Beauty and the Running Back

by Colleen Masters

  “If you’re this miserable without her, why don’t you just go up to visit?” Buck asks.

  “She says she’s too busy for visitors,” I sigh, “She’s in this advanced workshop—”

  “Dude,” Buck cuts in, “You’re so dense. Just because she says she’s too busy, doesn’t mean she doesn’t want you to make the effort.”

  “I don’t know,” I reply, “She usually says what she means, Buck.”

  “Sure,” he says, rolling his eyes, “And Noel is definitely fucking me for reasons other than wanting to get your attention.”

  I look over at him, keeping my mouth shut.

  “I know the score,” he shrugs, “But it doesn’t bother me. Not everyone can be you and Jessa, after all.”

  “Even if she did want me to visit,” I go on, “I don’t have any way of getting up there. My car’s been busted for months, and I haven’t been able to work up enough cash to fix it. That’s what I get for being an unpaid college athlete, I guess…”

  “You’re forgetting one crucial little detail,” Buck smiles, “Jessa is in Boston. My hometown is about a half an hour away from there. And I happen to be heading up in just a few days to visit my folks. Remember?”

  A slow smile spreads across my face as I put it all together.

  “What say you and I take a little road trip to go see your girl?” Buck grins back.

  “Fuck yes,” I laugh, lifting my glass—or rather, cup—to my best friend, “I’m in.”

  We drink to make the plan official, and I can feel the storm clouds that have been swirling overhead for months begin to clear. In a few short days, I’ll be with Jessa again. Even if it’s only for a little while, that slice of happiness is sure to get me through until she’s back here for good.

  Now I just have to wait a few more days…

  Jessa

  I sit at the kitchen counter, chin in hand as I scroll through my Facebook timeline. It’s spring break back at Rayburn, which means that all my friends back there are having a ball. Blaire is in London with her parents, Kelsey is soaking up the sun back home in Los Angeles, and Blake is clubbing it up in New York with a bunch of his fellow dancers. I know social media is supposed to make you feel more connected and all, but I couldn’t feel more alone than I do right now.

  We’re a few days into spring break, which means that I have no online coursework to do while I mope around Allison’s apartment. I have managed to get some good writing done while I’ve been up here, but my boredom has turned into a nasty case of writer’s block, as of late. Maybe the little dude kicking around in my belly is sucking up all my story ideas along with all my nutrients or something. I run a hand over my rounded belly, wondering for the umpteenth time today about what life will hold for this little one. That’s all I’ve been able to think about lately, go figure.

  “You’ve been on that computer all morning,” Allie observes, sitting at the kitchen table with about five textbooks open in front of her. “Don’t you want to get out of the house, explore Boston a little? It’s finally starting to thaw out there.”

  “I don’t feel like having the entire city stare at me while I walk down the street,” I tell her, snapping my laptop closed. “It’s like people have no idea how to mind their own business when it comes to pregnant women.”

  “Well, why don’t we go out together then,” Allie suggests, “I can be your body guard.”

  “Don’t you have studying to do?”

  “I could honestly use a break,” she replies. “What do you say? Come take a walk with me. It’ll be good for you.”

  “Oh… all right then,” I relent, “Just as long as I can still fit these swollen-ass feet into my old sneakers.”

  Allison and I throw on our jackets, gather our things, and get ready to head out. As we’re heading down the steps of her building, I get a new text. Glancing down at my phone, I see that the message is from Dean. My heart swells just seeing his name on the screen. Any communication from him is the high point of my day. This latest text message from him is short and sweet.

  Dean: I’ve got a surprise for you…

  Before I can even wonder at what he might mean, Allison swings the front door open and stops dead in her tracks. Still looking down at my phone, I walk right into her, my big belly bouncing me backwards.

  “What the hell, dude?” I ask her, regaining my balance.

  But Allison doesn’t say a word. She just stares out onto the front steps, paralyzed. It isn’t until I follow her gaze that I feel my blood freeze with cold panic. Standing at our front door are Dean and Buck, looking excited as hell to be surprising me. But as I stand there, helpless, Dean’s eyes dart down to the unmistakable bulge beneath my tee shirt. When his eyes raise up to mine once more, it’s as though he’s looking at a complete stranger. And as much as it’s hurt to be away from him, to be going through this pregnancy on my own, that one look hurts more than the last six months combined.

  Dean

  I look around Allison’s tiny Boston apartment, which she and Buck have vacated to let Jessa and I have a “talk”. But now that we’re alone, I can’t think of a single thing to say to her. I can’t even bring myself to look her fully in the face.

  “How did you even find me?” I hear her ask in an impossibly small voice.

  “I told your mom I wanted to send you a Christmas card,” I say, forcing myself to look at her once more. My eyes go straight to her pregnant belly, but even as I’m staring at it I can’t wrap my head around the fact that this is really happening.

  “You shouldn’t have come,” she says, sinking down onto the couch.

  “I shouldn’t have…?” I repeat, incredulously. “Well, I’m pretty fucking glad I did. Otherwise I may never have known that you were pregnant.”

  “I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you, Dean,” she says, clasping her hands in her lap, “It’s just… I couldn’t…”

  “Of course you could have,” I shoot back, “Jesus, I think I had a right to know that I have a kid on the way! What, you didn’t think you could trust me with this, or—?”

  “It’s not that,” she cuts me off, taking a deep, rattling breath.

  “Then what the hell is it, Jessa?” I demand, trying and failing to keep my voice down. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  She looks me square in the eye, misery and dread wracking her expression.

  “I didn’t tell you because it’s not your problem,” she says, slowly and clearly.

  “What the hell is that supposed that mean?” I growl, my hands clenched at my sides.

  “There was another guy,” she goes on, lifting her chin, “Back in Spain. I was sleeping with him right up until I left. Right up until I got back to Rayburn and met you for the first time. It’s his baby, not yours.”

  My anger evaporates into numbness as I stare across the room at her.

  “When did you find out?” I ask, my voice hollow.

  “Early December,” she shrugs, “When my second trimester started. I didn’t start showing until then, so—”

  “How did you not notice before then?” I demand, “How could you not know that the whole time we were together, you were already pregnant with someone else’s kid?”

  “I guess I was just distracted by everything that was going on,” she says softly, “With school, and my work… And you. I just didn’t realize, Dean. I don’t know what to tell you.”

  “Tell me why you kept it a secret,” I say, taking a step toward her, “Jessa, you could have told me this was going on. You didn’t need to run off to Boston and hide away. I could have helped you.”

  “I wasn’t just hiding from you,” she shoots back, “I was hiding from my crazy father. I was hiding from being talked about and made fun of by the entire school. And yeah, sure, I chose to keep it a secret from you. But you know what, Dean? I was well within my rights to do that. I’d only known you for a few months when I figured out that I was pregnant. We were still practically strangers.”

  “That’s
bullshit,” I mutter, my voice low and ragged, “You know me better than anyone ever has.”

  “Well,” she whispers, “I guess that’s a one way street. Because you clearly didn’t know me well enough to know you couldn’t trust me.”

  Jessa

  Dean stares at me, rage and hopelessness duking it out in his eyes. My fingernails bite into my palms as I hold my hands clenched tight, trying to keep it together. The lie about this baby being Andoni’s was the best I could come up with on the spot. If I’d let Dean find out that he was the father this way, he’d refuse to go back to Rayburn without me. He’d fuck up his spotless season and miss out on being scouted in the spring. More than that, he’d insist on being involved. And it wasn’t until I saw him standing on that doorstep just now that I realized I don’t want him to be involved with this pregnancy.

  What I said is true. We do barely know each other, as much as it might feel like we’ve been in love for years. I can’t let Dean come back into my life with months left in the pregnancy. If he was here beside me, I know that I’d change my mind, want to keep the baby, raise it as our own. And I can’t let myself commit to that life without knowing, deep down, what kind of man Dean is. He’s been wonderful to me so far, but I know he has his rages. What kind of idiot would I have to be to fly blindly into the biggest decision of my life?

  Dean’s body has gone rigid with unexpressed emotion. Even in this state of near-catatonic anger, he looks as gorgeous as an ancient, angry god carved out of marble. So complete is his stillness that I nearly leap out of my skin when he strikes out his arm and sends a glass crashing against the kitchen wall. Tears leap instantly to my eyes as I watch him realize what he’s done, watch as guilt enters into the mix of emotions tearing him up from the inside.

  “I’ll clean this up,” he says through gritted teeth, not even turning to face me, “And then I’m gone. I don’t want to see you, Jessa. I don’t want to hear from you. At least have the decency to let me get on with my life after all… this.”

  The tears slide silently down my face as Dean picks up the broken shards of glass, working as if I weren’t even in the room. The second he’s cleared the floor of any lingering glass, he walks out the door and slams it behind him. No goodbye. No see you later. Just a huge, furious, boundless nothing. Which is appropriate, I guess, since that’s exactly what I feel like I’m worth right now.

  Nothing.

  Dean

  Buck and I don’t speak for the entire five-hour drive back to Rayburn. He scrapped his plans to visit his family as soon as we discovered Jessa’s secret, and I’ll be sure to thank him. Later. When my mind isn’t a blur of rage, and pain, and humiliation… and loss.

  Just hours ago, I was imagining a future with Jessa. Now? It turns out our entire time together was nothing but a fiction. I didn’t know the first thing about her. And now, I never will. How can losing something that was never even real hurt this fucking badly?

  “Do you want to just go home?” Buck finally asks, as we roll through the Rayburn campus, “You know. Get some sleep?”

  “Fuck no I don’t want to go home,” I rasp, “I want to find the nearest party and drink until I forget my own name.”

  That’s all Buck needs to hear. He pulls a u-turn and heads off onto campus, determined to get me what I need. All I need right now is to not think. Not feel. Not hurt like a motherfucker. But I’m not sure that there’s enough booze on campus to put me back together again, now.

  Chapter Ten

  Jessa

  Somehow, the minutes still manage to crawl by. The hours, the days, and eventually the weeks. I lose track of how many missed calls I make, how many unanswered texts and emails. As the weeks round out into a month of silence from Dean, I start to tip toe up to the possibility that I may never speak to him again. That he may never have anything to say to me, after what I’ve done to him. What he thinks I’ve done to him.

  I knew, the second that I saw him standing on my doorstep, that I had to find a way to set him free. There his was, with all his shining potential, with all his power and presence. I couldn’t ask him to stop dead in his tracks and be my partner, with all the momentum he’s built up. It wouldn’t be fair. It wouldn’t be right… At least that’s what I keep telling myself. But if I really have done the right thing here, why does it feel so terribly wrong?

  I knew that invoking infidelity would make him walk away. The only other relationship he’s ever been in ended with his girlfriend cheating on him, and it turned him off of serious attachments for years. God knows what’s going to happen now that I’ve reopened that wound by claiming that this baby is Andoni’s—that my heart and future belong to another man. It was a desperate lie, but these are desperate times.

  And they’re only growing more desperate the closer my due date gets.

  ***

  I stare at the black and white image dancing on the sonogram. My baby’s heartbeat thumps quietly but steadily as I look on with Allison at my side. We’re just about to wrap up the appointment, a routine check-in to make sure that the baby’s OK at seven months.

  “Wait,” I say, as the technician starts to go.

  “Is everything OK?” she asks.

  “Yes, it’s just…” I take a deep breath, “Could I know the sex?”

  The technician’s eyebrows raise. “I thought you wanted that to be a surprise, Jessa?”

  “I’ve changed my mind,” I tell her, “I want to know.”

  “Jessa,” Allie says softly, holding my hand, “It might be harder, knowing.”

  “I don’t care,” I tell her, my eyes misting over, “That’s my baby in there. Mine and Dean’s. I want to know who it is I’m carrying. I have to.”

  Allie looks up at the technician and nods her assent.

  “All right then,” the older woman says, “Jessa, you’re going to have a boy.”

  A boy.

  A dozen images flood my mind’s eye before I can stop them. I see a newborn boy in the hospital nursery, opening his big brown eyes for the first time. I see a tow-headed toddler pleading to go higher and higher on the swing. I see an energetic kindergartener in a football helmet the size of his entire body, giving it his all at pee-wee practice. I see the boy’s father, looking on with so much pride that it bursts out of him in all directions.

  “I’m having a boy,” I whisper, my head falling back against the exam table as tears roll down my cheeks. “And Dean has no idea.”

  Allison and the technician help me up, being as gentle as can be. But even their softest of touches can’t stop the ache that’s taken brutal hold of my heart. I have to own up to the truth. The truth that’s been sitting hard in my gut for the entire month since Dean found out about the baby.

  I’ve made a mistake.

  My body is exhausted as I walk up the steps to Allison’s apartment. She watches as I step inside, my mind a million miles away.

  “Tell me what you’re thinking,” she whispers, “Tell me what I can do to help, Jess.”

  “There is one thing,” I breathe.

  “Anything,” she says, placing her hands on my shoulders.

  “Would you check the Rayburn football schedule?” I ask her.

  “What? Why?”

  “I need to be there,” I tell my sister, “This can’t be over yet.”

  Dean

  “Crash,” Coach says from the locker room doorway, “I need to see you in my office.”

  I close my locker and slip into a black tee shirt. My clothes are all fitting a little tighter these days. I’ve put on ten pounds of muscle in the last month. Guess that’s what happens when you try and fix a broken heart with endless hours at the gym. My heart is still in pieces, but I’m in the best shape of my life. At least that’s some kind of consolation.

  “What’s up?” I ask Coach Cahill, leaning against the doorframe of his office.

  I try and keep my eyes focused on him, but of course they dart right over to the framed picture of Jessa sitting on his desk. The un
expected glimpse of her sends an ache through my core. Yeah, I’m still pissed as hell that she didn’t tell me about her pregnancy. But as this month’s worn on, and I’ve gone on blocking her out of my life, I’ve started to realize how bleak her situation must feel. I mean shit, her parents don’t know she’s pregnant, the dad is on the other side of the world, and she’s only a freshman in college. It’s a rough fucking hand, but there’s nothing I can do about it. Jessa’s made it perfectly clear that she doesn’t want my help.

  “I got some pretty exciting news for you,” Coach says, dragging my mind back to the present moment.

  “What’s that?” I ask.

  “I just got off the phone with another NFL recruiter who’s interested in showing up for our game this Friday,” he tells me, “That’s three, in total.”

  I straighten up, interest piqued.

  “And let me tell you something,” Coach goes on, “They’re not here for Royce, that’s for damn sure. They’re here to see the famous Crash Carter.”

  “They said that?” I breathe.

  “They sure did,” Coach smiles, an expression I wasn’t sure he was even capable of. “Now, I know it’s just a spring game, but you’re gonna have to play like a man possessed this Friday. This game could be your ticket to the big league, son.”

  “I’ll make it worth those recruiters’ while,” I tell him.

  “Oh, I have no doubt,” Coach says, standing up and offering me his hand, “You’re one of the best college players I’ve ever had the pleasure of coaching, Crash. College football isn’t the end for you, I know that much.”

  I accept the Coach’s handshake, but find it hard to look him in the eye. The secret knowledge of what Jessa’s going through is a millstone around my conscience. But it isn’t just the guilt that’s eating away at me as I stand here before her father. It’s resentment of him. If he could have just made his daughters feel safe in his home, maybe Jessa wouldn’t have had to run away to Europe the second she turned eighteen. Maybe if the Cahills had bothered to talk to their daughters about love, and sex, and their bodies, Jessa would have known all her options in this situation. Coach has no fucking idea what his kid is going through as he stands here shaking my hand. And it’s taking every ounce of willpower I possess not to rake him over the rails for that.