The Hunter

by Jessica Gunn

  She sounded angry, but a smile edged her lips. She knew me too well. Enough to know that anything I’d already said to Sandra had been muddled and not necessarily the truth of the matter.

  “Okay,” I said. “Thank you.”

  She playfully knocked an elbow against my side. “Anytime. I’m always here for you.”

  I smiled at her. “Same here. And if you need me to take care of that guy, let me know.”

  “I will.”

  “Goodnight, Ben,” she said, turning from me to go back into the bar. I waved and watched her go.

  Rachel was always right. And she’d been my rock, my family, for what felt like forever.

  Fatigue slammed into me like a freight train, making my knees weak. I needed sleep. So I trailed back to my dorm in silence.

  The crowd’s cheers broke through the walls of our stadium, permeating directly into the locker room. Per Rachel’s advice, I hadn’t tried to see Sandra this morning, and not a single one of my texts or phone calls had been returned. She was ignoring me—or was completely done with me—and I deserved it. But before I could deal with that, I had to take care of our rivals. And win. Only then would I grovel for forgiveness.

  The exhaustion hangover I’d fallen victim to pulled my limbs into lethargy. It wasn’t so much the drinks I’d had at Sam’s—I could handle much more than three shots—but Coach’s punishing practices and Sandra’s news.

  Rachel was right. If I’d tried to deal with that this morning, I never would have made it to today’s game.

  The team huddled and Derek got everyone hyped up. We started jumping in place, chanting, until Coach called go-time. We lined up and ran down the hallway to the field, each of us slapping a sticker on the wall of our team’s mascot on the way out for good luck.

  We’d need all the luck available for this one.

  I fastened my helmet and mouth guard and followed my team to the field. The first three quarters of the game went in our favor, even though we tied going into the fourth. As long as I didn’t look past the other team and into the stands, as long as I didn’t gaze around to see if Sandra had come to watch the game, or if the scouts were here, I was able to keep my head where it needed to be.

  But our rivals were good. Even though we held them for most of the game, a bad play going into the final minute of the third quarter tied up the score. By the end of the fourth quarter, with five minutes to go, we managed to get a touchdown and field goal to top off the score.

  But that’s when I did it. In total elation, I looked up to the stands to where Rachel, Michael, our family, and Sandra usually sat, and…

  There she was. Looking down at me, but she wasn’t smiling. She didn’t cheer with everyone else. She wasn’t even standing. Sandra sat there stoically like she’d been forced by someone to be there. When she saw me looking her way, she lifted her lips into a small smile that didn’t reach her eyes. Like the greeting was an obligation.

  I smiled back and waved, hoping to convey my decision through a nod, but she didn’t respond at all. She remained as stoic as a thousand-year-old statue. Motionless.

  Derek clapped my back. “Dude. Head in the game.”

  I shook my head and blinked away everything that wasn’t football-related. “Sorry, man.”

  “Don’t be sorry unless you fuck up,” he said. “Which you better not. We’re almost through this. Get us another touchdown and the game’s all but delivered to us.”

  Except it wasn’t. It wouldn’t take much to turn the score in their favor, even if we added another seven points to our lead.

  But neither of us would speak that aloud. No one needed that bad juju. Especially us.

  We lined up and I called the play. One more touchdown. If we got that, and maybe another, this game was ours.

  Three minutes on the clock. We had this.

  Come on, Hallen. Do this thing.

  I counted us down and was passed the football. The crowd cheered, their chants of motivation filling my ears until my focus narrowed and zoned them out. I moved back to give myself room and waited two seconds, three, four as Derek sailed down the field, narrowly escaping being blocked by the other team.

  Five seconds. I ran to the side, preparing to throw the ball when I saw Derek’s targeted run area. Run. Like I’d wanted to last night. The realization, the guilt, came rushing back and crushed me in the moment I pulled my arm back to throw, planted my feet and—

  My breath whooshed from my body with the impact of a full-on tackle. My body locked up, but I’d already started the throw, so the ball sailed from my hand at full speed. I had no idea if it’d make it to Derek or not.

  My right shoulder slammed against the ground, my head following, as two-hundred-and-fifty pounds of solid muscle drove me into the dirt.

  “Fat chance of winning now, Hallen,” the other team’s player said to me.

  I shoved him off of me and got up, searching the field. But the crowd gave me the answer, booing around a cheer from the stadium’s rival team seating area. The cheer grew and grew, as did the boos, and before I wrapped my swirling, concussed thoughts around the situation, before I got a breath past ribs that ached when I inhaled, the rival team rushed my position. Our whole team’s position.

  The other team fucking intercepted!

  “Uh-uh, pretty boy,” the player said, dancing in front of me. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  I tried to get around him, to see where the ball was, but before I knew what’d happened, a buzzer went off.

  Touchdown. For the other team. They’d closed our lead and now we were only winning by one point. With a single minute on the fucking clock.

  I looked over at Coach, whose red blotchy face was fuming. The defensive line on the benches shouted at us—at me—until Coach called a timeout and swapped us out.

  The offensive line, me included, ran back to the bench; I was unable to bear looking up at my family. At Sandra. I might have just cost us the entire season because I couldn’t keep my damn head in the game where it should have been.

  I watched from the bench as both teams squared off with one minute on the clock. There wasn’t a kicker on the field. The other team wasn’t going to kick. Are you kidding me?

  I rose from the bench, my breath caught in my throat, blood rushing from my head until dizziness threatened to take over.

  They were going for a two-point conversion.

  They were going to fucking score and run out the clock.

  I pressed my palms to either side of my head, unable to turn my eyes from this train wreck.

  Their quarterback counted them down. Received the ball. Our defensive line did what they could, but the rival team parted us like the fucking Red Sea and their quarterback practically skipped merrily across the end zone.

  When we faced off again, Coach kept me on the bench. My football days were through. I should have made that throw to Derek. He’d been as wide open as the Grand fucking Canyon.

  And now the other team was the one winning by one point.

  The last thirty seconds of the game went by in a blur of downs. One down failed. Two. On the third attempt, our quarterback managed to get enough space to throw the ball to Derek, who ran. He ran like a bat out of hell, on fire and being chased by a fucking dragon, to the forty-yard line before getting tackled to the ground.

  “Oh fuck.” I gasped.

  Everyone was standing now as Coach called a timeout. Everyone down on the benches, in the stands. I looked up and saw even Sandra out of her seat. But she wasn’t looking at me. She was looking at the only option for us to even attempt winning.

  If Georgie, our kicker, landed this kick, we’d win the game.

  My heart stopped, breath coming in shallow, barely-there gasps, as Georgie ran onto the field. Five seconds on the clock once the timeout ended.

  Please. God, I know I screwed up. I screwed up royally. But please let him make this damn kick.

  I pressed my hands harder against my helmet, so firm I thought I’d maybe
crack my skull. But I didn’t remove them, didn’t turn away, as Georgie lined up to take the kick. As the ball was placed in front of him.

  Forty fucking yards. He could do it, right? He’d handle this for sure.

  His foot connected and the ball went flying and the entire stadium went so silent you could have heard a pin drop on the AstroTurf.

  The ball sailed through the air in slow motion like in some absurd movie. Spinning and spiraling and flying closer and closer to the goal posts.

  And missed.

  The ball landed somewhere on the ground behind the posts, smacking against the AstroTurf like the gates of hell closing behind me, locking me off from a pro career for good.

  The other team cheered. My team booed me. The stadium erupted into chaos.

  But all I heard was the sound of my own heartbeat thudding behind my ears… and the sound of everything in my life going down the drain.

  I took my time in the showers, trying to stay as out of sight as possible. Anything that kept me from having to deal with Coach right now. The team was disappointed, and most smacked the outside of my locker as they passed, but they’d get over it. Eventually. Not tonight, and definitely not next week while we were all walking to classes being booed because we’d lost our shot at the championship, but eventually.

  Me on the other hand… It wasn’t my throw that had cost us the game, but it sure as hell was the tipping point. If we’d made that throw, Derek would have run it into the end zone for sure and I would have had a shot at going pro.

  When it sounded like everyone had finally left for a night of drinking and forgetting, I shut off the water and dried off. I tugged on clothes that had nothing to do with football. No school logos, no pro team anything. Just normal Ben clothes. Jeans. A T-shirt. I left my jacket in my locker, not wanting to look at it. At the disgrace I’d been to our university.

  The lights in most areas of the locker room had been turned off with the exception of the area near my lockers and the door. Darkness swam in between, too reminiscent of my time in the void for my liking.

  Just pack up fast and get out of here. Not like I’d ever have to come back into this room ever again. In fact, I knew I wouldn’t. I opened up my duffel bag and shoved everything inside that was mine except for my varsity jacket, my helmet, and anything bearing the team’s logo. I wouldn’t be needing those things anymore.

  “It was just one game,” someone said from behind me.

  The sudden sound made me jump, and I spun around to see who was there, to scold them. It wasn’t just a game. It was the game. The one game this season that seemed to matter most.

  Sandra stood there, arms crossed, leaning against a wall.

  “If we’d won, we’d be heading to the semi-finals,” I said. “It was important and I blew it. Not to mention the scouts that were likely in the stands. It wasn’t just a game, Sandra.” It was my future in football. Everyone’s. And though I doubted my poor performance would change the scouts’ views of everyone else, I was worried it might have some bad impact on their decisions.

  She tilted her head back and forth, as though considering I’d done anything but. “I mean, yeah. You really did mess up. But so did your kicker.”

  I sucked in a deep breath as flashbacks of the failed field goal assaulted my mind’s eye. “Not his fault. It was a long kick. It’s windy. Georgie wouldn’t have had to attempt it if I’d made the pass to Derek.”

  “The guy slammed into you, Ben,” she said. “You’re not some twig, but that guy was a Mack Truck.”

  The defensive line always was. That was their job description. Be big. Get in the way. Do not allow anyone to pass.

  Well, I didn’t pass. And we didn’t win. And now, I’d never play pro. Which, until this abysmal moment in time, I hadn’t realized I might not even want. Football had been a wedge between Sandra and me since high school, but we’d always gotten around it. But if she was pregnant and we had this kid… Playing pro might be a great way to put money in the bank, but I wasn’t sure I could do that to Sandra.

  I shut my locker and threw the strap of my duffel bag over my shoulder. This wasn’t the time or place for these thoughts. “What’s done is done.”

  She nodded deeply. “Yup.”

  Silence fell between us for long moments. Why was she here? If she hated so much that she had to come watch the game that she hadn’t even cheered for the touchdowns we had made, as a team, not just by myself, why come down to the locker rooms at all?

  She’s waiting for your apology. She probably figured I’d never seek her out again if she didn’t confront me here at football season’s end.

  “Listen, Sandra,” I started but all the words fell flat when my gaze met her hard one.

  “I don’t know what makes you think I can do this alone,” she said. “But I can’t. And I can’t assume there’s any other reason you didn’t call me before practice last night.”

  “Coach—”

  She held up a hand. “Kept you all until late. I know. Rachel told me. But you could have called on your way there. You kept me waiting, and this isn’t like waiting for you to show up for breakfast, Ben.”

  I bit my lip, considering my words because I knew, with all my heart, the next ones would matter most. “I never thought you could do this alone and didn’t need me. That wasn’t even a thought that crossed my mind. I didn’t know what to say because I’m terrified of this.”

  She cocked an eyebrow. “You think I’m not?”

  “No, of course not.” That wasn’t what I was getting at. God. “Sandra, I’m scared because I don’t know how to be a dad. And I’m scared I’ll end up just like mine.”

  Sandra froze, sadness sweeping across her features for a passing moment. Then her eyes rounded and she lifted off the wall and walked toward me. “Ben.” She cupped my cheek in her hand. “We all die, Ben. And none of us will ever know when it’s coming.”

  I looked up, hoping to ignore the onslaught of fear and other emotions sliding into my chest to take up residence. “I know.”

  “Then don’t fear it,” she said. “Don’t fear this. You’d make a fantastic father.”

  “You think so?” Why did I need to ask her that? She probably wouldn’t know until after the baby was born.

  Sandra nodded and stroked my cheek. “I know so. I wouldn’t have come here to try to make this right with you if I didn’t.”

  “But I’m the one who fucked up.” I didn’t deserve this, this understanding and third chance. I should have manned up the second she’d told me she was pregnant. I should have been there for her, not freaking out at some bar thinking about my dead parents.

  She shrugged. “It’s fine. I’m sure I’ll screw up, too, at some point. Ben, we’ve put too much time into this to just walk away because things get scary or hard.”

  The look in her brown eyes, the feeling of calm and home that enveloped me when I gazed into them, settled the raging monster inside of me. Just for a moment. One long enough to come to a single conclusion: Sandra was right.

  She always was.

  “I want to marry you.” The words were the easiest I’d ever said to her. Easier than “I love you.” Easier than asking her out. Because they weren’t truly a question. Those words were fact. “I want to marry you. I know we can make it all the way. But I’m honest-to-god terrified of raising a child. We’re still kids.”

  “I know it wasn’t exactly the plan,” she said, a smirk on her lips. “But from everything I’ve read online, apparently no one’s ever ready or not terrified.”

  Online. She’d had to look for comfort online because I couldn’t fucking deal with myself.

  “I’ll try,” I said. “For you. For the baby, I’ll try. But I’m not going to pretend I’m not scared.”

  Sandra nodded and wrapped her arms around my neck. She brought her lips to mine, hovering so close, the scent of her lavender shampoo wafted between us. “It’s okay, Ben. Let’s be scared together.”

  I nodded, a sense o
f determination building up within me. We could do this. We’d make a plan and see it through. Just like football. Just like college. Just like everything we’d ever tried doing before.

  “Promise me one thing, though?” she asked.

  “Anything.”

  “Don’t try passing the baby like a football to anyone right away,” she said, grinning from ear to ear. “I think you’ll be limited to sitting with it after today.”

  Shock coursed through me. I’d never.

  Sandra tapped the back of my head. “Joke, you idiot. It was a joke.”

  Chapter 6

  One week later…

  It was easier to accept my powers after coming to terms with Sandra’s pregnancy. It’d only been a week and, luckily, all the crap from losing the game of the season had already died down a ton.

  Instead of football practice every day after classes—since I was likely off the team and totally cut off from the pro draft anyway—I drove out of town with Rachel to a secluded park. No one ever hiked out here this late in the day in the near-winter, so we were alone. And even in the dark, many days spent playing in this park as kids had taught us the way around, even if we were blindfolded.

  We now stood by the stream that ran through the park, masked by the tree line overhead. Rachel had one foot in the water and one out, holding her hands above it as though striking some sort of yoga pose.

  “I can feel it,” she said, her eyes closed. “The water is right there and there’s this connection to it, but this is easier with stationary water bodies.”

  Made sense. She wasn’t only battling against the unnaturalness of having power over water, but here, she fought against mother nature as well. As for me, I barely got more than sparks between my fingers, even when Rachel said enough things to make me pissed off that I should have produced my lightning.

  “Keep trying,” I told her. “We’ll get a hang on these powers someday soon.”

  Rachel dropped her hands to her sides and turned to me, the sunset’s dying light shining on her face. “Why? What’s the point of all of this?”