Authors: Nyrae Dawn
Turning his head to the left he looks at me, his face thinner, but his jaw still tight and strong. “What if I can’t do it?” he whispers. “It’s who I am.”
Football. It always comes back to that. I also can’t help but relax. Even after all this time, he talks to me. “No, it’s not. It never fucking has been.”
I drop my bag on the floor and kick out of my shoes. My whole body craves to touch him so I know he’s really here.
It doesn’t matter that Charlie and Nate are in the house, that his parents could come home, or that we haven’t talked in a year and a half. That he might shove me away or that he cracked open my chest the same way the doctors did to him, only no one put mine back together again.
He’s hurt. He could have died. I know him. He needs me.
I sit on the bed, turn, and lie down on my side next to him, my breath making the hairs on his arm move.
Don’t push me away, don’t push me away.
When he doesn’t everything inside me lets go, all the time between us disappearing and it’s that last summer again when we lay in this same bed the same way.
Neither of us talk, but Brandon leans down, rests his cheek on the top of my head . . . and exhales. “I had surgery on my heart . . .”
I wince. “I know.”
“Eighty percent of the people who have torn artery on their heart die before they make it to the hospital. They bleed so fast . . .”
I didn’t know that. But I don’t tell him, knowing he just needs to talk.
“Did they tell you it was an artery that brings blood to the heart? I was bleeding inside. It was close . . . I could have . . .”
“You’re here.”
We’re here.
“I’m so fucking tired.” His voice cracks. I want nothing more than to fix it.
“Go to sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up.” I can’t stop myself from waiting for it—waiting for Brandon to say he can’t. Or ask me to get up, or do what they said he did with everyone else and tell me he doesn’t want to see me.
But he doesn’t.
Brandon’s . . . quiet, and I’m too afraid to even move. Soon, his breathing evens out and I know he did what I asked. A stupid part of me wishes I’m what he was waiting for since the injury happened. It feels good believing I can calm his storm.
And makes it even shittier that despite it all, he still walked away.
“Do you think what we do is wrong? Seriously, I mean. People say so much shit. It has to come from somewhere, right?” I sit next to Alec, in the woods. It’s one of the few times we’ve been able to sneak away this summer. All through the rest of last year I swore I wouldn’t do this when I saw him. Last summer, I was with Charlie’s sister, Sadie. That made it easier. Hell, we were just friends anyway. Fucking sixteen and fifteen years old.
But I knew he made me feel different. I knew Alec looked at me differently too.
“I don’t know,” Alec finally answers. We’re sitting so close, our legs touch. I want to reach over and grab his hand. If it was Sadie, I’d do it without thinking.
“And we’re not really doing anything yet,” Alec laughs. He’s like that. He’s good at being the center of attention and making people forget the bad shit.
“But we want to . . .” I whisper, surprised I do.
His head snaps toward me. His bright blue eyes, trying to see through me, I think.
“I mean, you said . . . when we talked. You do want to, right?” I hate that I sound like such a pussy. I’m older than him. I shouldn’t sound like I need to hear his answer so much, but then, if he feels the same, it’s not just me. If there’s something wrong with us, at least we’re wrong together.
“You know I do. And I changed my mind about my answer. No, there’s nothing wrong with what we’re doing.”
I exhale a deep breath at his words. It’s stupid. I know it’s not really wrong. Gay people are getting married and things are changing, but seeing it and having it be me are two different things. Plus—I pick up my football—I can’t have both. Things might be changing, but not on that field.
He’s so fucking gay.
Stop being such a fag.
I couldn’t share a locker room with a queer.
Comments. Words people say without thinking. None of them directed at me, but I still hear the words. Maybe more than anyone else.
“Even if other people don’t get it, it’s not wrong. Especially since they don’t know.” Alec pushes to his feet, holding out his hand for the football. “Let’s play. One day when you’re in the NFL, I’ll be able to say I used to play ball with you.”
Standing, I smile, somehow feeling lighter. He does that to me.
“You won’t have to say it, because everyone will know . . . even if we don’t, you know . . . we’ll still be friends. Maybe you’ll be playing with me and it’ll be on ESPN—our story. Best friends who spent every summer together and then went to play in the NFL together.”
The smile slips off Alec’s lips and I wonder if I said something wrong. Without thinking, I reach up, and touch his face, then his hair, and let my hand slide down. Then I step closer, my hand at the nape of his neck. It fits perfectly there and he smiles again.
No matter what anyone thinks, it doesn’t feel wrong. It feels better. He makes me better.
I knew he would come.
When I made the call, that wasn’t my plan. Or maybe it had been, but I didn’t admit it to myself. All I knew was I had so much shit going on in my head: the accident, the statistics, that I probably should be dead, that I had surgery on my heart . . . that I’m scared to fucking death I won’t play ball again. The doctors say anything is possible. I’m already a miracle for living, but lying here, knowing my chest was open and that I have to heal and my body is weak, it doesn’t feel like it.
For someone who only knows myself as a football player, even a 5 percent possibility of not being who I was, feels more like 95 percent. What if my endurance isn’t the same? Or my muscles or my breathing? What if I can’t take a fucking hit? Who am I if I’m not Brandon Chase, number forty-three?
I’m not like Nate. I didn’t do well in school because I liked it. I found a way to do good so I could play ball.
All that stuff is overloading my brain and taking me over. I want a way to let it out, but it’s all too raw. There’s no one who knows all my insides, except the person I hurt, ran away from, and then called when I felt alone.
“I have to piss,” is the first thing that comes out of my mouth when I wake up. It should have been “thank you.”
Alec gets up, without making eye contact with me. “Can you . . . are you able?”
His question hits a nerve, making me feel even more raw. “I can go to the bathroom by myself. Can you . . . can you help me up though?”
He finally meets my eyes and it feels like I’m under the knife again. Only this time, I’m not unconscious. I feel every cut and stitch. I bleed.
Chill out. You’re cracking up.
Alec reaches for me, and I let him. Wraps his arm around me. I let him do that too. He feels harder than he used to and I wonder if he’s playing ball or just working out more.
When we get into the bathroom, I wait for him to leave.
“Are you . . .?”
I shake my head. We are definitely not going there. “Wait right outside. I’ll tell you when I’m done.”
My chest aches, this stabbing pain piercing through me. My legs are so weak, I have to sit down to pee. After I wash my hands, I say Alec’s name. The door pushes open and he’s right there.
“I had to piss like a woman,” I say, not sure why I said it.
“So even more has changed than I knew about?” He grins. A small laugh falls out of my lips. Another pain hits me, and I grab on to the counter. Alec is right there, holding me again.
“Asshole.”
“But you smiled.”
Yeah . . . yeah I did. “I’m tired of lying down. I want to sit.” Alec helps until I’m sitting on my bed, before he’s down right beside me again. Our legs are touching and I can’t help but remember that time, years ago when we sat like this together. One of the many times.
The urge to reach for him hits me again, but I definitely can’t now.
I don’t want to, I don’t want to, I don’t want to.
“You shouldn’t have come.”
“I know. You had to know I would.”
I look down at our legs leaning next to each other. “I also shouldn’t have wanted you to. We both know I did though.”
“I didn’t.”
You didn’t? How can you not know?
That pain in my chest hits me again and I wonder if it’s not because of my surgery—if it’s not because some stupid fucking night out broke something in my heart. Possibly took away who I am. Maybe the pain will always be there because of losing Alec. My torn artery, or whatever the hell it is, is nothing compared to that.
“Alec . . .”
“Don’t. We’re not doing this right now. I came here because you were hurt, not so I can try and pull useless words out of you. We both know regardless of what either of us says or how we might or might not feel, it doesn’t change anything.”
He’s right. And I know that’s mostly my fault.
“But I’m glad you’re here. I just want . . .”
“When we’re alone, it’s like nothing else matters, right? Fuck everyone else.” I hold the back of Alec’s neck, liking the way my hand fits there.
“Fuck ’em,” he adds, touching my hair.
It’s the only time I really feel like me. Where I’m most comfortable and can do or say whatever I want. I’m just me. No games. No fronts. Only Brandon.
“Do you need to take any of these, or anything?” Alec’s words rip me from the memory.
“The pain meds.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were hurting?” Alec looks through the bottles and grabs my Vicodin. He opens it and shakes one into my hand. “I’ll get you some water.”
After grabbing the cup from the table, he heads toward the door, and this stupid ridiculous fear surges through me. “That bathroom’s good. You can get it from there.”
Don’t go.
He turns, nods, and then goes to my bathroom, walking out a couple seconds later with the glass full of water. After I take the pill, he puts it back down.
“Thanks for coming, man.” It feels like such a nothing, thing to say. It doesn’t say the half of what I want it to.
Alec shakes his head like he gets it.
“I need to clean my incision. My parents should be home any time too. They said around seven and they’d bring dinner. If I don’t do it now, my mom will try to do it for me. I know she wants to help, but she’s driving me crazy. I wish I had my own place out here.”
“You still in the dorms back at school?” Alec asks.
“No. I have a little apartment. You?”
“Me too. It’s like thirty minutes from Lakeland Village. Want me to help you back to the bathroom?”
“I think I can do it.” He flinches as though I hit him.
Slowly, I get to my feet. It’s just as slow for me to get to the bathroom, Alec right next to me the whole time. “I have no appetite, so I’m losing weight and getting weak. My wound burns and itches all the time.” I don’t know why I say those things to him, because I haven’t said them to anyone else.
“It won’t last forever. You’ll be kicking ass in no time.”
I don’t reply to that, because I’m not sure how. It takes my fingers a couple tries to get each button on my shirt undone. Alec stands next to me. Even though I’m not looking at him, I feel his eyes and I wonder if I should ask him to leave. But then, why should I? It’s only my shirt.
I wish I knew why I was standing here with him. Why I let him in when I don’t want to see anyone else or why I let him help me, when it pisses me off with other people. Why I whispered those fears about not playing that I keep locked away from even my brother. But then, it’s always been like that when it’s just us.
When I get the last button undone, I look at Alec, his eyes on my chest.
“No staples?” he asks, eying me.
“There’s stuff inside holding me together.” Really I don’t feel together at all. Slightly weak, I lean against the wall.
“The tape?” Alec asks.
“Stays on.” He nods and then turns on the water. Grabs one of the folded washcloths off the shelf.
“This soap?” He points to a bottle and I nod.
Alec sets down the washcloth and washes his hands before wetting the rag.
“What are you doing?” My voice is raspy.
I know what he’s doing.
“It’s not a big deal. Your brother would do it. Your mom would do it. I’m just helping.”
But to me, it’s a big deal. A big fucking deal even though I wish it wasn’t. Or maybe I don’t wish that. It’s so hard to keep it all straight. I don’t know how to be gay and play ball. I don’t know how to be the player I’ve grown up thinking I am, if I’m into someone who’s not a woman. But I don’t wish Alec gone either. It’s strange to even think of never having met him.
I flinch when the warm cloth touches my chest.
“Am I hurting you?”
“I’m not going to break,” I bite out, frustrated. My mind has always been weak, but not my body.
The wall holds me up, while Alec washes my incision. It doesn’t last any more than a minute before he’s done. There’s a hamper in the corner and he tosses the washcloth in.
He goes to walk away, but I reach for his arm. “I’m sorry.” I don’t have to tell him why, and I know he gets it. Sorry for walking away so long ago, sorry everything has changed, and that I’ll probably never be who he needs me to be. Who I am?
I’ve always been a ball player. But am I still? Will I be after this?
“I know you’re sorry. And you should be.”
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t walk away and I don’t let go. And for the first time since I woke up from surgery, maybe the first time since that last day in the woods, I don’t feel alone. I fucking hate it and love it at the same time.
“I’m seeing someone,” he says and my grip on him tightens. “And they want to be there for me all the way, and I’ve been trying to let ’em.”
The burning and the itching in my chest increases. He’s telling me what he’s supposed to, but I want him to take the words back.
“Good . . . that’s good . . . what’s her name?”
Alec looks at me funny and I know. I fucking know, but I don’t know why I didn’t expect it.
“Him. His name is Logan and he wanted to go home with me last night.”
The breath is snatched from my lungs. My legs shake. If the wall wasn’t holding me up, I would have hit the ground. He’s doing it. He’s really fucking doing it and I’m proud of him and jealous of him. And I want to kill Logan.
When we first met, Alec looked up to me. It makes me sound like an asshole because I liked how he admired me. Liked that I was a year older and he wanted to do what I did and be like I was. Maybe even that first summer it was because I knew he was different. Because I respected him and thought I could be more than just a good ballplayer and the guy girls wanted, if he saw more in me.
But now, or maybe always, it’s me looking up to him, wishing I could be like him because he’s so much stronger than I ever could be.
“That’s good,” I say again, but it’s not. It’s so fucking not.
My grip eases off his wrist right as Alec’s cell beeps. He pulls it out of his pocket and steps away. “Charlie texted. She said your parents will be home within five minutes.”
I nod.
Alec’s gone. Football could be gone. What’s left of Brandon?
“I’m going to change my shirt. Tell them I’ll let ’em know when I’m ready to come down for dinner. They won’t even let me take the stairs by myself.”
“Okay.” Alec takes a couple steps, pauses and I think he’s going to turn back, but he doesn’t. He just walks away, like he did last time we saw each other. Only this time, it’s not because I made him go. This time, it’s because he has something to go to. Or rather, someone.
“Brandon! You know I don’t like you to take the stairs by yourself! What if your legs got weak and you fell?” Mom shrieks when I get downstairs.
“Though we’re glad you came down tonight,” Dad adds. Because I don’t come downstairs. Maybe only a couple times since I’ve been home.
“They did surgery on my chest, not my legs. I’m fine.”
“Brandon—”
“Mom, he’s good. Lay off him, okay?” Nate tells her. She sighs and smiles.
“You’re right. I’m sorry. I know I need to give you space. Pretty soon you’re going to be gaining strength and you’ll be back on that football field where you belong.” Another smile.