Authors: Jessica Miller
“I’ve just got to go into training a little early,” he said without looking at her. He moved to the dresser drawer. “The manager wants to talk to me about something.”
“Do you . . . do you think he’s going to tell you about your contract?” she asked.
She’d been as worried about this as he had been, if not more. He knew he should tell her, and he would. He just needed to sort it all out in his own head first.
“I don’t know,” he lied. “It could be.”
“Well,” she answered as he finished putting on his pants. “Text me when you find out and let me know. Okay?”
“Yeah,” he answered. He hated lying to her. Really hated it. It was almost as bad as lying to his grandma had been when he was little. He would always feel this guilty knot form in his stomach when he told grandma a lie.
Now, that knot formed for Michelle. Only it seemed ten times more painful.
“Listen babe, I gotta go,” he said grabbing his phone from the bedside table. “I’ll text you as soon as I find out, ok?”
Before he could move the hand carrying his phone to his pocket, her hand jutted out to touch his wrist. He turned to look at her and the knot tightened.
“Whatever happens, we’ll figure it out. Ok?” she said. “I promise it’s nothing we can’t handle.”
She smiled that warm comforting smile at him and the knot in his stomach became so tight he feared it would burst. Unable to speak, he simply nodded before rushing from the room.
He pounded quickly down the steps, rushed to the garage, hopped in his car and began to drive. He had no idea where he was going. He had no idea what he was going to do next.
He had to think. To clear his head. To come up with some kind of plan.
What if he couldn’t get onto another team? His sponsorships would dry up. That meant his money would go. And worst of all, he’d have to give up the only thing he was good at - football.
It was the one thing that had given him an outlet when he was a kid. The one talent he had that had kept him off the streets and saved him from the fate of most of his childhood friends who were either selling dope, in jail or dead. There was nothing else for him. If he couldn’t play, he was no good to anyone.
And, even if he did get on another team, he would have to move away from Michelle. Sure, they could do long distance, but he knew guys who had tried that and it never worked.
So, the only two options he had were to either lose football or lose Michelle.
As hard as he tried, as far as he drove, the decision seemed impossible.
He drove through the city barely noticing his surroundings. Finally, he came to a bar he had favored in his partying days. Two months ago he would have been at this bar every single night. It had been a tonic for all his problems. A remedy for all his fears. He needed that remedy now.
So, silencing Michelle’s voice in the back of his mind, he pulled into the bar’s parking lot. No matter what he ultimately decided, he knew that right now, he was going to get drunk.
*****
It was nearly eleven o’clock that night when Michelle got the call.
She had been fretting all day, constantly checking her phone. He’d promised to text. The fact that he hadn’t told her that the worst might have happened. He might have been kicked off the team.
Then she thought that maybe something worse than that had happened to him. Maybe something had prevented him from calling her.
She tried, as best she could, not to imagine him bleeding out on the highway. She tried not to jump and tremble every time an ambulance passed, but she couldn’t help it.
He always called her when he promised to. The fact that he’d broken his long-held standard told her that something was terribly wrong.
When she finally heard his voice on the other end of the phone. His words slurred and slow, telling her he was in a holding cell, she knew she’d been right.
“Michelle, just call Harry,” he said. “He’ll wire the money. Then he'll come and pick me up.”
“Fuck that,” she spat back at him over the phone. “I’m coming.”
“You don’t have to-” he started.
“Look,” she said cutting him off instantly. “You called
me
. Not Harry. I’ll be there in half an hour and I don’t want to hear another word.”
She ended the call before he could put in a protest or even say goodbye. She did call his agent to ask for the bond money. She couldn’t spare two thousand dollars, after all.
When he assured her that the money had been wired to the jail, she drove herself to the police station. She knew she didn’t owe him that. She didn’t owe him anything really.
She shouldn’t want to see him again. Not after this. Not after he’d broken the one and only promise she had asked him for. But, she had to. She couldn’t leave him without a word. He still meant too much to her.
None the less, a wave of fury came over her when the police escorted him out of the holding cell and into her custody.
“Michelle, I’m-”
“I don’t want to hear it,” she said grabbing his arm. She all but dragged him to her car and shoved him into the passenger seat.
They drove in silence for what seemed like hours even though the drive between the station and Chris’s mansion was only a matter of minutes.
The tears in her eyes began to cloud Michelle’s vision and she wiped them away furiously. She tried her best not to think about the man sitting beside her. She tried not to think that this had to be the last time she would ever see him.
She pulled up in front of his driveway and turned off the car.
“Get out,” she said. She tried to make her voice sound hard and cold. She heard it crack as a single traitorous tear fell down her cheek.
“Michelle, I’m-”
“No, Chris,” she said, turning to him at last. “It doesn’t matter how sorry you are. I told you this was a deal breaker for me. I won’t be the girlfriend who sits up all night wondering if you’re going to come home drunk. Wondering if you’re going to get picked up by the police.”
“It won’t happen again,” he said desperately. “I swear!”
“Like you swore to me that you wouldn’t get drunk again?” she asked.
Chris looked away from her and bit his lip. He looked as though he had something that he wanted to say to her but didn’t know how. She stared at him with as hard a glare as she could muster until he finally spoke.
“I’m off the team,” he said quietly. “They brought in a new quarterback for training camp.”
Her heart fell a bit at the news and she felt her glare soften. Of course, they knew that this was a possibility. Chris had been waiting to hear for weeks. Why hadn’t he told her?
“Harry says he’s trying to find a new team for me but, I don’t think anyone will take me,” he told her. “I might be done with the NFL.”
She turned away from him and looked out her window. She could see the lights shining through a thick haze of fog. The chill in the air had suddenly turned June into winter. The car seemed to provide no shelter from the cold.
“When did you find out?” she asked quietly.
“This morning,” he said. “Harry texted.”
Then those were the texts he’d gotten. She’d had a feeling there was more to them than he was telling her. But she never could have imagined that he would lie to her about something this big.
“So,” she said softly, “you think that’s it? For the NFL, I mean?”
“Maybe,” he answered.
“That could be a good thing,” she said. She saw him turn quickly to her with a shocked expression. It was as though she had slapped him.
“What do you mean?” he asked, his voice rising defensively.
“I mean,” she began slowly, “you obviously need help. And this lifestyle with the money, the cars, the clubs . . . it’s not good for you.”
“I can handle it,” he said. She couldn’t help but think that he sounded like a petulant child.
“So, this is handling it?” she asked him fiercely.
“Jesus, Michelle!” he exclaimed. “It was one time in two months!”
“Chris!” she said her voice raising back at him. “When you got this news you didn’t talk to me about it. You didn’t scream or yell or cry. The first thing you did was go to a bar.”
His face colored and he looked away from her again. Clearly he had no argument for that.
“You need help,” she said. “And, until you decide to get some . . . we can’t be together.”
“Michelle-,” he started. But, she reached over and opened his door before he could finish.
“Goodbye, Chris,” she said sadly.
She didn’t look at him when he got out the car. She knew if she did, she would change her mind. That she would call him back and beg him to stay.
She couldn’t do that. Not this time.
So, as soon as she heard the passenger door slam behind him, she started the car and began to drive away.
The fog was still thick when she looked out the passenger window. Even so, she could see Chris standing just in front of his front gate, watching her drive away.
*****
Chris sat at his kitchen table, holding his phone as he listened to SportsCenter play in the background.
He didn’t know why he still had it on. There was only one thing the talking heads were going to discuss. It was the same thing they’d been discussing for the past two days.
The Chris Watson press conference.
They announced that they would be showing the relevant bit again “for those who haven’t seen it yet”. Even though he’d seen it a million times already, Chris turned to the large screen and saw himself.
He remembered what it had been like, sitting at that table for the last time. The cornucopia of microphones pressed close to his face as he told them what they never thought they would hear.
“Thank you all for being here today,” he watched himself say on the television screen. “These past two years with the 49ers have been really eye opening for me. Especially these last few months. In that time, I’ve realized that I have a drinking problem. After talking with my team manager, my agent and to those closest to me, I’ve decided to take a year off from professional football so that I can get the treatment I so desperately need.”
Chris found that he could not help but smile when he recalled his agent’s face when he’d told him what he planned to do. Harry had looked at him as though he had lobsters crawling out of his ears.
Everyone had tried to talk him out of it, of course. Harry, his trainer, his teammates. They all said he had too much talent to waste. They said no team was going to wait an entire season for him. They said he could do rehab and play at the same time.
But, deep down, he knew this was what he had to do. Football didn’t mean anything if he couldn’t play it well. And when he was drunk half the time, he was far from his best.
He’d discovered, especially over the past week, that nothing else in his life meant anything if he couldn’t have Michelle.
He knew this might not bring her back. After all, she’d yet to respond to any of his multiple voicemails or texts. Even after the press conference had aired, she had not reached out.
And though he still kept his phone close at hand just in case, he discovered that it didn’t matter to him as much as he thought it would. He discovered that as much as he needed Michelle, he loved her more.
He loved her too much to try and force her to be with him when he didn’t deserve her. And this, getting help and going to meetings and getting treatments, was the first step to becoming worthy of her.
Even if it didn’t work, it was a step he had to take for himself.
When one last glance at his phone told him that Michelle had not called or texted within the last thirty seconds, he finally set it on the kitchen table and moved towards the refrigerator.
With the sports commentary still blaring in the background, he looked at his calendar and carefully wrote down a note on the date of his first AA meeting. It would take place at a small church on the next Wednesday.
Just as he had finished writing the note, he heard the doorbell ring and jumped.
His heart pounding, he rushed to the front door. He knew who he wanted to see standing there, but he told himself not to get his hopes up. It was, more likely, a journalist looking for an exclusive interview.
All the same, his hands shook when he pulled the door open. As soon as he did, his heart stopped.
On the other side of the door, wearing a bright blue top and a cautious smile, stood Michelle.
“Can I come in?” she asked tentatively.
“Yeah . . . yes,” he stuttered, moving out of the doorway so that she could make her way inside.
He showed her into the kitchen where they sat across from each other at the table.
He stared at her for a long while. He felt as though he was trying to memorize her face: the way her blue eyes sparkled, the way her nose curved downward, the way her jaw line moved smoothly to her chin. He had no idea when he would see her again. He had to take everything in.
“So,” she said finally, “I saw your press conference.”