Here & Now

by Melyssa Winchester

  It wasn’t a dream, she’s really here.

  It’s not her that I’m thinking about now though as I just lie here and watch her back rise and fall with the sound of her breath as she’s sleeping so soundly. It’s the other reality I’m facing.

  Life without football.

  I knew the second I told them I wanted the surgery that when I came out of it, this was going to be the end for me. At the time I was so out of it that it seemed okay and I didn’t feel the pangs of regret I was expecting to, but now is a completely different story. In telling them to go ahead and fix my leg, I’ve most likely given up on the only dream I’ve ever really had.

  The only life I could ever imagine myself having.

  At least that’s how it is until I look down and see Cadence. If it wasn’t for her, I can’t say I’d have much of a life to live at all. She faced down a man three or four times her size a year ago and this time, she faced down drugs. Never giving up, never walking away even though her heart would be ten times safer if she did.

  Making her my life now, it seems wrong, like it’s too much pressure, but with nothing else to fall back on, it’s where my head goes and my heart doesn’t take long to follow. I’ve been calling this girl my world for a year. If she can be something as huge as that, being my life should be a walk in the park.

  Football was never supposed to be where I ended up. It was what I chose as a kid because I knew it would piss Bruce off the most. He was never enthused about football because he knew that I was at risk for serious injury and that just wasn’t allowed. If it wasn’t the fights he threw me into that killed me, nothing else was allowed to either.

  I did all of that to spite him, but quickly came to love it. I scoured books on it, went in search of old players to talk to and learn from, absorbing every single thing about it until I was literally eating it, sleeping it and breathing it. I let it consume me so much that I even risked my own life, both alone and with Cadence. Ryder was wrong. I’m a junkie alright, but not for the shit I was taking.

  For football.

  It’s the one thing that gave me purpose, made me feel something other than total loathing and disgust and now, with my leg in a cast for the foreseeable future, my future in the sport and in general so unclear, I don’t know what to do with myself. How I’m supposed to go on from here and what the hell I’m gonna do with my life.

  Sports Medicine. Trainer. Coach.

  Three things a tutor who barely knows me thinks I have it in me to be. Three things that with everything that’s happened now, I need to seriously start giving thought to.

  Isaac was right.

  “You’re awake.”

  Her voice, even when it’s riddled with sleep, is still sexy and like music to my ears. I may have lost football and that loss might sting for a while, but I know one that would hurt a hell of a lot worse and I’m determined now that she’s here with me, to hold onto her, and never take her or the love she has for me for granted.

  No more mistakes with us. It’s time for me to start really making things right. Perfect. The way Cadence deserves them to be.

  It’s time for me to step up and be a man. An adult instead of a moronic kid.

  “I am.”

  “How long have you been watching me drool all over your blanket?”

  “About a half hour. Did you know you’re gorgeous even with a line of spit falling from your mouth?”

  I laugh as her hand flies up to her face, wiping at it even though there’s nothing there and the second she realizes that I’m kidding, she smacks me.

  “That’s just mean…and untrue.”

  Reaching over and grabbing the call button, her eyes go wide and she reaches out to stop me.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Calling the nurse. I need to get a mirror in here because someone obviously needs to see that I’m telling the truth.” When she laughs again as I stick my tongue out, I take the chance and pull her across the bed until our lips are touching. I don’t care about my leg or the weight right now. All I care about is feeling her again, even if it’s the last damn thing I deserve.

  “Thank you for being here.” I murmur when she breaks the kiss and pulls back to look at me. Seeing her now, I’m getting a full view of what the last few hours have been like on her. Her eyes look tired, along with the dried tear stains she missed when she obviously tried to wipe at them, judging by the streak lines present. Her body doesn’t show any signs of strain, but I’ve got no doubt it’s been under attack with worry too.

  My stupidity really put her through hell.

  “Dill…”

  “Shush,” I start, somehow knowing what she’s going to say and not wanting her to finish. If we’re about to get into everything I did, there’s some things I need to get out first. “I’m an idiot, Cadence.”

  “No you’re n—”

  “Yes I am.” I state, again interrupting her. It might be an asshole move, not letting her finish a sentence, but I’m not going to sit here and let her tell me that the shit I pulled, lying, hiding and then exploding on her wasn’t anything but one hundred percent wrong. She deserves better than that.

  “What happened? I thought things were okay. What changed?”

  “Things weren’t okay, Caddy. They haven’t been okay for a while, but that’s because I was too stupid to admit I needed help. That things were screwed up and I didn’t know what to do. I was too afraid to admit I was weak.”

  “You weren’t weak.”

  “Yes, I was.” I repeat. If my best friend can freak the fuck out in front of a campus full of people and own his shit afterward, I can do it too. I deserve it even more than Kayden anyway. “I spent the last five years buying into the whole my body is a temple thing and not tainting it and what did I go and do? Take shit that did more than just taint me. It could have killed me.”

  “Dill—”

  “Let me finish okay?” I ask and when she nods, I don’t waste time. “Even worse, I hid it from you. Instead of coming to you the way a man does and admitting that I was struggling to keep up, that I thought I was failing, letting everyone down; I was weak and did the most reckless thing I could.”

  “It was stupid and wrong and could have cost me the one thing that matters.”

  “Dill, it did cost you what matters.”

  No way. She can’t mean that. There’s no way she would be in here with me right now if I lost her. Or would she be? I know she’s a good person, does the right thing, makes the right choices most of the time, I mean shit, that’s a lot of what I love about her but she can’t possibly be here to end things.

  “Caddy…”

  “What?”

  “Are you done with me? Cutting your losses? Finally realizing what a piece of shit I am?”

  The tightness in my chest on the field when I was in and out of consciousness, it’s nothing compared to the searing pain that’s there now. Even thinking about this is threatening to break me in half. She’s the better part of me. She’s the only one who sees me. Hears me. Gets the gigantic mess that I am. I can’t lose her. No way.

  I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure that doesn’t happen.

  “What?” she exclaims before launching herself onto the bed, leaning her body down hard and jumping back when she feels me cry out from the pain. “I’m sorry!”

  “It’s okay. Maybe you can move a little slower? I choke out, trying to swallow down the sharp pain shooting straight up through me, even now attempting to be anything but weak.

  She does what I suggest and moves herself back up onto the bed, slipping herself around me in a way that keeps all pressure off my injured leg, but into a shape that looks anything but comfortable for her. Her eyes are now deadlocked on mine, her face scrunched and serious, but her sadness written all over her lips. Sadness I caused.

  “Why do you think I’m ending it?”

  “What you said. Losing the one thing that matters to me would be losing you and what we have. You said I did.”


  “Football, not you.” She says with a sigh, finally understanding what I mean. “Never you.”

  There’s not a seed of doubt from her, she’s secure in her answer and I have no idea what to do with it. Of course it’s what I want to hear, but if she wanted to get up right now and leave the room because I lied to her, she’d have every right. No matter how much I would hate being alone.

  “You don’t believe me, do you?”

  “I believe you, I just can’t believe it.” I admit. “After everything…what I said and the things I did and kept from you, how have I not lost you?”

  “Because despite everything you did and said, and how strongly I felt and still feel about how wrong it is, we’ve got something more powerful then all of it.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Love, Dill. We have love. The messy, no holds barred, completely unbreakable kind. That even when we’re at our ugliest; the absolute bleakest we’ve ever been, keeps our hearts beating. Do you remember the letter you wrote me last year?”

  I could be completely blitzed out of my mind and remember the letter I wrote her last year. The things I admitted, both about my past and the way I felt about her then. I’m pretty sure I could lose every single memory I have and that letter would still be there, that’s how much it meant to me.

  “What about it?”

  “Do you remember what my mom told you when we broke up?”

  “Love isn’t about trying, failing and giving up because it didn’t work out the way you wanted it to. It’s continuing to try despite it.”

  She smiles at me when I’m done repeating Sarah’s words back and it’s crystal clear. It’s like we’re right back at the beginning again and even though just like last time, I’m the one screwing everything up, there’s no denying the validity in the statement. Everything is coming full circle right now and Cadence is living proof of it.

  Staying with me after everything, both last year and now, she’s proving her mother’s words true. She’s also proving what she said about love being more powerful true too. If it can defeat me being a bully, take on the effects of the drugs, and the lies I told to hide it all from her, it can defeat anything.

  What we have, it conquers it all.

  “I love you Dillon and nothing is ever going to change that, but I do think that if this is going to work, we both need to do things differently.”

  “Different how?”

  “You’ve got to stop thinking you’re alone, because you’re not. Whatever you’re dealing with, I’m dealing with too. It’s what couples do. I know that you’re used to keeping everything inside and being the strong one, but sometimes, it’s okay to admit you’re weak and to ask someone else to handle the heaviness for a while. I love that you want to keep me safe and sheltered from all of your issues, but all that does is push me away. Let me be the strong one for once.”

  “You already are. You always have been.”

  “If that’s true then put your money where your mouth is, Murphy.”

  Laughing the second I hear her laugh and the crooked little grin that climbs across her face, I give in to it. To her. Whatever she wants and needs me to do, I’ll do because she’s right. I need to trust in her to handle all of me, the same way she trusts in me.

  It’s not about weak or strong. Bruce’s words no longer get a say. They shouldn’t have been allowed to have a say this long. The beginning I had with Cadence last year, the one that wasn’t supposed to have an end, it has to end, because after everything we’ve been through the last couple of days, let alone weeks and months, it demands a fresh start.

  A new beginning and one that has a definitive end. Her and I together, stronger than ever.

  “How exactly do I do that, Taylor?”

  “Do something with me.”

  “Are you being vague on purpose or is my confusion a turn on?”

  “It might be a turn on, but I’ll never tell.” She says with a wink before turning serious again. “I want to take you with me and talk to someone.”

  “And this mysterious someone is?”

  “Pam, my therapist. What you did with the pills and what you’ve always done, taking everything on yourself, people pleasing, doing what’s better for everyone but you, I think it might help if you had someone to talk to about it.”

  “Can’t I just talk to you?”

  “You’ve had a year to do that and it took you passing out in the middle of a game to do it.”

  She makes a good point. I have had the ability to open up to her for a year now and chosen to keep silent because I didn’t want to burden her. It’s a plan that completely backfired.

  I’m just now sure how I feel about going to see a shrink, even if she does know Caddy. If I can’t even open up to my girlfriend about how serious a problem I’ve got, how am I gonna do it with a stranger?

  “I don’t know. Going into an office alone and unloading all my shit on a stranger? Isn’t there another way I can start fixing this?”

  “You didn’t hear me.”

  “I always hear you.” I disagree, sliding my arm up until I’ve got my hand over my heart in an effort to prove it. “I hear you in here. Always. Every single second.”

  “No, Dillon, that’s not what I mean. I mean you literally didn’t hear me.”

  “Okay, I’m confused.”

  “Of course you are.” She laughs and I can’t help joining in because she’s absolutely right.

  “You wanna clear it up?”

  “I said I wanted you to do something with me. Not alone. If we’re going to do this, we’re doing it together. As long as you’re willing, you’re never going to have to do anything alone again.”

  Hearing her loud and clear, both literally and figuratively, I return her soft smile with a bright one of my own.

  “So, when do we start?”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Dillon

  This is too much.

  I know that I told Cadence I could do this earlier when we talked about it, but being here now, the reminders of the past it brings up, along with the bad taste it leaves in my mouth, it’s so stifling and heavy that I’m beginning to regret even coming at all.

  Ever since I got released from the hospital and had to adjust to being back at the apartment with the cast on my leg and crutches to get me around, everything has been an adjustment. It’s like I’m not just trying to start over with Cadence, build something stronger and better than we had before, but also doing the same damn thing with myself.

  When the depression came over the realization that I probably wouldn’t ever play football again, I’d been ready for it. The highs and lows; feeling useless, the emptiness inside at not really having a purpose anymore. It flooded me. Wave after wave of it, hitting me full throttle until I just wanted to scream out for someone to make it stop.

  And I did, more than a few times and every single time, she was there to bring me back, just the way she promised.

  She couldn’t be here with me for this, though. This was something I was going to have to face alone.

  I’ve finally come to terms with walking away from football, but it doesn’t stop the lump from growing in my throat as I make my way down through the lockers to Coach’s office. Whatever his reason is for wanting me here, I’ve got no clue, but being surrounded by everything I held so close, idolized so strongly and knowing that there’s no going back, it’s a bitter pill to swallow.

  There’s a lot of what ifs. What if I had gotten my knee looked at sooner, would I still have been able to play? What if I had never taken that first enhancer? Would this be the way my life turned out? Question after question floods my mind with each step I take until I’m so lost in them that I almost walk clear into the closed door in front of me.

  Lifting my hand and knocking, I hear the familiar voice bark out a response and make my way in, keeping myself close to the door should I need to make a hasty exit and a move that once he looks up and catches it, earns me a laugh.

  “You
’ve been playing for me for months and never once in that time, no matter how bad I went off on you, have you ever looked as scared as you do right now. Make yourself at home, boy.”

  Motioning to the chair across from him, a seat that only a little over a month or so ago, I’d been sitting in while he went off about my shitty performance on the field, he waits until I’m comfortable and as per his usual, gets right down to business.

  “I’m assuming you talked to Kane and that’s why you’re here now.”

  “Well, I’ve talked to him, but no, he’s not the reason I’m here.”

  “So it was the young lady that told you to come was it?”

  Hearing him refer to Cadence as the young lady makes me laugh. I’m sure after everything she told me about what happened while I was in surgery, he’s got a few other names for her that aren’t quite as polite, but I’m glad he’s choosing not to voice them. I might be doing everything in my power to set things right again with us, but I’m still the same asshole underneath.

  You talk shit about my girl and I can’t be held responsible for what happens to you when you’re done.

  “Yeah, Caddy told me that you wanted to see me when I was up to it.”

  “Good. I’m glad.”

  “So why did you want me to come by? I mean you gotta know by now I don’t think I’ll be playing for you again, so not sure what else we might have to talk about.”

  “Do you remember what I told you a few weeks back?”

  “You said a lot of stuff back then, Coach.”

  “You’re an asset to this team. That ringing any bells in your head?”

  “Yeah, okay. What about it?”

  “I’ve been doing some thinking. Ryder came to me a couple weeks back about what happened with you. He filled me in about Mark and I guess before I get down to the real reason I wanted to see you, I should tell you that he’s been dealt with.”

  “Dealt with how?”

  “He’s gone. Fired. Out of here. What happened with you, even though it’s on you both, started with him. I think the choices you made were stupid and reckless, but I’m not entirely sure it would have gone down the same way had he not made the options available to you.”