“In love.”
“Friends.”
“Who are in love.”
Paisley really doesn’t care about football, but she often sits with me to watch the games. I’ve always followed the sport, although I’m not so sure I’d be as interested as I am if my brother didn’t play.
My family—my parents and siblings—are all close, but Erik and I have always been like two peas in a pod. I’m sure if he turned out to be a chess player, I would have been into that, but he happened to have a high athletic aptitude, a serious amount of self-control, and a persuasive style of leadership. He was meant to do this, to be out on that field.
I watch him now, in the huddle, giving directions to his team before they all jog to their positions on the twenty, where Erik puts in his mouth guard. He calls the play, takes the snap from Linley, and drops back a few yards, a pump fake andthen a sweet pass to Camden, completely open in the end zone.
They make it look easy.
Erik runs over, jumping onto Camden’s back as he tosses the ball to the ref, the cameras zooming in on their smiling faces. My brother’s and Camden’s.
“That’s cute,” Paisley signs. “They have a handshake.”
It is. The adorable little two-step they do, adding a shimmy and explosion after the fist bump. It reminds me of little kids.
Doing what they love to do.
What they dreamed of doing.
I couldn’t be happier for my brother. And for Camden.
When he tugs his helmet off, his open mouth is set wide in a smile that makes my heart flop around beneath my ribs. Especially because there are quiet moments I notice him blinking away redness in his eyes. Moments I know he’s thinking of his parents, sinking into the ever-present grief that never fully goes away but ebbs for a while. Only to flow back in when he’s unoccupied.
When he realizes I’m watching him, that I’ve found out his secrets, he usually offers me a smile and says he’s fine.
He’s alwaysfine.
But not always happy.
And I think…
I think I’d like to make him happy.
A few minutes later, the half ends, and both teams head to the locker rooms. As they do, the camera moves to show fans in the stands and one particular woman in a box suite, Valerie Blondeau.
She’s in a tiny cropped top, jeans that appear painted on, and a flannel button-down in maroon and gray. With her long hair in a high ponytail and the no makeup, makeup look, she is effortless. Fun. Beautiful. The type of woman expected to be with a professional athlete.
I once read a “diet” plan from the 1950s, and it involved a lotof cigarettes, a surprising amount of vodka, and a bunch of hard-boiled eggs. Sometimes I wonder if that’s what it would take for me to look like that, like her. Skinny yet curvy, shiny and bright. Cigarettes to make everything taste like ash and suppress an appetite. Vodka for the right amount of carefree. And enough protein from the hard-boiled eggs to stay upright.
I set my bag of chips aside and suck down a gallon of water, knowing it will never flush out the amount of unnecessary salt from my body, while still hoping I’ll magically be able to drop the twenty pounds that gave me stretch marks and a perpetual muffin top.
Not that I can compete with Valerie.
Even if I were to suddenly become a size zero, she’d still have five inches and three cup sizes on me.
Plus a boyfriend named Camden Long.
“Hey,” Paisley says audibly, pointing to the screen once she has my attention and then signing, “She’s got nothing on you.” She shrugs and then adds, “Camden is an idiot.”
I laugh. “Thanks.”
“No, really.” Her brows narrowing down in a similar divot like when her brother is annoyed. “You’re a better person than she is.”
I force a smile, even as it makes me squeamish to put another woman down. I want to be a girl’s girl, but envy is a dangerous thing. I swear my fingernails are turning green as I curl my hands into fists, dropping them to my lap.
