Game Day Box Set: A College Football Romance Page 15

  I have the stray thought that all my careful makeup is ruined. It might make me feel pathetic and vain, but it’s enough to make me get up, pull on a long T-shirt, and drag myself to the bathroom. When I catch sight of myself in the mirror, I break down again. I can see the bleak sorrow in my own eyes.

  I started tonight with such good intentions. I wanted to tell him how impressive he was in the Blue and Silver game; I wanted to tell him that while I still didn’t understand the game, I was going to try. For him. And then I would tell him about the offer on his piece. I would tell him how proud I am that he’s talented in so many ways.

  I would tell him how much I love him.

  For the first time, I can understand why Natalie didn’t call me for help before she committed suicide. How can you admit to another person that the darkness has taken over? How do you get through this kind of pain without part of you dying inside?

  Maybe that’s why I haven’t been able to paint since Natalie died. Since Natalie committed suicide. Why don’t I use that term? “Died” makes it sound like something happened to her, instead of something she chose. That’s the part that I can’t get past, can’t get over. Natalie chose to die. She joined the ranks of people I loved, who chose to leave me.

  Riley.

  Natalie.

  My mother.

  I’ve spent my whole life trying to pretend that not having a mother doesn’t matter to me. I have Gamma, and that’s enough—more than enough. But there’s always been this shard inside me. My own mother didn’t want me, has never wanted me. That thought has been festering inside me for most of my life, poisoning everything. It’s made me terrified of how easily I could lose everything.

  Gamma has never failed me. She gave me every bit of her love, attention, and wisdom. She has never let me doubt that she loves me and that she expects me to be the best version of myself. But with her heart problems, I could lose her anytime. For the last three years, since her heart attack, I’ve been terrified that the river of life is going to take her away. It kept me from going to art school, it kept me from experimenting with my art. Loving her so much has stunted my growth, and I’m afraid it’s permanent.

  For so much of my life, there was Natalie. We were so close, it was as if we shared the same mind. She supported my decision not to go to art school because it meant that I would stay in Granite with her while she was going to MSU. She never wanted to leave this town, and I pretended to feel the same. Going to New York to accept the Pitkin last year was one of the few times we’d been apart, and it was terrifying and glorious to be on my own. But then I came back and found that rape had crumpled Natalie up, tore her apart. I couldn’t put her back together again.

  And now there was Riley. Since I met him, all the parts of myself I’ve shut down, shut off, have come rushing back to life. He’s nothing like I thought he would be, and goddammit, why is that so hard for me to accept? Nothing is ever going be what I think it will be. All my plans and dreams and expectations and fears are ripping me apart. I’m trying to make him into someone else, which is crazy. He’s so wonderful, exactly as he is.

  I wash my face, the cold water shocking me awake. It’s still early, but I have no interest in the dinner I’d planned to eat with Riley. Maybe later, when my stomach isn’t a bath of acid. Sleep seems impossible. Instead, I do the thing I always do when the pain is too terrible to bear. I slip on some yoga pants, pull back my hair, and I go to my studio to paint.

  My eyes are too raw to handle the lights, so I let the moonlight guide me up the stairs. My bare feet barely disturb the silence of the house. In my studio, I’m greeted by the dozens of blank canvases perched against the wall. I dig through them until I find a small one. Then, sitting on my stool with a palette full of oils, I begin to paint.

  I don’t do portraits. I paint landscapes, because it’s always been easier for me to translate what I feel into rocks and mountains rather than human faces. But I need to understand something that I’ve never let myself feel before. I need to look myself in the eye, and see who I really am.

  I work from the mirror in my studio, not letting myself think about what my hands are doing. I’m tempted to give myself some of the flair I would normally have—artfully styled hair, smoothed features, a fabulous outfit. Instead, I paint myself as I am, in this moment.

  Rounded shoulders under a ragged shirt. Toes curled over the bars of my stool, clenched tight. Aching, tired eyes. Frown lines burrowing into my skin where my smile used to show. And I make myself feel it, make myself feel all the things I normally ignore. I lower myself in the bleeding chasm of my loneliness, and force myself to wallow there.

  When I finish, the sun is peeking over the horizon. My eyes have dried long ago, and I feel hollowed out. My muscles are sore—it has been months since I’ve painted this way. Carefully, I wash my brushes and palette and set them to dry. Then I turn to look at myself.

  I tamp down my urge to focus on the technical details. Instead, I make myself look at the girl in the painting as if she were a stranger.

  The first thing I think is that her sharp chin reminds me of my grandmother. Sweet and stubborn. The tilt of her head makes it look like she’s listening to something, trying to hear an explanation that’s too distant to understand. Her eyes are haunted, heartbroken … and determined.

  I thought I was out of tears, but fresh ones jump to my eyes. In the eyes of the girl in the painting, I can see the strength I don’t feel. The girl in the painting isn’t going to let her own mistakes ruin her life. In the bleakness of her eyes—my eyes—I can see a glimmer of strength that refuses to be extinguished.

  If I could talk to my mother, I would tell her that Gamma and I don’t need her. If I could talk to Natalie, I would tell her that she will always be my best friend and that I wish she had let me help her get better. Both of them are beyond me. But Riley … Riley isn’t gone. And I’m not going to let him out of my life without telling him how much he means to me.

  Chapter Twenty

  Riley

  THERE ARE FEWER GUYS HOLDING tight to my carved figurines in the locker room today. Reggie is still thumbing the miniature version of his lucky shoes. A lot of good that will do him.

  Ben is doing high-knees and jumping jacks right here in the middle of the locker room, taking up all the available space and air with his energy.

  “Hey, man, can you cool it and relax for a minute?” I want some peace and quiet for a second, and the flurry of motion in front of my eyes is making me dizzy. I’m trying to find a way to block out the noise. All the noise of the reporters and television shows questioning our capabilities. The speculation about whether we’ll win a single game, if we lost to Hawaii. And the buzzing is only getting louder with every thump of Ben’s shoes against the concrete.

  “I’m just limbering up, mate. You can’t go out on the field cold.”

  This is a pretty stupid statement considering we have never gone into a game without a pre-game warm up. No team in the history of sports has gone into a game without coaches taking everyone through a warm-up. Ben extends his arms and starts twisting his torso from side to side, throwing his arms out over the rest of us, just expecting us to get out of the way. It’s all I can do to stay seated on the bench. Reggie is giving him the eyes of death, but I don’t have the energy to quell whatever fight is about to start.

  Just then, Coach Prescott strides in, and everyone shuts up and takes a seat. Even Ben. Coach starts talking, which is better than everyone’s chatter and Ben’s frantic stretching. The talking is easier to tune out. I’m not in the mood for some phony pep talk. Nothing he can say will magically make us better players. I stare at the floor and wait for it to be time. Time to trudge onto the field. Time to get this over with.

  We shuffle out of the locker room, and we’re jogging because we have to, but there’s no buoyancy in our step. My hand reaches up automatically to slap our team slogan—“Can’t Stop the Stampede”—and I realize with a pang that we didn’t come together
for the chant before we left the locker room. How could we have all forgotten? Are there so few of us veterans that it’s not an ingrained tradition anymore? Can a tradition that seemed so deep and permanent just vanish like that? The realization sits uneasy on my shoulders.

  The stands are splattered with big chunks of red and white. If you restrict yourself to looking only at the one side of the field, it’d be hard to tell whose turf we’re on. The Utes have feathers in their hair, and they’re jeering us as we jog out onto the field. I try to focus on blue and gold. This is our home advantage, we’re not going to be intimidated just because some University of Utah fans decided they wanted to spend their weekend in a car.

  The energy is off right from the start. The fans aren’t as boisterous as they were last game. All of their fears from last year’s National Championship game, all of the off-season wondering and speculating about whether or not we’re going to be any good this year … it’s all but been answered. With a single game, the student body, the town, the whole state have given up on us. Even my own dad doesn’t believe in us.

  We punt the ball off to Utah and I sit on the sidelines, with the edge of a finger in my mouth, nervously chewing my nail. A red jersey waves his hand in the air for a fair catch. At least they won’t run it back for a touchdown.

  Utah runs the ball, eking it forward and not risking a turnover. They only pick up a few yards at a time, but it’s good enough to earn them a first down. It’s safe, but boring to watch, and I can feel the air being sucked from the stadium. The slow march down the field continues, making it back it to the forty yard line before our defense holds them and they’re forced to kick. They try for a field goal, but the ball takes a bad bounce off the post, and we get the ball back unscathed.

  I huddle up with the rest of the offense, and we look to Prescott for the play.

  “All right boys, it’s 0-0. We got a chance to get ahead here. Let’s show them who we are. Blue Oyster.”

  I look to West. His face is white, and I don’t blame him. It’s a ballsy play. It has Ben shooting down the field like a rocket and West throwing the longest spiral that we have in the playbook. If we pull it off, we’ll have a jolt of confidence and energy. If we don’t … I don’t know. I guess Prescott figures we have the next down to make it up. I hope to God he knows what he’s doing. I ignore my dad’s voice creeping into my brain trying to convince me that Prescott is the doom of us all.

  I jog out onto the field, my cleats digging into the turf I know so well. But this all feels so … off. I’m used to fans screaming in the stands, of the sort of energy that makes me feel like a god. Instead, now every step onto the field—surrounded by thousands of eyes judging us, watching for us to fail—it’s like a biting wind that makes me want to hang my head. I fight past the feeling and jut my chin out. I can’t give up. I won’t give up.

  We line up, and I block out everything else—the jeers from the Utes, the pressure from the fans, everything. I have to be here, in this moment, ready to play this game with everything I have left.

  Reggie snaps the ball back to West. I hit my defender hard and keep the block. West rolls back, giving himself space, and then he lets the ball go. It flies through the air in a perfect arc and I can already tell that it and Ben are on the same trajectory. If he catches the ball, no one will be able to stop him. For all his arrogance and bluster, he is one of the fastest wide receivers I’ve ever witnessed. This might actually work. It might actually ….

  A red shirt is tight on Ben, and just as he’s about to pull away, hands grip his shirt, holding him back enough so that the ball just slips through his fingers. A whistle blows.

  “Holding. Number 59 on the defense. Ten yard penalty,” the referee announces. All around us, boos and cheers butt up against each other. But I focus on one thing: West got the ball off. He didn’t hesitate. It steels my spine, if only a little.

  After that, Coach plays it a little safer. West throws a shovel pass off to a newbie running back, Shane Crews, but Crews chickens out from running it up the center like the play calls for. He tries to take it outside, but runs out of field and ends up out of bounds with a one-yard gain.

  “Fuck!” I shout, stalking back to the line for the next play.

  I take a deep breath. I’m overthinking every play. The play’s over, Lotto. Move on to the next one.

  Except the next one called makes my stomach flip. This one is all me. If the play goes south, I’ll have no one to blame but myself.

  It all happens so fast. There’s the snap, and then I’m bolting up the field, running as fast as my legs can take me. I feel the blood pumping through me, my muscles straining and bunching. I push off my defender, and as I’m turning to cut back and catch the ball, I slip on the field. I take a wrong step and feel my balance falter. I catch myself, but too late. The ball bounces off my hands and into the air. I reach my arms out for it, to recover the ball and save the catch, but my defender is back on me and he wants the ball as badly as I do. I dive forward and feel the lung-busting press of two-hundred pounds of muscle as the Ute lands on top of me. The ball falls just out of reach and dies. Incomplete.

  By the time the clock winds down to halftime, I’m drenched with sweat and my muscles are burning. The whole team looks like we’ve just been through a week of boot camp, and the game is only half over. We’ve managed to keep the score close, Utah’s up 7-3. It’s not the shellacking we got from Hawaii, but it feels just as disastrous. We’re making the same mistakes we made then, and there’s no sign things will improve.

  Technically, anyone could win it, but I’m just not sure we have anything left in us.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Riley

  WE DRAG OURSELVES DOWN THE tunnel toward the locker room. I have never felt this way before as a Mustang. Sure, we’ve lost games before, but it’s never felt this hopeless.

  Even Reggie looks deflated. And West … West looks miserable.

  We pile into the locker room, shoulder pads bumping, helmets dangling from our hands. Dimly, I can hear the cheery music of the marching band playing fight songs on the field. At least the spectators will get some entertainment. I’ve felt the weight of their opinions the whole first half. If we lose this game, what will become of the Mustangs?

  “Have a seat, boys,” Coach Prescott says, stalking back and forth at the front of the locker room. Most of the team collapses onto the rows of benches, but I lean against the wall. I’m afraid that if I sit, I’ll never get up again.

  “Well,” Coach says, pulling off his hat and running his hands through his hair. “That was a great first half.”

  A murmur of depressed laughter huffs through the room. “Great” isn’t exactly the word I’d use.

  Coach scrubs his hands over his face, looking at us. “Gentlemen, I’m proud of you.”

  I shift my shoulders uncomfortably. Proud?

  “Yes, proud,” Coach says, answering my unasked question. “When we started working together, I saw a bunch of boys with raw talent, and some skill, but no heart. We’re all here for different reasons. Some of you have scholarships, some of you transferred from other programs … some of you have never even played football before. But here’s the thing we have in common,” Coach says, his voice rough with emotion. “We all are here because we want a chance. A chance to make a change. To be part of a team. To prove that we are more than what people think we are.”

  Some guys are picking up their heads, the glimmer of determination sparkling in their eyes. Coach continues. “We all made a choice to be on this team, and ride out this season. It was always going to be rocky. It was always going to be rough. I didn’t have to apply for this job. Oh, no, I could be cozy back at my old school, running a winning football program. Do you know why I applied for this job? Do you?”

  A couple of guys shake their heads.

  “I applied for this job because of you. Because I wanted to work with the kind of young men who would take big chances. And in that way, you have made me
proud.”

  Ben Mayhew glares at Coach Prescott defiantly, as if refusing to be inspired. “A fat lot of good that will do us,” he says bitterly. “We’re still going to lose.”

  “I’m speaking, young man,” Coach says, so calmly and coldly that Ben lowers his head. “But I want y’all to listen to him. Because he’s not wrong. That’s what people will be saying out there in the stadium right now. That’s what the sportscasters are going to be saying tomorrow. They’re going to say that this team was gutted by scandal, and that every single one of you are pale imitations of what the team used to be.”

  The room is silent as Coach lets that sink in.

  “But that’s not what I see,” he says, his voice rising in tenor. “I see young men who are willing to work hard and surprise everyone—including themselves. I see men who have spent the last few weeks learning the most important lesson you can learn: That if you play like you’re alone out there, you will be. You’ll lose.”

  Coach pauses, and I feel alone. I really do.

  “But here’s the flip side of that. When we work together, when we play as a team, we can be better than we are alone. Stronger. Faster. Smarter. Hawkins, did you pass the ball to Reed when you were being tackled?”

  “No,” Hawkins says sullenly. “I didn’t want to lose possession.”

  “Are you kidding me, man?” Reed says. “I was right there, I was holding out my hands to you.”

  Coach points at Reed. “That’s what I’m saying. I’m going to ask y’all to do something for me, and I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think you could do it. You all took a chance on yourselves when you became a Mustang. Now take a chance on each other. I know it feels like a risk,” he says, holding up his hands. “But what do you have to lose?”

  I can’t help but think about Lilah. I haven’t given her a chance to explain. I haven’t given myself a chance to think about the offer, and what selling my carvings might mean. Why have I shut down all my chances, trying to convince myself that I have none?