Forgiving the Football Player

by Emma St Clair

  Or maybe her feelings for him had died years ago and Pax needed to read the memo.

  “Have your parents changed much?” When Cilla spoke about them earlier, she had sounded so bitter. Back in the day, Pax had been the only real point of contention between them. With him gone, Pax couldn’t imagine what would change their relationship.

  “You could say that.”

  Pax waited for more, but she didn’t offer any explanation. He could see the muscles in her arms flexing where she held the wheel. Knowing there was tension between her and her parents didn’t ease his nerves. Not a bit.

  “And you’re sure they want me to come to dinner?”

  Cilla laughed, a harsh and humorless bark. “Oh yeah.”

  Pax couldn’t imagine why. Unless they wanted another chance to tell him that the accident was all his fault. Those were her father’s last words to Pax in the hospital, just before he left.

  His stomach lurched. Sweat beaded at his hairline. It was suddenly difficult to breathe.

  “Pull over,” Pax said, gripping the door handle.

  Cilla steered towards a church parking lot. As soon as the car stopped, Pax jumped out and threw up a few parking spaces away. After a few moments, there was nothing left. He spit a few times on the concrete before turning back to the car. He sank into the seat and closed the door, leaning back against the headrest.

  “Here.”

  Pax opened his eyes to see Cilla holding out a bunch of napkins in one hand and a piece of gum in the other. Her face was carefully blank, a piece of stationary with no note.

  “Thank you.” Pax wiped his mouth, stuffing the napkins into the small bag for trash hanging from the console. The mint eased the sour taste and settled his stomach.

  “Was it the jerky?” she asked, pulling back onto the road.

  “No. Nerves.”

  “You still do that, huh?”

  “Yep.” He had always thrown up before his games. He figured that one day it would stop, but it was the one pre-game ritual he couldn’t avoid. No matter how much he wished he could. “The guys give me grief.”

  “It shows that things matter to you. I mean, it’s disgusting. But I respect it.”

  Pax didn’t know how to respond, but she didn’t seem to mind his silence. She never had. The quiet between them had a different consistency now, and Pax wished he could measure it to know why.

  Somewhere in the middle of today, things between them shifted. Cilla wasn’t trying to push his buttons anymore. She wasn’t trying to make him angry or punishing him. They felt like a team. Not quite like a couple. But more than two people separated by a landscape of pain and regret.

  They pulled up to the massive gates at the front of the property. Cilla punched in the code and the wrought iron gate swung open. She didn’t wait for it to fully open, but drove in, nudging it along with her front bumper.

  “Hey, now,” Pax said, shifting in his seat.

  “What? We can buy another one.”

  Another gate or another car? He wasn’t sure. But the Worthingtons could probably afford either. Pax clamped his lips shut as Cilla drove into one of the garage bays. There were five. He had forgotten how stifling their wealth felt to someone like him, who had grown up in a house smaller than this garage space. Pax had a good contract, but he wasn’t anywhere near her Dad’s portfolio.

  The door to the house opened before Cilla had finished putting her chair together.

  “Pax!”

  His jaw dropped as Cilla’s mother rushed down the ramp from the house to the garage. Not one time before had they ever called him by his nickname. Cilla always joked that it was because Paxton sounded like it belonged to some prep school boy. Before he could move, she threw her arms around him.

  What was going on?

  He awkwardly patted her back as she clutched him. “Hello, Mrs. Worthington. Good to see you.”

  She laughed and pulled back, keeping a tight grip on his biceps. “It’s just Suzette,” she said. “You look wonderful. Well, except for this shiner. Do you need any ice? Medicine?”

  “He’s fine, Mother.”

  If Pax had been had been unprepared for such an enthusiastic greeting from her mother, he was totally shocked by Cilla’s cold tone of voice. Without looking at either of them, she rolled up the ramp and into the house.

  Confusion set into his features as Mrs. Worthington grabbed his arm to keep him from following. She put a finger to her lips and watched until Cilla had disappeared into the house. Tears appeared in her eyes.

  “Oh, Pax. We are just so sorry. For everything. We couldn’t possibly do anything to make up for how we treated you. Can you possibly forgive us?”

  His chest constricted. First Jazz, and now Cilla’s mom? He had not once ever dreamed of this moment. Somehow, Pax felt as though their beliefs about him had all been confirmed the night of the accident. He wouldn’t have thought they needed to ask for forgiveness. He hadn’t ever even considered it. And definitely hadn’t earned it.

  “I don’t know that I need to—”

  “Yes. You do. We did something horrible. And Cilla—”

  The tears that had been pooling in her eyes spilled over. Pax felt completely out of his depth. He felt like he had been thrown into some elaborate movie plot but not been given the script.

  Mrs. Worthington pressed her lips together, breathed slowly through her nose, then spoke again. “Her anger is destroying her.”

  Pax looked down. “She has every right to be angry with me. And I don’t know what to do about it.”

  When Mrs. Worthington touched his cheek, Pax looked up. Her eyes looked fierce.

  “I don’t mean with you. She’s angry with us. Yes, there’s some anger toward you for leaving, sure.” She waved a hand dismissively. “But Jim told her the truth about why you left. She’s hated us ever since that night. I don’t need her to forgive me. I would love nothing more than to restore our relationship. But for her sake. It’s eating her alive inside and I don’t think she’ll ever get better if you can’t help her.”

  “Me?”

  The weight of this burden seemed so much heavier than the ones he already carried.

  He couldn’t believe that Cilla knew. He never would have thought that her father would have confessed that he told Pax to go. He remembered the flash of anger in Mr. Worthington’s eyes at the hospital and the way his gaze always slid right over Pax, like he didn’t matter or didn’t even exist.

  His stomach churned again. He didn’t really know what Mrs. Worthington was asking, or what she thought he could do about Cilla’s anger. Was this apology for both Cilla’s parents? Or just from her mother?

  “Y’all coming?” Cilla’s voice carried out from somewhere in the house.

  “We better go in,” Mrs. Worthington said. “And if she thinks you’re siding with us, she’ll go right back to being mad at you. This conversation never happened.”

  But Cilla was too smart to think that Pax and her mother were just catching up in the garage. His stomach fell, wondering how it was possible for him to be dreading this meal more than he already had been.

  Dinner was worse than he could have imagined, which was saying something. Mr. Worthington focused on Pax’s stats and football talk until Cilla made a choking sound. He hadn’t spoken since. Mrs. Worthington filled the void talking about the various Christmas events she was helping with. Cilla spoke little, but when she did, it was with a sickening sweet tone that was overtly sarcastic. She managed to be combative about everything, even in asking for her father to pass the butter.

  It was a side of her Pax had never seen and couldn’t have imagined. The ocean of guilt only widened as the night went on, threatening to drown him.

  Mrs. Worthington kept shooting him pleading looks and Cilla noticed each one, giving his hand a squeeze under the table each time. Earlier in the day, this would have been a reminder that they were in this together, as they had been with his mama.

  But these squeezes were not that. It
felt instead as though each one silently signaled him that the jig was up. He wished he could have just enjoyed her touch, but the whole situation felt like a bomb about to go off.

  “So, tell us how you two got back in touch, Pax,” Mrs. Worthington said.

  Cilla’s fingernails bit into his palm.

  “Uh, I was in town to help with Wheels Up.”

  “And that’s where you two reconnected?” Her tone clearly conveyed that she had seen the articles and assumed they were back together.

  They hadn’t talked about their story and how to play it in front of her parents. Pax glanced at Cilla to see her roll her eyes.

  “It’s fake, obviously.”

  Pax’s jaw dropped, and Cilla’s mother gasped. Her father wiped his face with a cloth napkin and shot glares at both of them. If Cilla hadn’t been holding him hostage with her grip, Pax might have fled.

  “What do you mean?” her mother finally managed.

  Cilla nodded toward Pax, then back to herself. “He had a PR problem. I wanted attention for the charity. Pretending to be a couple made sense. We’re doing an interview tomorrow if you want to hear the fake details. Are we having dessert?”

  Mrs. Worthington began to cry. Pax managed to pull his hand from Cilla’s and stood. “Excuse me.”

  With long strides, he made his way to the guest bathroom. It had been redone, but he couldn’t remember what color it had been before. He could only see that now it was different. Gripping the counter, Pax bent down until he could press his cheek into the cool marble.

  He had never felt so lost.

  What was he doing here? What did Cilla really want?

  How could they ever put this behind them?

  Cilla’s anger soaked through her to the bone. He hadn’t realized the depth of it until tonight and he agreed with her mother: it was eating her alive, rotting her inside. It had clogged the air in the house, filling it with poison.

  But for the life of him, Pax didn’t know what to do about it. He did know that he couldn’t fix her. Elton seemed to think he could. So did Mrs. Worthington. Why were they all putting this on him? Cilla’s words she spoke just the night before echoed in his mind. She didn’t want to be fixed or to feel like she needed that.

  He couldn’t, but there was a time when he believed in a God who could fix hearts. It had been a long time since he’d thought about that. He no longer held his faith tentatively, awed by a God who could forgive people who were constantly messing things up. Since the accident, he had let his faith just slide right out of his hands. Not an active running, but a gentle letting go.

  There was a knock at the bathroom door. Pax opened it, expecting Cilla, and found Mrs. Worthington instead. Her attempt at a smile didn’t match with the way she was wringing her hands.

  “Everything okay?” he asked.

  “Yes. Well.” She paused, licking her lips. “She left.”

  “What?”

  “Priscilla left. Jim’s going to give you a ride to wherever you’re staying.”

  “Actually, I left my car at Wheels Up,” Pax said.

  “Wherever you need to go. He’ll take you.”

  Pax followed Cilla’s mother through the house, halfway expecting her to be wrong. But Cilla was indeed gone, and Mr. Worthington waited in the kitchen, twirling his keys around a finger while he waited. When Pax walked in, he nodded to him. “Ready?”

  Letting Cilla’s father drive him back to his car made Pax feel like he’d been transported back to high school. Not that Mr. Worthington would have ever given him a ride anywhere back then. But around Mr. Worthington, Pax felt like a child. He had even started to get in the back seat until Mr. Worthington gave him a pointed look. Pax tried to find something to do with his hands.

  “You’re staying with the Boyd’s?”

  “I am.”

  “Shame about their folks. Those boys doing okay?”

  Pax guessed Mr. Worthington didn’t know about the fight nights. “They are. It was a hard loss.”

  The words felt cheap, though they were true. Maybe because they were making small talk, breaking up the awkward silence that quickly returned.

  Where had Cilla gone? Pax remembered how she used to drive when she got upset. He had rarely seen her cry and suspected she did most of it behind the wheel of a car. Was that still true?

  His heart had been wrung out several times over with the emotional highs and lows of the day. This morning, Cilla had been essentially parading him in front of her whole office like a trophy she’d won, enjoying every bit of his discomfort. At his mama’s, they’d been a united front. Then there was the kiss, the emu jerky, and the almost-hand-hold. Only to have Cilla whip around a hundred-and-eighty degrees into a dark new direction.

  They had an interview tomorrow with the press. Someone that Lawrence set up. Which Cilla would he get? The one brimming with anger? The one taking joy from punishing him? Or the one who squeezed his hand and reminded him they were in it together?

  Mr. Worthington sighed. “If I’d known then what I know now, I never would have told you to leave.”

  The statement hit Pax like a fist to the jaw. He couldn’t even formulate a response. Mr. Worthington kept talking, as though his own words had been released from a dam.

  “We were wrong to judge you based on your family. On our preconceived notions of you. We didn’t realize what you meant to our daughter. And what it would do to her when you left. It tore her apart. And it tore us all apart.”

  Before this week, Pax had thought the guilt and shame eating at him were as much as he could bear. He was wrong.

  During a game some years back, Pax found himself at the bottom of a massive dogpile. He still remembered the pressure on his rib cage and the way air squeezed right out of his lungs. The pressure of so many expectations—Mr. and Mrs. Worthington’s, Elton’s, Easton’s, Cilla’s—all sat square on the center of his chest.

  What did any of them think that he could do for Cilla?

  “She may tell you that it’s fake, but Cilla never stopped loving you. I think it’s love that’s feeding her anger, in a twisted way. I can see that same look in your eyes, son.”

  Son.

  Mr. Worthington tossed out that three-letter-word as though it were nothing. Pax had heard this term, tossed casually from the lips of coaches over the years. It always pierced straight through to the marrow in his bones. He may have had a biological father, but Pax had never been anyone’s son. But Mr. Worthington said it with an affection that made his gut clench. That word alone held a wistfulness. An unspoken wish.

  Mr. Worthington pulled into the parking lot at Wheels Up. He let the car idle, turning to look Pax in the face. “Don’t let her push you away. She needs you. Even if she’ll die before admitting it.”

  “Okay.” Pax got out of the car. As he watched the taillights disappear, Pax thought about how that one word carried the weight of some promise he didn’t know that he could ever fulfill.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Cilla ended up at Adele’s little house in Old Katy. She thought about calling or texting. Whenever I stop crying, I’ll call. But the tears didn’t slow. Once the loud, ungracious sobbing noises did, Cilla simply parked in Adele’s driveway and knocked at the door.

  One of the first things Adele did when she moved into the space was have Easton build a ramp up the small porch, plus a few other accessibility updates. She suspected Adele wanted her to move in, but for reasons she hadn’t wanted to examine too closely, Cilla couldn’t leave home. Couldn’t, or wouldn’t.

  “Adele!” She rapped her knuckles on the door. Fixing the broken doorbell had not made the cut when she updated the small craftsman-style home.

  Adele was tightening the belt on a silk robe when she opened the door. Her eyes widened. “Cilla? Are you okay?”

  “I’m just peachy. These are tears of joy, Adele. Can’t you tell?”

  Pulling the door open wider, Adele stepped aside and waved Cilla in. “You don’t have to be sarcastic.
You’re clearly not okay. I’m just … surprised to see you like this.”

  “Like what? A complete hot mess? Newsflash! I’ve been a hot mess this whole time and not one person has noticed because of this stupid chair.” She wheeled into the wide-open living area, coming to stop in the space between Adele’s sofa and favorite armchair. She slapped a wheel with her palm. “They see this, and they say, ‘Oh, you must be so brave!’ and ‘Bless your heart!’ and assume that I’m some angel because I can’t use my stupid legs. Well, I’m not an angel. I’m not brave. I am simply terrified.”

  Adele sat down on the couch and handed Cilla a box of tissues that she hadn’t realized she needed. She blew her nose and wiped her cheeks. Then realized she hadn’t quite finished her tirade.

  “I’m also angry. I am so angry with Pax for leaving me. Who does that? What kind of man does that?”

  “I thought your father—”

  “I don’t care what my father said! A real man would have stayed! And my father should never have told him to go. I will never forgive him for that. My mother either, just by association. I’m angry with them all.”

  Adele put a pillow in her lap and began picking at the fuzzy tassel in the corner. “That’s a lot to unpack.”

  Cilla threw her hands in the air. She was yelling now and didn’t even care. “I don’t want to unpack it! That’s the thing! I’ve been fine living like this for the past six years. Doing my thing. Adjusting. Succeeding. Moving on.”

  Adele’s brow furrowed, and she lifted a hand, palm out. “Let me stop you right there. You have not been fine. And at no point whatsoever did you move on. Maybe strangers don’t see through you, but everyone who loves you sees that you’re not fine. This isn’t some big secret. We know. You’ve been rotting with your anger from the inside out for the past six years, and it’s killing you. I know this hurts. I can’t imagine how bad. But maybe this is a good thing.”

  “How is any of this good? Where’s the silver lining here?” Cilla spread her arms wide. “Show me! I want to see it.”

  “You’re not going to push me away, Cilla. No matter how loud you yell.”