“There was this one night.” The memory rose up unbidden, sharp-edged and suffocating. “Junior year of high school. I came home from a study group and found him in the kitchen. He’d been trying to make dinner. Mom was working late, and he wanted to surprise her. But he’d forgotten what he was doing halfway through. Left the stove on, wandered off. When I found him, he was sitting on the floor of his closet, holding his old jersey, crying.”
I heard Seth stand. Heard him cross the room toward me. But I couldn’t turn around, couldn’t look at him while I said this.
“He looked up at me and said, ‘I used to be somebody. I used to matter.’ And I didn’t know what to say. Because he was right. He used to be this incredible athlete, this sharp, funny, brilliant man. And football had hollowed him out until there was nothing left but confusion and grief.”
Seth’s hand settled on my shoulder. Warm, steady. I still didn’t turn around.
“I spent four hours that night getting him cleaned up, calmed down, into bed. Made him dinner. Sat with him until he fell asleep. Then I went to my room and cried until I couldn’t breathe.” I exhaled, my breath fogging the window again. “That was my life for two years. And I swore when he died that I was done. Done caretaking. Done watching someone I loved fall apart. Done being helpless.”
“You’re not helpless.” Seth’s voice was rough. “You’re not— This isn’t the same.”
“I know it’s not the same.” I finally turned around. He was closer than I’d expected, close enough that I could see the exhaustion carved into his face, the way he was holding himself stiff to protect his ribs. “But every time you walk through that door bruised and limping, I feel it. That same dread. That same certainty that I’m watching someone I care about get destroyed, and all I can do is hand them ice packs and hope it’s enough.”
“It is enough. You are enough.” His hand slid from my shoulder to my neck, thumb tracing along my jaw. “Tanner, I’m not your father. I’m not going to forget your name. I’m not going to disappear while you watch.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No. But I know the odds. And I know I’m finishing this season, and then I’m done. Grad school applications are already submitted. Athletic training programs, all of them. I’m not trying to go pro. I’m not good enough, and honestly? I don’t want it. I want to help players, not be one.”
I’d known that. He’d told me weeks ago, that night on the couch when we’d first talked about the future. But hearing it again now, with his hand warm on my neck and his eyes steady on mine, something in my chest loosened.
“Your family doesn’t know that,” I said. “Do they?”
His jaw tightened. “My family doesn’t know anything about my life. By choice.”
“Tell me.”
He was quiet for a moment. Then he stepped back, and I immediately missed the warmth of his hand. He lowered himself onto the arm of the couch, moving carefully around his injuries.
“They’ve never been to one of my games. Not once. Not in high school, not in college.” He stared at the floor. “Both my parents are academics—my dad’s in economics, my mom’s a literature professor. They’ve always thought football was barbaric. Violent and pointless. They never wanted me to play at all.”
“That’s—”
“They made that clear from the start. When I joined the team in high school, they refused to sign the permission forms. Held out until the deadline, then finally relented at the last minute—but only after making sure I knew exactly how disappointed they were.” His mouth twisted. “My mom has this whole speech about how football is ‘sanctioned violence for people who can’t find better ways to prove themselves.’ She’s given me that speech maybe fifty times. Birthdays. Holidays. Random Tuesday phone calls.”
I thought about my own mother, who’d watched football destroy her husband and still supported my choice to study sports engineering. Who understood that my work was about making things safer, not pretending the danger didn’t exist.
“When I changed my major to human performance instead of something ‘useful’ in their eyes, they cut off contact almost completely,” Seth continued. “Sophomore year, right after I declared, my dad called and said that since my scholarship was paying for me to throw my life away on sports, he didn’t see the point in pretending to support it anymore.”
“So you got scholarships.”
“Cobbled together. Academic and athletic. Took me three months of applications and appeals.” He finally looked up at me. “After the Tennessee game, my mother left a long-ass voicemail. She’d seen the highlight of me getting hit—it made the highlight reels, apparently—and she wanted me to know I was ‘actively destroying my cognitive future for a meaningless game.’”
“Jesus, Seth.” I felt like a dick, like I was no better than them because that was also my biggest fear. At least they had a reason to be worried. He was their son.
“The best part? She’s never actually watched me play. She saw a thirty-second clip online and decided that was enough to lecture me about my choices.” His laugh was bitter. “Meanwhile, my sister hasn’t spoken to me in eight months because I missed her engagement party for an away game. My dad sends me articles about CTE every few weeks with no commentary, just the links. And none of them—not once—have asked if I’m okay. If I’m happy. If maybe I know what I’m doing with my own life.”
I moved without thinking, crossing the space between us, standing in front of him. His eyes tracked up to mine.
“They see what you see,” he said quietly. “The injuries. The risks. The statistics. And they can’t understand why anyone would choose this.”
“I’m not like them.”
“Aren’t you?” No accusation in his voice—just tired honesty. “You hate watching me play. You hate patching me up. You just said you can’t keep doing this.”
“Because I’m scared, not because I don’t respect you.” I gripped his shoulders, careful of the bruises, needing him to understand. “There’s a difference. Your family doesn’t support you becausethey think they know better than you do. It sounds like they wouldn’t approve of you being a jock in any sport. It’s not really about the specific game you’re playing. It seems like they’re disappointed you didn’t become what they wanted.”
Something flickered in his expression. Surprise, maybe. Or recognition.
