle. "Goddamn, Jess. Are all chicks psychic? I didn't even realize I was thinking about that until you just said it. The thought was already there in my mind - message Tasha, offer to pay her mom's bills. How do you guys do that?"
"It's a side-effect of estrogen," Jess said, grinning. "Psychic abilities. We generally don't talk to men about it."
It was lucky for Jess I had football practice that afternoon - if not, I probably would have stayed there into the night, peppering her with questions about Tasha, women, life in general. When she dropped me off at the practice field she grabbed my arm just before I got out.
"Kaden?"
"Yeah?"
"You're not going to do anything stupid, are you?"
"Stupid?" I asked. "Like what?"
"Like calling her up and making promises you haven't really thought through, that would be my first guess."
"Don't worry," I reassured her. "I'm still an idiot. But I'm not as big of an idiot as I used to be."
That was the basic truth of it, too. When I got back to my dorm after practice and had a few moments to myself I lay on my bed and scrolled through the contacts list on my phone. There was Tasha's number, still there because I'd never quite been able to bring myself to delete it. But I wasn't going to call her - and not just because Jess told me it would be a bad idea.
Tasha probably had a whole new life for herself. New friends, new daily routine, maybe even a new man. In fact, almost certainly a new man. She was young and gorgeous and smart. The exact kind of girl who gets snapped up right away. I put the phone down eventually, unable to deal with the way it made me feel to think of her with someone else. My brain refused to let it go, though. It did that a lot. I'd be sitting in class or hanging out with friends or in the middle of a conversation with one of my football coaches and an image of her with a man - a man who wasn't me - would pop into my head. Was someone else putting their hands on those curves? Was some other man enjoying the way her breath quickened when he touched her in a certain way?
I almost ran into the kitchen to find a beer - a beer we weren't allowed to have but that everyone knew we had and no one cared to stop us having - and twisted the cap off, taking a big, long swig and praying the alcohol would take effect before any more gruesome scenarios decided to play themselves out in my mind's eye.
When was I going to get over her? It had been almost two years at that point. Everyone always said time heals all wounds but I was starting to wonder how much time. Wasn't two years enough? How much longer was I going to have to wait?
There didn't seem to be anyone home so I slumped down on one of the sofas in the common room with a second beer, trying to distract myself, trying to think of anything so long as it wasn't Natasha Greeley. The NFL draft was coming up, that should have been the main thing on my mind. I'd already met with representatives of three or four teams. Middle-aged men with a slightly sleazy, salesman-y air about them, hinting at all sorts of perks and profits to choosing their team, even if I ended up drafted by another.
I'd done the NFL Combine in February with all the other NFL hopefuls, but everyone knew that for me it was mostly a formality, one last checkmark in a long list of boxes that had already been definitively checked by my performance as Brooks' main quarterback. Training camp started in July - so although I had no idea where that would be, I knew it wouldn't be at Brooks.
Lying on my bed I was seized with a weird kind of regret. Maybe it was fear. Wherever I ended up I still planned on finishing my degree - eventually. But what about everything else? The college 'experience'? Had I just wasted two years of what I was probably going to look back on as the best years of my life pining for a girl I lost before I even left Little Falls?
No, that was stupid. I'd participated in all the usual college shenanigans. All except girls. And I didn't regret it - how could I, I just didn't feel the interest that my fellow students and players seemed to. But what if I did regret it, one day far in the future?
The sound of my phone ringing finally succeeded in shaking me out of my mental spiral and I picked it up. It was my dad's number. That was odd. My parents usually called on Sundays, sometimes on Wednesdays if I was around. It was a Monday. A little tickle of fear ran through me.
"Hello?"
"Kaden, son. It's your dad here."
My dad sounded weird. His voice was oddly thick. Was he - was he crying? Alarm bells suddenly started blaring in my head.
"Dad?" I asked, pleading with the universe to let it be nothing. "Is - is something wrong?"
Silence on the other end, followed by the sound of throat clearing.
"Dad!" I shouted, sitting straight up on the sofa. "Is something wrong? What's going on? What's-"
"Kaden, it's your mother."
My head started spinning as soon as I heard the word 'mother.' I listened to my dad take another deep, shaky breath.
"She's been in an accident. A car accident. I'm at the - I'm at the hospital."
"I'm coming home," I said, half-expecting my dad to protest. When he instead agreed and told me that that was probably a good idea, it freaked me out completely.
"Dad?" I asked, as my stomach started to feel heavy with dread. "Is she OK?"
"They don't know, Kaden. It just happened. They - the doctors told me they don't know. She's in surgery right now."
"OK," I said, both shocked at the emotion in my father's voice and suddenly filled with an intense desire to be there for my parents. "I'm leaving right now, Dad. For the airport. I'll call you when the plane lands. OK?"
"Yes, OK, son."
He sounded so lost. I had never heard him sound like that, not ever in my life. It felt like being in a house and feeling the foundation starting to shift underneath you.
"Dad?"
"Yes, Kaden?"
"I'm coming right now. I'll be there soon. If you talk to mom, tell her I'm coming. Tell her I love her. And also, Dad," I paused, steadying my voice. "I love you."
Chapter 22: Natasha
About a week after our somewhat awkward conversation regarding Kaden, Jennifer walked into the lunch room at the office and casually asked me if I knew he was back in town. I was eating leftover mac-n-cheese out of a plastic bowl and thinking about the possibility of getting an evening off to go out with her and a small group of other friends. My first thought was that I must have misheard what she was saying.
"What?" I asked, looking up.
"Your ex, the football player. He's back in town. Ed saw him last night at Hawley's.
"Ed saw him?" I asked. Edward Rankin was the owner and senior lawyer of the law office where we worked. "How does Ed know who my ex is?"
Jennifer gave me a little shrug and into it I read the most likely explanation: people talk. Especially people who work with a small group of people. It's often not even mean-spirited gossip, it's just the usual interest in the lives of those you work closely with. Still, I couldn't let her off that easily.
"Ugh," I said, setting down my mac-n-cheese. "You told Ed? Who else did you tell?"
Jennifer gave me a look. "I didn't tell anyone, Nat. People know - Kaden Barlow is a huge deal in this town, someone knew you used to date him in high school, that's all. And yeah, Ed
saw him at Hawley's."
"I doubt that," I said. "He's in California at Brooks. Ed probably saw one of the Reinhardt players and mistook him for Kaden."
"I don't know, he said it was definitely him."
"Really?" I asked, trying my hardest to make it look like I didn't care either way whether or not Kaden was in town. "Well, I guess it doesn't matter."
Jennifer nodded. "Yeah, I know. It's so hard seeing exes. You probably won't run into him anyway, he can't be here for long - Ed says all the sports nerds are saying he's going to be drafted first in July."
My appetite was gone. My heart was pounding and my stomach was suddenly full of butterflies. I put the mac-n-cheese back in the little work fridge and went to go back to my desk. Before I could make my exit, though, Jen came up behind me and put her hand on my shoulder.
"Hey, Nat."
"Yeah?" I replied, annoyed at myself for being so affected by the news of Kaden's possible return to Little Falls.
"I didn't - uh, I didn't mean to just spring that on you. I'm sorry, I wasn't really thinking."
"No," I said, forcing a smile. "It's fine. I just have a lot of work to do."
Jen didn't believe me, I could see it on her face. Probably not surprising, I never have been as good as I used to think I was at hiding my emotions.
I got nothing done for the rest of the day, despite my repeated attempts to concentrate. Was Kaden back in town? And if so, why? What if he tried to contact me? What if he didn't try to contact me? The last thing I needed was to see him, but my ego still wanted the validation of an attempt to talk to me. On the way home from the office I took extra notice of pedestrians, other drivers, people walking in and out of the big box stores that lined the main road before it reached my own neighborhood. I did not see Kaden.
It was for the best, I told myself. What possible good would it do me to see him? To stir up all the old feelings I'd spent so long trying to deal with? None. I had a quick shower and got busy preparing dinner. Alisha got back from work with Rosa in tow about ten minutes later.
"Hey, Tash," she called out as she headed upstairs. "Just let me get this one changed into clean clothes and I'll come give you a hand."
I chopped the vegetables with extra vigor that night, annoyed at myself for being so distracted by the news that Kaden might be back in town and equally determined to stick to the usual routines of my life. Then I went and nearly sliced off the tip of my thumb about two minutes into slicing onions.
"OW!"
"What?" Alisha asked, joining me in the kitchen and coming over to check what I'd done. "Ugh, Tash, it's bleeding. Here, put it under the water." She turned the tap on and led me to the sink. "Stay there, I'll go get a band-aid."
While I waited for Alisha to get back with the band-aid I caught my own reflection in the window over the sink. The image was blurry, but not so blurry that I couldn't see the look of exasperation on my own face. I turned the tap off and sank down to the floor, holding my thumb away from my body so I didn't get blood on my clothes.
"OK, klutz of the year, here's-" Alisha stopped talking halfway through her sentence when she saw me on the floor. "Tash! What's - are you OK? How bad is it bleeding?! Let me look at it..."
She knelt down beside me. "Don't worry," I told her. "It's fine. I just - damn, Alisha. I wish I was a stronger person than I am."
Alisha was looking at me the way you might look at someone who you suspected of being on the verge of cracking up. "Tash," she said, "it's really not that big of a deal. Just let me put a band-aid on it."
"It's not the thumb!" I blurted as she wrapped the band-aid around the small wound. "It's just - ugh, I hate myself for even caring about this, but someone I used to know it back in town and it's freaking me out a little."
"Oh, yeah," Alisha told me, washing her hands and getting started on the onions I hadn't managed to slice yet. "I guess you heard Kaden's back in town? I wasn't going to say anything unless you mentioned it - I wasn't sure you knew."
I laughed. "Yeah, I know. I mean, it seems like everyone knows - all the people at work, you, probably all the old people who hang out at the doughnut shop."
"Well he is Little Falls' big star," Alisha commented, helping me to my feet and pointing me towards a kitchen chair. "Sit, I'll finish these onions. The last thing we need is you chopping off your damn hand, girl."
So I sat down for a few minutes and watched the blood seep slowly through the bandage on my thumb until it seemed to stop. Then I got back to work mixing dumpling dough because Alisha wouldn't let me near any sharp knives.
"He's probably only back for a couple of days," she said, patting me on the back as we worked. "You don't have to see him."
"Oh I know," I replied. "I just wish I wasn't so rattled, you know? Two years later and I'm still getting shook by him, though? When does this end? Because I'm getting pretty damn sick of it, I can tell you that."
Alisha came up behind me and put her head on my shoulder. "It ends," she said quietly. "It definitely ends. Your first always takes a lot longer, too. I know this doesn't help you right now but once you go through this one time it's never so difficult again. It definitely gets easier."
"I have to go through this again?" I asked, shaking my head. "Why can't I just meet a perfect guy and marry him tomorrow? Huh? Why not?"
"Because that's not how it works. Well, not for most of us anyway. You've got nothing to worry about, Tash. You're young, beautiful, smart - you've got your shit together. One day you're gonna look back on this and smile over how sweet and innocent you were."
"I doubt that."
I made a promise to myself that night, as I lay in bed with the window wide open to let in the summer breeze. It wasn't healthy to be so down on myself, so angry at myself for not being able to sequester my emotions away in a metal cabinet. While Kaden was in town - if Kaden was in town - I was going to go about my life as I always did and allow myself to feel whatever it is I felt.
It worked, too. Well, it worked for a day and a half. I was organizing purchase orders for the office when Jennifer came to my desk with an odd look on her face.
"What is it?" I asked. "I'm almost done here if you need-"
"It's not that, Nat. Kaden Barlow is outside. I told him not to come into the office but he said he wants to talk to you."
I stared at the computer screen for a few seconds as the blood drained out my limbs and my stomach lurched.
"Do you want me to ask him to leave? I can do that if you want," Jen said, "I just thought I should let you know, first."
"Yeah," I replied, my mind whirling. "Um, yeah. What did he - did he say what he wanted?"
"No. He looked upset, though."
"Upset? Like, angry?"
Jen pressed her lips together. "Not, not angry. Upset. Like, sad."
Oh God. Angry I could have dealt with. Angry would have given me a good reason to have him told to leave. But sad? It had been two years since I last saw Kaden and it was possible he'd changed during that time, maybe a lot, but he'd never struck me as the kind of person who would use emotions to manipulate someone. The old Kaden would never have pulled a move like faking sadness to get me to do something he wanted.
I crept to the front of the office and pulled back one of the drapes shielding the window from the summer sun. And there he was, as if I'd just dreamed the past two years. As if he'd just come from football practice at Reinhardt and was coming to pick me up so we could have dinner at my house. He was standing beside a black Audi with his shoulders slumped and his head hanging low. And at once, all the work I'd done to get over him just disappeared. The surge of softness in my heart at the sight of him looking so low just took over instantly. Jennifer saw that I was about to go to him.
"Nat," she said, touching my arm. "Are you sure? You don't have to talk to him, you know. Ed can ask him to leave."
But I was already on my way out. "No, it's OK," I called back over my shoulder.
Kaden saw me as soon as I walked out the front
door. Our eyes met and I actually wondered if I was in a dream. Everything suddenly felt blurry and slow-motion. As I got closer to him I could see that his eyes were red and his face was puffy. He'd been crying.
It struck me like a thunderbolt. Kaden? Crying? I knew instantly that something terrible must have happened. He started walking towards me.
"Kaden?" I said. "What's happening? What's wrong?"
But by that point we were right in front of each other and instead of answering he just bent down to let me put my arms around him (I hadn't even realized I was reaching out) and buried his face in my neck. We stayed there, like that, for a long time. Kaden wasn't actually crying but he was taking the deep, rough breaths of someone who was in some kind of distress and was trying to maintain control of themselves. He felt exactly the same in my arms as he always had - big and muscular and warm and perfect. When we pulled away from each other a few minutes later he was just staring at me like he might have thought I was a ghost.
"What's wrong?" I asked, grasping his shoulder. "Kaden, what's going on? Why are you-?"
"Can we talk about this somewhere else?" He asked. "I can wait until you're off work, Tasha."
Oh, God, hearing my name spoken in that voice after so long. It made me want to cry and throw myself into his arms and run away all at the same time.
"I can leave work now," I said. "My boss will be OK with it. Are you going to tell me what's happened?"
Kaden closed his eyes. "Yes, Tasha. But please, can we go somewhere first? I don't want your entire office watching this."
I turned around to see the office drapes twitching in multiple places.
"Sure," I said. "Just let me grab my bag. Wait here. I'll be-"
Kaden was nodding, and it took me a few seconds to realize that he was doing it because he couldn't speak. He was on the verge of breaking down.
