“Something with girls at least?” he asks impatiently.
“Technically, but not like that. Come to the hospital with me.”
His smile disappears. “Dude, you know I’m the worst with sick kids. I don’t mean to be a dick, but I can’t do that again.”
I give him a little shove. “You don’t have to do anything but show up. It’ll get your mind off your stupid girl problems.”
“I’m sobad at this, man,” Cash says for the third time as we ride to the hospital after practice.
“Dude, you can waltz up to the hottest girls on campus and start talking about nothing, but you’re scared of cute little kids who look at you like you’re a celebrity?”
“I get awkward. I hate hospitals and I feel sad for the kids, and then I swear they can feel my pity.”
“I get it. I used to be like that, too, but who cares about your feelings? You’re there to make them smile, and all that takes isshowing up.” I glance into the back seat. “That reminds me. I meant to bring a marker to sign some footballs and shirts and stuff.”
“Yeah, I see why you like doing this so much.”
I laugh. I do love signing autographs. Some of my friends, like Cam, can’t stand the attention and the celebrity treatment football players get on campus and around town, but me? I love every minute. It’s proof I’m doing what I came here to do. I grew up here in Shafer, and being a star in my own hometown? There’s nothing better.
But that’s not why I visit the children’s hospital.
When I was nine, I had a routine tonsillectomy that, somewhere along the way, turned out to be not so routine. A complication landed me in the hospital for four days, one of which happened to be the day some Shafer football players were making the rounds to cheer up the kids. Maybe it was because the few men I’d had in my life—my mom’s boyfriends and my loser uncle—were angry, scary, or just plain scumbags with no interest in me, but having these big, strong dudes be kind to me and listen to what I said and act like they wanted to get to know me was like meeting God. It’s one of the few purely happy memories from my childhood, as truly life-changing as the day I met Cam Forrester.
From then on, all I wanted was to be a football player. As soon as I was released from the hospital, I spent my time learning everything I could about the sport and trying to convince my mom to get me on a team. I didn’t get my wish until sixth grade, but once I did, nothing else mattered. From that first practice on a hot September afternoon, I knew this was what I was meant to do. For once in my life, something was easy. For the first time, I understood what it felt like to be good at something. I’ll never forget that day in the hospital when those guys walked into the room and changed my life.
Once a year, around Thanksgiving, a group of Shafer football players, mascots, and cheerleaders visit the hospital as part of the athletics department’s commitment to philanthropy. It’s fun, it’s low stress, and the kids light up the second they see us. For me, it was a no-brainer to turn that annual tradition into regular visits.
I keep the visit short for Cash’s sake, but I manage to see one of my favorite kids, a nine-year-old girl who’s been an oncology patient for the last two years. We play board games in the brightly colored family lounge with the ambulatory kids, which helps Cash break out of his awkwardness pretty quickly—as do the nurses who gather around us. Some are football fans, most are fans of dudes who care about sick kids, but all of them fuss over us in a way Cash and I are suckers for.
I see a few familiar faces among the parents who smile as they watch their kids encircle us. There’s this one mom who can’t be more than a few years older than me, but her face looks a little older every time I see her here with her son, a long-term patient—and I see her a lot. She’s been there every time I’ve visited the hospital in the last year. Every single time. I can never look at her for long. There’s something about that level of devotion to her kid that cuts through me.
When we walk out of the building, the sun is minutes from dipping below the horizon and my head feels clear for the first time all week. Visiting the hospital isn’t entirely selfless—I need it to keep my head on straight and pull myself out of my one-track mind, to remind me how good my life really is, how lucky I am to have friends and play football every week and walk out into September sunsets like this one.
“Wasn’t so bad, was it?” I ask Cash as we cut across the half-empty parking lot.
“Not really. They’re pretty damn cute.”
“Right?”
“And so are some of those nurses. Shit, you might have told me that part earlier.”
I smile. “Get your mind right.”
“Like you wouldn’t fuck some of those nurses?”
“Would and did.”
“Knew it. Which one?”
“Did you see the one with the black hair? Hot-pink scrubs?” We hop into the Bronco, and I slide my key into the ignition, hoping like I always do she starts up on the first try. Just because she’s fresh out of the shop doesn’t mean she won’t quit on me now.
“You fucked her? What, like in the hospital?”
“God, you’re an idiot,” I say as the engine hums to life. “No, I saw her out at a bar one night and we went back to her place.”
“So how was it?”
“Great. She’s definitely got a not-so-sweet side.” Actually, it was good, not great. But I like to tell stories.
