The World: According to Graham (8 page)

I block that thought from my mind and instead focus on telling my beloved sport goodbye. I hope that my students and players know that I was not perfect, but I worked hard to be the perfect teacher and coach for them. Maybe one day, they’ll follow their own dreams and realize that anything worth having means blood, sweat and tears, and sacrifices that you never planned on making. I hope that Rachael is not one of my success casualties.

Lacrosse matches play in my head, while I relive some of my favorite moments. Those make me smile. I even catch myself laughing out loud when I remember the look on one of the player’s faces when I told him that he was going to start. He was a hard-working kid, but he didn’t have a lot of talent. It was his senior year. I announced his name in the locker room before the game. His face lit up like the Fourth of July. Then in the next second he turned green, saying, “Oh God. That means I’m actually going to have to play.”

But as always, the good memories went hand in hand with the bad. The time one of my players failed a drug test and I had to suspend him, or when I had to tell one of my favorite players that his mom didn’t make it out of surgery. Those memories are so vivid and overshadow the disappointments that come along with the game, like losing a championship.

I say goodbye to the sport that helped shape my life to this point. Without lacrosse, I would have never made it to Virginia and met Max and Jake. There would have been no Sons of Liberty, or Rachael for that matter. Lacrosse will always be my first love.

Climbing down from the bleachers, I walk to the center of the field. Bending down, I pick a tuft of grass, bringing it to my nose. I’m sure it’s just my imagination, but I can smell the sweat and determination of my guys in the dirt. The plug slides easily into my pocket. One last memento of the game that made me.

“Play hard, boys,” I yell to the universe. Then, I turn and make my way back to the yellow cab.

As I duck through the door, the driver asks, “Where to now, man?”

“Home,” I reply, as I settle against the seat.

I haven’t seen my house in almost a month. The place still looks the same. There are four outside walls, a driveway, and trees in the front yard. It was purchased with the Sons of Liberty in mind. After looking at hundreds of homes with my realtor, I finally found one that had a room that could work as a studio. Now, it houses Rachael’s extensive shoe collection, her business suits, and office. It was a small gesture on my part, but one I hope she sees for what it truly is. An olive branch. My way of showing her that I want her as a part of my life.

From the outside, my home looks similar to all the others. Each house is a shade of red brick, one-story, with four windows across the front. But what makes my pulse beat in my ears is knowing that she’s inside its four walls, waiting for me.

The key slips easily into the lock, and I open the front door with care not to disturb the sleeping souls inside. Despite my best efforts, George comes bounding down the hallway to greet me right inside the front door. Poor guy has been in boarding all of this time.

“Hi my big, silly boy,” I greet him.

Sinking to the floor, I take his enormous head in my hands and give his ears a good scratching. He whines in appreciation and keeps nudging my hands with his nose if I try to stop. “I’ve missed you so much. No more awful kennel for you. We’re going on a road trip. We just have to convince Rachael to join us,” I tell him.

Finally, George lets me stand and make my way into the house. I throw my coat over one of the arm chairs and make myself a drink in the kitchen. After the day I’ve had, I deserve something strong. The burn of the whiskey makes my mouth pucker, and I wince from the heat.

It’s so damn strange to be back in my house
.

I take the bit of earth from the lacrosse field out of my jeans pocket and place it in a zip-lock bag. It looks out of place resting on my kitchen counter, so I open my junk drawer and drop it in. That feels awkward also, but at least it’s in safekeeping.

The place that I’ve called home feels foreign to me. Yes. This is where I live, but it seems colder, vacant. I’m not sure why, but I don’t like it. The air smells musty, not like it did when I lived here.

There’s a pile of mail on the counter, and I am thankful that Veronica sorted through all the junk and just left me the things that I need to look at. Most are bills. I guess I need to forward them. To where? A tour bus? A hotel room? The thought is depressing. There’s a graduation invitation from one of my former students. I check the date and know automatically that I will not be able to attend. Not sure what city I’ll be in, but it’s a Saturday night.

The thought heaps on to my already foul mood. I haven’t missed a graduation ceremony since I began teaching.
You’re not a teacher anymore.

Finishing my whiskey, I leave the glass on the counter. I look for signs that Rachael is in my home, but everything looks pristine, untouched. I’m not sure what I was hoping to see, but there is something about the starkness of my living room that makes me a bit sad. It looks as generic as the hotel rooms I’ve been living in.

I wish she had left her shoes laying haphazardly in the middle of the room and her purse on the hook by the door. The navy blue blanket should be crumbled on the couch and a dog-eared magazine lying nearby—not one perfectly draped over the arm of the couch and the other in a fan on the coffee table.

Standing up straight hits me like a burden as the whiskey begins to soak my brain. I shuffle down the hallway to my bedroom door. The closer I get, the more excited I become to sleep in my own bed again. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed it until I saw George disappear around the corner. The door is open, and I come this close to flipping on the light switch. But I stop dead in my tracks. The blue light from my alarm clock illuminates the bed, and on the side of the mattress where I sleep is her tiny frame snuggled into my pillow. Blond hair is piled around her angelic face looking like spun silk, and her knees are drawn tightly to her chest. She looks childlike against the vastness of the mattress. In this moment, there is nothing that I want more than to slide under the sheets and wake her with soft kisses against her lips that are slightly parted. Then, as she wakes, I’ll make my way to her soaked panties—wet because of me—and devour her sweet pussy as if it’s my last meal on this earth.

Images of her naked body flood my mind. I haven’t gotten to enjoy her visually since we ended things. The ability to stare at her now is like candy for my brain.

This sleeping beauty can’t deny us happiness because of my job, or tell me that we can only work after President Jones leaves office. No. When Rachael is asleep, I can pretend that she is all mine.

I unbutton the top button on my jeans and pull the zipper down. As I go to hook my thumbs through the belt loop of my jeans, my brain reminds my dick what a bad idea this is. If Rachael and I put sex back into play between us, we’ll never take the step back that we both need and learn to become friends—to trust each other. The two weeks that we spent together changed our lives. It’s time we handled this relationship like we should have from the beginning. We need to quit thinking like the horny teenagers in my class and approach this relationship like adults. Especially because these adults are about to be parents. Rachael and I need to build a solid foundation of forgiveness first and then begin developing a relationship based on values that last—not just orgasms.

The hardest thing I’ve done is turn around and walk back down the hallway to the room that I had prepared for Rachael. I fling open the door with too much force. The doorknob hits the wall, probably leaving a dent, and bounces back, banging into my shoulder. I don’t care. I’m pissed at myself. Why shouldn’t I walk back into my bedroom and own her body?

Because you want to own her mind also.

I take off my clothes and leave them in a pile on the floor, and pull the quilt back, climbing into the bed that once was used by Jake when he came into town every weekend to work on the Sons of Liberty. Instead of it smelling like my college roommate—which would be disgusting—I’m flooded with the sweet scent of Rachael. I had her bedding from her townhome moved into this room. Her pillow smells of her shampoo. It’s a floral, lavender scent that makes my dick even more livid that we’re in here and she’s out there. I toss and turn for a little while before I finally switch pillows. I’m going back in that room if I have to smell her all night. It’s like the sweetest form of torture.

Damn! I sit up straight in bed, remembering that I didn’t take out my contacts or brush my teeth. For about two seconds I contemplate skipping my nighttime hygiene, but I swear it’s like I have some sort of neural link with my mother and I hear her reminding me that I’ll get an eye infection and cavities. In my thirties, I still shuffle to the bathroom to perform my nighttime duties just to quiet my mom’s nagging voice in my head.

Crawling back in bed, I remind myself that I should not lecture my kid so much about hygiene. It’s okay to sleep in your contacts sometimes, isn’t it?
You did when you slept with Rachael.

That just takes me back to my dick asking again why we are in the guest room.

At some point, I must finally drift off to sleep. Then the dreams come as they have every night since she told me that one plus one was about to equal three.

Ba . . . boom . . . ba . . . boom . . . My heart thuds against my chest.

Rachael! Rachael has taken the baby.

Images of a man who isn’t me holding a black-haired, blue-eyed little boy’s hand race through my dreams just like they did last night and the night before. Every night the dream is different, but the characters haven’t changed. A nameless, faceless man is raising my son, teaching him to play lacrosse, and the dream ends with my little boy not recognizing me when I show up for one of his games.

Just like all the nights before, I wake up drenched with sweat. The quilt, her scent, seems to be suffocating me. I untangle my legs from the material and lie naked on top of the sheets, letting the cool night air dry my damp skin. I’m panting like a dog after a long run. It’s pathetic really. These dreams must stop.

It’s like the fog is cleared away or the veil lifted or some other contrived saying that means I’m kicking my own ass. My reasons for concocting this crazy plan become clear to me. I’m not taking some time off from the Sons of Liberty to try to make things right with Rachael for her sake or even our baby’s sake. I’m doing it to save myself. I’m not just betting my career on this move—I’ve gone all in with my soul. Gasping at the realization of just how fucked I am, I ball my hand into a fist and push it into my breastbone. Right now, that horrible dream is my reality if we can’t get our shit straight.

I roll over and pretend to sleep for a while. I might actually doze a bit, but it’s no use. My mind is racing. Anytime I find sleep, the dream begins again as if it’s looped. I wake myself up and stare at the ceiling again. I’m terrified that she’s going to follow through with her plan to run away to Texas and hide.
Maybe the closet was enough to get her to stay.

I know better. It’s Rachael Early, the most stubborn woman on the planet. It’s going to take more than clothes organization to get her to see life my way.

It might be easier committing a felony—kidnapping and imprisonment.

The opening and shutting of my kitchen cabinets wakes me from my shallow sleep. I stare at the wall next to the bed for a couple of heartbeats, trying to collect myself. I have to remind my brain that I’m in the guest room in my house, and the person clanking around my kitchen is the mother of my child. Before I bolt out of bed and see my Tinker Bell—I call her that only in my head—I take a deep breath and work to restore my heartbeat to something other than a stroke level. This feels like a job interview. If I don’t get “hired” I might as well be fired from my life.

I slip on some of Jake’s pajama bottoms that I find in the bottom drawer of the dresser, and my glasses. It crosses my mind that I should put on a shirt but I decide that I need to use my advantages where I can. She likes/liked to run her hand over my pecs and stomach. Maybe a reminder of better times?

Entering the living room, my eyes track to her immediately. She’s sitting on a chair at the kitchen table with a box of crackers in front of her. She has a flour square in her right hand, nibbling on it like she’s a mouse, while her other hand supports her forehead. Rachael’s white blond hair is draped over one shoulder creating a screen of sorts, blocking what’s on the other side. My first thought is she got plastered last night.

Obviously, I quickly correct myself. There’s one thing that I don’t have to worry about and that’s Rachael taking good care of the baby.

“You okay?” I ask as I walk past her to the coffee pot. I have to stop my lips from finding her forehead and giving her a good morning kiss.

Trying to be nonchalant, as if we do this every morning, and this isn’t the first morning we’ve spent together since her impromptu invite to the hotel back in November, I turn my back to her and start the coffee.

“Fine . . . just have to get through this reminder that I’m pregnant.” She takes another bite of the cracker.

“Coffee?” I know the answer. The woman loves her coffee. Without hearing her response, I automatically make double what I would normally brew.

“Oh God, no!” She moans, and the plastic sleeve from the box makes a crackling noise.

My forehead crinkles in concern as I turn around and walk towards her. There is no doubt in my mind that I still love her. I might have told myself that I’m doing all of this for the baby and myself, but that’s only the partial truth. As much as I wish that my heart didn’t ache at seeing her sick, it does. And I want to make it better.

“Hey,” I soothe, as I pull one of the other kitchen chairs near her. “It’ll be okay. Can I get you something? Water? Milk? Orange juice.”

“A glass of water would be nice,” she says, as she nibbles on the corner of another saltine.

“No problem.” I leap to my feet, thankful that she has given me something to do.