I think about Maya, about what she deserves. “Love isn’t a game, Arek. It’s a prize to treasure.”
“Good to know you know it. Safe flight.”
“Thanks.”
Our call ends, and I stare out the window at everything and nothing. It’s good to know Maya’s refusing to let the end of her engagement with Bryce keep her from living and experiencing the world.
I just hope that one day it eventually leads her back into my orbit.
When they call my flight, I stand. It’s time to return to the place I retreated to after I left the NFL the first time.
By the time the wheels hit the tarmac in Turin, I’m ready to be home. My layover allowed me just enough time after clearing customs to grab a macchiato that tasted like jet fuel. Despite sitting in first class again, the smaller plane feels too intimate—rows of strangers pass by me pretending not to recognize me either from my status as vineyard owner or recent social media sensation.
I deplane quickly, locate my driver, and settle into the backseat with a sigh.
There was a time, which doesn’t feel all that long ago, when I never would have imagined I’d have left Oklahoma to have made Italy my full-time home. Maybe that’s why my chest feels heavier as we approach the vineyard, and I can’t quite pinpoint why.
The car pulls up to theTenuta delle Ombre. I slide out without waiting for the driver to open the door. The air feels less contaminated here than anything I experienced during my time in Oklahoma. Maybe it’s the rows and rows of grapevines that offer a purification of sorts, but by the time I reach the front door my thoughts are clearer.
The ache I feel is because the likelihood of seeing Maya again is slim-to-none.
Instead of dwelling on my heartbreak, I tip my head back and spy the first star in the twilight sky. With no one around to hear me, I whisper, “Be happy.”
Then I step across the threshold and call out, “Mama? Zia Vinnie? Anyone around?”
Even though her ghost and all that happened still linger in the back of my mind like unfinished business, I sweep up the two women bickering in Italian and feel some small measure of peace settle around my heart.
For now.
6
PASS BREAKUP: DEFENDER KNOCKS DOWN A PASS.
Aweek after life as I planned it imploded, the girls and I exchanged hugs and kisses at the OKC airport. I boarded my flight for LA to catch a connection to Beijing while Christin and Emery headed back to the east coast and Amy returned to teaching summer school virtually.
Tilting my head back against the headrest, I give myself some grace and let myself grieve the boy I thought I knew. One whowas my first everything—my first dance, my first kiss, my first love.
There’s a girl inside me who knows I’ll always grieve the way Bryce has tainted my memories.
But what keeps me on the knife’s edge of fury and sadness is that this isn’t the Bryce Parry I remember. We grew up in a town so small that the only stoplight rarely worked. It was the place where Friday night football rivaled church as a social event. Bryce and I had little—hand-me-downs parlayed with dust-covered dreams—but somehow, he convinced me we could make something of it.
Of us.
We became inseparable—best friends first, then something more in high school. Even when two kids from nowhere could have experienced the world, I believed we had already made it. But it’s funny how two people who grow up in the same life together can diverge on the road of life they’re supposed to travel together.
I didn’t spend the time before I left for China crying over the man who spewed such filth. I mourned the boy who carried my books, walked me home, and made me believe that love could grow out of the cracks of the small-town life we left behind.
But to Bryce? I was just another play in a game I had no rule book to follow other than the knowledge that he would always have his bro code—a sacrosanct bond between teammates. I witnessed it firsthand when his teammates were hurt or sick, during births, deaths, and marriages. In fact, I was looking forward to being wrapped in its warm embrace.
Until it turned on me the night I overheard his putrid words.
However, I was shocked to find out that someone viciously exposed Bryce’s precious bro code as a toxic wasteland after I returned from China. While I photographed Danuba, where watchtowers still stand as pillars of strength as far back as 300years old, when no one dreamt of things like social media, the world was casting aspersions on the Oklahoma Lightning.
Upon booting my phone the moment my plane touched down at LAX, my girls’ group chat exploded:
Amy:
Shit has hit the fan.
