Touchdown!
The crowd goes crazy! My team goes crazy! Everyone is running at me. We won! We won! We won!
But I feel like I’ve lost somehow because in the end I can still hear that damn voice.
You could have done better.
After I’m showered and changed, I head out of the locker room even though my team’s begging me to go out.
‘Come on, man,’ Tyrel Buliforton, the end back says as I sling my bag over my shoulder and head for the door. ‘You played f**king awesome. We need to go celebrate.’
I shake my head. ‘Nah, I already got plans,’ I lie because all I want to do is find Callie and hold her, knowing it’ll help me leave the voice of my father behind.
‘For someone who made the winning touchdown, you sure look super depressed,’ Luke Price, my best friend, says as he follows me out of the locker room, zipping up his coat. Luke’s been my best friend since we were kids and has his own problems with his parents. We don’t talk about it, though. I think he saves it for his girlfriend, Violet, just like I do with Callie.
‘You’re not going out either,’ I tell him as we step outside and into the cold.
He shrugs. ‘Partying isn’t … or can’t be my thing anymore, being a recovering alcoholic and all.’
‘You doing okay with that?’ I ask, tugging my fingers through my damp hair as I search for Callie in the crowd of people loitering around, wearing the school colors.
‘Yeah, but I know myself enough to know that I’ll be doing okay just as long as I go home and not out.’ He stuffs his hands into his pockets and then grins as he spots Violet leaning against a post not too far from us. It’s funny, but he never really smiles except for when he’s with her.
I wonder if it’s the same way with me when I’m with Callie.
As if to answer my own question, Callie emerges from the crowd, shoving her way through the last of the people, and a big smile rises on my face.
‘Hey you,’ she says, rushing up to me as some guy hoots and hollers from the crowd. ‘You played great.’
‘Yeah … I could have done a little better, though.’ I wrap my arms around her when she reaches me and I pull her tight against me. Her warmth spreads across my body and I breathe in the peace.
‘You did perfect,’ she whispers in my ear and then leans back. ‘We should celebrate.’
‘I did okay,’ I press. ‘Not perfect.’
Her lips curve to a frown. ‘No sulking or I’ll have to force you to do fun things until you’re laughing so hard you pee your pants.’
I laugh at her, brushing the pad of my thumb across her bottom lip. ‘All right, you win,’ I say. ‘I played perfect.’
Her lips turn upward again and there’s a sparkle in her eyes that matches the stars above us. ‘You f**king kicked ass.’
I can’t help myself. I bust up laughing. Callie rarely swears so when she does, it’s hilarious. ‘Oh my God, it’s so funny when you say f**k.’
She grins, but her cheeks turn the slightest shade of pink. ‘I knew that one would get you to laugh.’
‘You always manage to,’ I say, no longer finding our conversation funny but personal and intimate. ‘And actually I was thinking we could pick up takeout and then go hangout at our place.’
‘Our place.’ She says the words slowly, letting them roll off her tongue. ‘That sounds like a great idea to me to celebrate if that’s okay. Maybe Luke and Violet could come hang.’ I glance over at the two of them chatting near the front of the crowd. ‘It might be nice now that you and Violet are getting along.’
Callie nods. ‘Sounds perfect.’ She threads her fingers through mine and pulls me away from the stadium – away from my father’s voice – and by the time we reach the car, it’s disappeared completely.
I just wish it would stay that way.
Chapter 17
#157 Get to Know Your Family Even When It Seems Impossible.
Kayden
Callie and I managed to move in a few things before we had to part ways for Thanksgiving, but between work and school, we still have a ways to go. We do get to spend one night in our apartment together, cuddled up on a blanket and watching movies on my laptop, before she drops me off at the airport so I can fly out to Virginia for Thanksgiving.
I’m not happy about spending the holiday without her, but I understand she needs to go home and see her brother while I need to go see mine. It’s part of growing and getting better, I guess – learning how to do things on your own. I just wish doing things on my own meant I could still hold Callie’s hand because it feels weird without her near me.
Dylan’s wife – who insists I call her Liz, instead of by her full name, which is Elizabeth – is freaking out, trying to get the house in order for her parents’ arrival, while she tries to cook everything all at once. The kitchen smells like burnt toast and the air is heavy with smoke, causing the smoke detectors to go off sporadically.
‘Does she need help?’ I ask Dylan. We’re sitting at the table playing cards, which blows my freaking mind because it’s so normal and makes me uncomfortable, since I’m not used to it. What I’m used to, at least, the last time I was at a family event, was yelling, fighting, hitting, breaking.
Dylan assesses his cards as he takes a gulp of his beer. ‘You can ask her, but she’ll flip out on you.’ He sets two cards face down on the table and gives himself two more from the deck. Dylan looks a lot like me; brown hair, tall, with a medium build, and is probably my future. Well, except the whole teaching thing. I can’t see myself doing that. Honestly, I’m not sure I can picture myself doing this either, sitting at the table while Callie cooks dinner. It seems so f**king rude to make her do it. Plus, Callie doesn’t like to cook very much.
‘Do you need any help?’ I finally ask as Liz rushes back and forth between the stove and a bowl she’s mixing something in. She’s got blonde hair, blue eyes, and is wearing an apron over her jeans and T-shirt, and she doesn’t look very comfortable in the kitchen.
She waves me off, scurrying for a towel when she spills milk on the counter. ‘No. You’re the guest and you should sit back and relax.’
Dylan chuckles under his breath as he rearranges the cards in his hand. ‘Don’t worry. She’s going to give up here in about a half an hour and we’ll end up going out.’
‘So, this is your tradition?’ I examine my cards. I don’t have a very good hand, but we’re not playing for money, just fun. I know why, too. When we were younger, our father would make us play for money. If he won, he’d take all his winnings and if he lost, he’d beat the shit out of us because in his words, ‘we were cheating bastards.’ So really, we’d always lose.
Dylan nods, laying his cards down and I do the same. I think I like Dylan a little bit more when instead of bragging about winning, he says, ‘Yeah, if she’d just let me help, though, it wouldn’t be a problem. I’m an excellent cook.’
As Liz whisks by the table, she whips Dylan in the side with the dish towel she’s carrying. ‘That’s such a lie. You equally suck at cooking, which is why we have at least five takeout places on speed dial.’
‘One for each weekday?’ I joke, gathering the cards.
Liz nods with a serious look on her face and it kind of makes me smile because they have their own thing going here that doesn’t seem at all like my parents. They’re not nasty to each other. They smile. Laugh.
It’s nice, and kind of a relief because it gives me the tiniest ray of hope that I won’t turn out like my father, that I can have this normalcy, this happiness, that I can have a future filled with what I want, and with who I want.
‘You want to go watch the game?’ Dylan asks, nodding at the living room as he picks up his beer and scoots his chair back from the table.
‘Sure.’ I get up and we wander into the living room and settle on the leather couch in front of the flat screen. The wall is covered with photos of the two of them – at their wedding, the beach, on the top of a mountain. It makes me sad because I don’t have any photos where I look happy. Callie and I don’t even have any photos of us on the wall.
‘So, you think you’re ever going to do this?’ Dylan asks after we sit in silence through a couple of plays.
‘Do what?’ I ask, tipping my head back to take a sip of my soda.
He picks at the damp label on the beer bottle. ‘Play professionally …’ He leans forward to set the beer on the coffee table, then turns to face me, leaning against the arm rest. ‘Liz says you’re pretty good.’
I drum my fingers against the side of the soda can, a pucker forming at my brow. ‘When has she seen me play?’
‘She watches your games on the internet.’
‘All of them?’ I’m dumbfounded. She watches me play? Really? Why?
‘Most of them,’ he says. ‘And I’ve watched a few, too. I’d watch more, but I’m working on getting my master’s degree right now, so I don’t have a lot of free time.’ He gives me a pat on the arm. ‘Don’t look so surprised. We care about you, Kayden.’ Suddenly, the mood shifts as he blows out a loud breath. ‘I know it might seem like I don’t, since we didn’t talk for years, but if I had known what was going on in that house … that he’d gotten that bad … that he would actually try …’ He can’t even get the words out and he ends by giving up, raking his fingers through his hair before he says, ‘I wouldn’t have been absent for so long. I shouldn’t have and it’s one of my biggest regrets.’
‘I kind of understand why you did it, though,’ I say, staring at the soda in my hand. ‘I had a hard time just coming here … The whole family thing is strange to me because it’s good, yet it reminds me of how bad things can be. And I don’t mean you. You were never bad. And Tyler, well, he was great until he started doing drugs and turned into a mess. But I mean Mom and Dad.’
Dylan reaches for his beer again. ‘It is hard, isn’t it? It took me forever to figure out how to be in a house with Liz, how to act like a family because I didn’t have a freaking clue. I felt so lost, you know?’
‘And now?’ I wonder. ‘Is it better now …? Because it seems like it is.’
He nods. ‘Now I’m happy.’ He gives me a smile then takes a sip of the beer before he asks, ‘So what about you, Kayden? Are you happy?’
I shrug. ‘Sure. I guess.’
He frowns. ‘You guess?’
I shrug again. ‘Sometimes I am, but I wish I could figure out how to be all the time, you know.’ He gives me a sad look and I explain further. ‘It’s just that I have no idea what I want to do with my life. I mean, football’s great and I’m good at it and enjoy playing it, but I only got into it because of Dad. And that’s the thing. It all …’ I blow out a breath. ‘It all comes back to him. I don’t want to have anything to do with him and every time something is connected to him, I’m not happy … I swear to God, I can sometimes hear his voice in my head when I’m out playing … I just want to be able to play for me …’ I stop talking, unsure why I decided to say that aloud – I haven’t even told Callie about that yet.
Dylan’s shoulders slump, probably from the weight of the memories of our father. ‘Kayden, you shouldn’t let that – him – stop you from doing anything. It only gives him more power over your life. If football makes you happy, then do it. I know it’s hard, but you need to let this thing with Dad go. Let the past go. And I think once you do, you’ll stop hearing all that f**ked up shit he said to you all the time – you’ll be able to play for you.’
‘You pretty much just stated word for word what my therapist said,’ I tell him then heave a heavy sigh. ‘And I know I should … and I’m trying to. It’s just going to take some time for me to figure shit out.’ I set the can down on the table, then cross my arms as I recline in the sofa, wondering if there will ever be a time I can play for me and just love/love the game. I sure as hell hope so. ‘I have a ways to go, though … I mean, I still f**k up sometimes with certain things.’ I’m not going to go any further than that, as I’m not ready to talk to him about my cutting disorder.
‘Everyone does that. It’s called life, Kayden.’
‘Yeah, I know.’
A gap of silence goes by and I start to focus back on the game. Someone just scored a touchdown and the crowd is going wild. The sight puts me in a state of contentment, like it does whenever I’m playing.
‘What about that Callie girl you’re dating?’ he asks, drawing my attention back to him. ‘Are you still seeing her?’
I move to grab my soda. ‘Yeah, we actually just got our own place right before I headed out here.’
His eyes widen in astonishment. ‘Shut the f**k up. Seriously?’ he asks and I nod, caught off guard by his excitement. ‘Wow, I didn’t know you guys were that serious. You never really seemed like you were on the phone. Then again, you barely talk about your private life either, so …’ he trails off, looking sort of sad.
‘Don’t take that personally,’ I say. ‘I only talk about that stuff with Callie.’
He nods, relaxing a little. ‘Wow, you are f**king serious with this girl, aren’t you?’
‘Who’s serious with a girl?’ Liz interrupts our conversation as she comes strolling in with a plate full of what looks like burnt squash. I didn’t even know you could burn squash.