Luc glances out at the field longingly, then back to the rocks at his feet. “I don’t want to play on a team with Zane, and to a lesser extent, Scott. Yeah, I get that I’m stronger than him and better and all that stuff you say I am, but he’s never going to like me. I just want football it to be fun, and not something I have to be looking over my shoulder wondering where he is all the time. If I’m going to be on a team, I want to be part of the team, not the outcast player, you know?”
I consider his words, then nod. “Yeah. I see your point. It’s not fair, though.” I glance out through the gaps in the bleachers and watch the players on the field. “You should be out there, Luc. You belong there.”
“Maybe next year,” he says with a noticeable amount of sorrow in his voice.
“Yeah. Bet you end up as captain.”
We stand together for several minutes, watching the field, then Luc breaks the silence.
“Ry?”
“What?”
“You remember everything about your past, now, don’t you?”
“I think so. If there are any missing pieces, I don’t remember them.”
He smiles at my joke, but it fades soon and he says, “How do I keep from becoming you? If I start playing ball and I’m made captain, and . . . I just don’t want to end up at the bottom of the cliff.”
I study the complete seriousness in his eyes, then shake my head. “You won’t, Luc, because you weren’t born on top like I was. I know that sounds conceited, but it’s not. It’s a curse, and it was true. I was the “it” child.
“Everything I wanted, I had. Everything I wanted to be, I already was. I couldn’t climb any higher, because everyone, including myself, considered me already there. I had nowhere to go except down, and I was scared as hell to go there.”
Luc is doing more than just looking at me. He’s looking in me and it feels good to have someone who wants to understand me on the type of level Luc seems to want to right now, so I keep talking.
“I was getting very bored with the only thing that defined me. Football. I know Dad brags about how hard I worked to get where I was with it, but I didn’t. Football was like everything else in my life, it just came so damn easy. I didn’t have to try. When I threw a football, it just went where I wanted it to go, and that was that.” I shrug with the simplicity of it. “I never had to work to be good at it, or anything else, for that matter. It’s hard to be proud of yourself for your successes when they just fall in your lap.
“I don’t know, Luc, I mean, people all around the world complain by the second about how rough they have life, but try living with no challenges. No goals. Nothing to reach for. Nothing to want.”
His eyes narrow in thought, and I applaud him for trying, but how does someone really understand that unless they’ve lived it?
“I had all this crazy energy inside that I needed to put to use, but there was nowhere to apply it. I felt trapped inside my own self and that’s a freaky place to be trapped, because there’s no way to escape. I took what I was feeling out on the people around me. Especially you. I was jealous of you with your normal life, and Mom and Dad ignoring you. Damn, what I would have given to be ignored. I guess I wanted to make you as miserable as I was so that I didn’t have to feel so alone.
“You remember at the start of the school year, last year, when I had you pinned to the bathroom floor, beating the shit out of you, and Zane and Scott and a few other people were standing around laughing?”
It’s clear Luc doesn’t want to remember it, but he does, so he nods ever so slightly.
“I was sitting on top of you, driving my fist into you and your eyes got all watery. Everyone thought it was so funny that I had made you cry, but . . .” I pause because it’s getting hard to breathe. It takes me a moment to get hold of my emotions before I can finish. “When your first silent tear fell, it dawned on me what I was doing to you. It hit me so hard I was sick. I remember thinking I was glad I was in the bathroom because I was going to puke.
“But I didn’t stop hitting you, because everyone was there. Everyone was watching and thinking I was such hot shit.
“I loathed myself for that, Luc. I was unbelievably disgusted with myself. You’ll never understand how badly I felt.”
He lowers his eyes to the pebbles again, then puts his hands in the pockets of his jacket. “I might,” he sort of mutters. “I was miserable after kicking your leg. I was scared that you weren’t going to be alright. After all you’d already been through, too. I was scared Dad was going to kill me. I didn’t even dare go home. I went to Jake’s and stayed there all weekend.” He adds the word, crying, quietly, but I hear him say it.
“Imagine feeling that way every day. I did. Every time I treated you, or someone else badly I hated myself even more. I knew what I was doing was wrong, but I didn’t have the guts to go against the monster I’d created and put a stop to it. I couldn’t put my foot down and say, enough is enough, because I was afraid of being mocked or worse, disliked by my friends.
“It’s so F–ing stupid, Luc. I let myself be owned by people that I now realize weren’t even my friends at all. They’re cheaters and liars. Users and abusers. I was their king, but also their biggest victim and I willingly allowed myself to be.
“I should have never cared what they thought of me. I should have only cared what I thought of myself. And, Luc, I’m telling you, it got really bad. The self-hatred, I mean.” I shake my head as I recall.
Luc studies me, then says, “I noticed. That was when you got a lot meaner at school, but a lot quieter at home. Looking back, I’m guessing you were depressed.”
“Severely,” I nod. “I should have gotten some help, but how do you ask for that type of thing? Mom, I need a Gretta, ASAP. I was too cool for that.”
“Dad noticed, too.”
“Yeah,” I say with a painful smile. “And his idea of helping was more football. Watch a game with the boy. Send him off to training. That’ll fix it all. I hated that I was too big of a coward to tell him I didn’t want to play ball anymore. I hated that I was too afraid of what my life would be like, without football, to even try anything new. Like art. I mean, who knew?
“It was all sucking the life out of me. I didn’t know how to fix, or change what was wrong with me. It literally took erasing who I was from my memory, in order to become who I wanted to be.”
Luc smiles easily. “So, you ever going to grow a pair and tell him?”
“No. I’m going to wait until it builds, and builds, and builds – until I can’t take it anymore and I borrow his car and . . .”
“Whatever,” he rolls his eyes and I smile.
“Yeah, I’m going to tell him. Someday.”
“Someday soon?”
“Just someday.” I smile. “Anyway, Luc, I don’t think you’ll ever end up over the cliff. You’re ten times the guy I was. You have good friends and you’re a good person. You have every reason in the world to like yourself. And if you ever don’t, you have me to talk to about it, because I get it. I understand.
“I need to thank you for forgiving me, Luc. I was an evil bastard to you and you don’t owe me forgiveness of any type. Yet, here you are, being cool with me. You’re amazing.”
“Thanks.” He smiles respectfully, then, in the least dorky way possible, we hug. “I’m glad you changed,” he says.
“Me too. I never would have gotten a chance to see this side of you, if I hadn’t.”
I leave Luc watching the players as they practice and I stop in Mrs. Winford’s office before I head home.
“Oh my gosh!” Paige says as she sits down next to me in art class on Tuesday. “You’ll never believe what I just heard out in the hall.”
“What?”
“I heard Zane and Scott got busted smoking pot under the bleachers during lunch. Cops and everything.”
“Hum.”
“Think it’s true?”
Of course it’s true. “It could be, I guess. If it is, that means they’re of
f the team. Can’t play school sports if you use.”
“Well, serves them right,” she says, opening her art-folio. “Oh, hey,” she pauses to glance over at me. “That would mean Luc can play for the team again.”
“Yeah, I guess it would.” I look down at my own paper and suppress a guilty grin.
THIRTY-ONE
It’s more of a tap than a knock, but it pulls my attention to my bedroom door, regardless.
“Come in,” I say from my desk.
It’s Dad. He pushes open my door and leans against the frame. His tie has been unknotted, and a few buttons unfastened, and he has his suit coat hanging over his left shoulder.
“Kind of late to be doing homework isn’t it?” he nods toward the books spread out on my desk.
“Are you just getting off work?”
“Have a big proposal coming up.”
He’s dog tired. I can see it, feel it, and hear it. But there might be something else.
“You alright, Dad?”
“I just saw your light on and was glad I could at least say goodnight to someone.”
Lonely.
“We missed you at dinner.”
“Oh, yeah?” He moves into my room, lays his jacket down, then collapses onto the edge of my bed and leans over his knees and rubs his face. I can hear the coarse sound of the day’s worth of facial hair against his palms. “What did you have to eat?”
“Some noodly stuff.”
I hear him give a single and soft laugh. “Any good?”
“Yeah. But, then, Mom made it, so you can’t expect anything less.”
“Nope. She’s certainly a good cook.” He stops rubbing his face and laces his fingers loosely together and lets them hang over his knees. “So how’s the . . . what is it you’re working on?”
“Science.”
“I always enjoyed science,” he says as if he’s just now remembering that fact. “Majored in it for a while in college. Wanted to be a scientist.”
“Really? Why didn’t you?”
He smiles tiredly. “Hated wearing those lab coats.”
I laugh. “But really, why didn’t you?”
“I don’t know. Met your Mom, fell in love and things just changed. Went into business instead.”
“Was it because she came from a well to do family?”
He studies me for a moment, then says, “Might have been part of it.”
“Bet she would have loved the lab coat just as much as the tie.”
“Probably.”
“Well, thanks for working late, Dad, and for all you’ve provided us with.”
He gives me that, you sure are acting weird, look and this time I know why. Because I never have said anything of the sort to him. I never took the time, in the past, to appreciate what he does.
“You’re welcome, Ryan,” he says when the shock of me thanking him wears off.
“Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“I have something for you.”
“Oh yeah?”
I nod and rise from my desk. I cross in front of him, and sliding my night stand away from the wall, I extract my art book. I remove the thick paper I’ve spent more hours than I can count working on, and hold it out to him.
He doesn’t immediately take it. He looks from my hand, to my book, to my hiding place, and then back at me, before reaching for it. He glances at it, tries to look back up at me, but stops quickly and focuses completely on the paper. “You drew this?”
“Yeah.”
He’s silent, and I watch his eyes scan the details of the drawing. I see them study the field. The white lines and the numbers. Thirty. Twenty. Ten. I see them land on the football that lies at the base of the goal post, and then I see them climb to the score board behind it.
The score is close. Proving it was one hell of a good game, with the home team taking the victory.
Then I see his eyes fill with moisture and his lower lip start to quiver.
I’ve never seen my dad cry before. Maybe he’s just super tired.
“This is . . . remarkably good, Ry,” he whispers and won’t look up at me until after he’s cleared his throat and punched at the space between his eyes. “Where did you get the paper?”
“My girlfriend gave it to me.”
“Tasha?”
“Tasha isn’t my girlfriend, Dad,” I say as gently and respectfully as I can.
His gaze narrows a bit.
“She . . . cheated on me with Zane.”
He doesn’t know what to say. He stares, shocked, at me.
“I walked in on them the night I tried to kill myself.”
“Oh, damn, Ry,” he mutters as if he’s sick to his stomach. “I’m sorry. I . . . had no idea.”
“No one did. They kept it quiet. I was the only one who knew and after I hit my head hard enough to forget, it was easy for them to let me believe it had never happened.”
He’s back to being speechless. He hasn’t broken the hold he has on me with his eyes though. With deep concern, he watches every micro move I make, and he even watches my chest rise and fall.
“I’m okay with it. I’m not contemplating suicide again just because I remember it,” I say and see him release the air he’s been holding. “It hurt like hell that night but, I’m long over it now.”
He nods, but keeps watching me and so I sit down on the bed next to him.
“Do you know that I have to sit down to take my shoes and socks off?” I ask.
His head is turned sideways now, so that he can keep looking at me.
“I can’t stand on my left leg to take my right shoe off. It’s too much pressure and I lose my balance too easily.”
“Yeah, you’re going to have to be patient. That kind of stuff is going to take some time. But I’m sure it will happen.”
“I’m sure it will, but do you know what won’t?”
“What?”
“Football.”
“Oh, you’ll get there. You keep pushing and working and going to PT and . . .”
“I’m not going to play again, Dad,” I cut him off with a whisper.
“If you set your mind to it, you will. The brain is a powerful thing.”
“I have set my mind to it. I’m not going to play again.”
It takes a moment, but I know my words have taken full effect when his face droops and he has to tighten his jaw to keep it from trembling.
“I’m sorry Dad, but I don’t like the sport anymore. I haven’t for several years.”
He has no clue how to process this information. He looks ill. He looks frightened. He looks sad. And why not? The dream is over. Just like that. All he’s worked for. All he’s ever pushed me to do and become. The bond he thought we shared. It’s all gone.
He’s trying like hell to hold it together, but a tear makes it through his barrier. It falls from his eye and lands on the drawing and smudges a spot of the lead I drew it with.
“I . . .” He can’t finish and stops himself.
“I’m sorry,” I say again.
“Why didn’t you tell me before now?”
I shrug. “I was afraid.”
“Of what?” he asks quickly.
I feel a stab of pain in my chest and it chokes me up. “Of you not loving me anymore,” I admit.
“That’s ridiculous. You think the only reason I love you is because of football?”
“I don’t now, but then I . . . It was incredibly hard to see through the vast darkness I had inside of me, Dad.” Now I’m crying, because I can vividly recall the frightening place, and pain, I was once in. I’m not trying to hold back the tears like he is, though. Not worth the headache that always gives me. He’s seen me cry a million times in the last while. Besides, Gretta says it’s not healthy to hold it all inside.
He sets the paper on top of his suit jacket and grabs me around the neck and pulls me against his chest. I close my eyes, let my tears soak into his white shirt and feel his choppy intake of air.
“I’m sorry I l
eft you groping around in that dark alone, Ryan.” He sniffles. “I’m a poor excuse of a father not to have noticed and done something, anything, to give you back some light and hope.”
“You didn’t know how bad it was. How could you have? I hid it. I didn’t want you to know. I’m supposed to be tough, right?”
He’s shaking, and I think half the reason he still has me in a head lock is because he doesn’t want me to see him cry. He’s supposed to be tough, right?
“And you’re not a poor excuse of a father. You’re a good dad. You’ve supported me in whatever I wanted to do.”
“Not everything,” he sniffles again. “Not art. Not Paige. Not the things that matter most to you. I supported you in what I wanted to see you do. I only wanted you to be happy, Ry, but what makes me happy might not be what makes you happy.”
“Dad?” I pull out of his embrace. He’s reluctant to let me go, but does and dabs at the tears in his eyes. I do the same for my own.
“What, Ryan?”
“Lucas likes ball.”
Dad stares somewhat blankly at me.
“He does,” I say.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Of course I do.”
“Do you know how much he likes it?”
He swallows hard as shame surfaces and discreetly he shakes his head.
“He likes it a lot, and he’s extremely good at it. Zane and Scott lost their places on the team earlier this week and Coach has Luc playing. There’s a game Saturday night. We should go.”
The poor guy doesn’t know which way is up anymore. So I explain it with more clarity. “Get behind him, Dad. Get behind him and you’ll have everything from him that you wanted from me, except he’ll want it too.”
As I lay on my bed, staring at the darkness, after Dad leaves, I smile because my pair feels like they’ve finally grown.
THIRTY-TWO
“Hurry up!” Dad calls out.
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