“Cam is a very important person to me, yes.” I nod once and leave it at that because I don’t think there’s anything elsetosay. It should be obvious, especially to Derek.
He knows he’s always had a wider group of supporters in the league than I have, because we’ve talked about it before. And I’ve told him how it was only right before he joined the league that I finally let myself make some friends and have a life outside of football.
I for sure didn’t make as many friends in college as he did, mostly because I didn’t really start enjoying myself until about three years into the league—after we’d won the Super Bowl that first time, after I’d won MVP, after I’d finally proven to anyone and everyone that their faith in me and the expectations placed on me hadn’t been misguided.
Cam was really the only person I had in LA when I first moved here.
Of course I could still count on my parents, and my sisters, but only up to a certain point, and they weren’there.
Some days the pain of not having them close got to be a bit too much, certainly more unbearable than having five three-hundred-pound guys fighting to get to me and destroy me, and on those days it was Cam who made me feel better.
He believed in me before anyone else did. He was my friend from the get-go and my biggest champion.
I wouldn’t be who I am if it wasn’t for him. I wouldn’t bewhereI am if it wasn’t for him. I think I would probably have done what so many other quarterbacks from small town America did after they’d made it big; I would’ve married a nice girl-next-door type of woman, we would’ve popped out a few kids, and by now I would probably be sick of everything, including the game I loved more than anything. Because now I know that I do love some things more—not many things, but some for sure.
I’m not against marriage, not in principle—I think it’s a beautiful thing when two people decide they want to spend the rest of their lives together, and they promise to do it, to work every day to do it—but I also know that I’ve never met a woman that I could see myself making those promises to while being a hundred percent honest.
Maybe that just goes to show that I am lacking something. Because I think that when I wake up in the middle of the night and feel lonely like so many other people do from what I’ve heard, I do want that companionship, and Ido want to have someone there with me who wants me for me and not for what I can give them.
I might not show it as much or as deeply as Cam does—and maybe when I’m thirty-eight I will—but I do want to find that perfect woman for me. I want the kids, the marriage, the promises.
Some days it feels... wrong to want all those things when I’m constantly presented with offers from women who just don’t give me that vibe. Like I’m ungrateful, like I’m not really giving them a chance.
But other days I forget about it completely.
I have friends and family who love me just the way I am, and I choose to believe that when I’m truly ready, when the timing fits, when the fates align or whatever, I’ll find it. I’ll findher.
Cam helped megrow upin a way that I didn’t even know I was capable of. He built up my self-esteem when it was at its lowest and has always pushed me to keep demanding more of myself.
He’s a really good fucking person and he deserves to find the happiness I’ve seen him searching for for so many years. If I can help even a little in that search, then I’ll have started to repay the immense debt I owe him.
So yeah, I don’t give Derek or Tara any other explanations, and I change the subject, because nothing is going to stop me from helping Cam.
3
CAM
I’d liketo think I’m a decisive man, that I don’t live with many regrets, that I don’t torture myself over what-ifs. In fact, other people have said those things about me too.
The past week has taught me differently.
Talking about this... idea, plan, whatever, with Caden—and yes, with Lindsey too—hasn’t brought me any closer to coming to a decision. I haven’t talked about it with Morris, who’s the first friend I ever made in LA, but I know what he’d say since he’s about as sane as AJ.
I’ll have to tell Morris soon enough, though, no matter what choice I make, because canceling lunch two days ago didn’t go over well—as I didn’t think it would.
As I sit in the owners box with the owner of the LA Warriors, and with the legend that is Clive Darnell—aneighty-year-old Hall of Famer who got the Warriors their first two Lombardis—I still have no clue what I’m going to tell AJ when I see him after the game.
They’re playing Seattle, a division rival, and are so deep into the season this game is more important than almost any other until the playoffs, but I can’t seem to keep my eyes focused on the field.
Even when AJ is right there, all I see is the horrifying nightmare my mind conjured up a few days ago when I looked more carefully at the schedule for the reunion.
I imagine myself walking alone into the gym and it’s all decorated for the joke of a prom, but I don’t feel as if I’m walking into a joke of a prom.
I feel nervous and a bit nauseous. I know I’m going to see Soren dancing with the beautiful Marie Anne Perry and smiling down at her as if he loves her, and I feel my heart break.
Then the scene changes, and everyone’s older now, but my heart is breaking all over again.
Andthatmakes no fucking sense.
