“Well, I had a different idea for all of that. I can’t be seen with just anyone, that will only continue my bad rep. And I can’t have the media attaching me to the same woman, because then she’ll see it as something more.”
Of course, no commitment for Jackson at all. He takes a breath and continues, “So, I’d like you to be my girlfriend.”
As luck may have it, I take a sip of my wine at that precise moment and choke on it. It dribbles down my chin and I spill some more on the table, trying to set my glass down.
Jackson jumps up and grabs some napkins and brings them back to me. “Are you ok? Jesus, I didn’t think it’d be that bad of a thought being with me.”
I finish cleaning myself up. “No, I’m sorry, it just caught me by surprise, is all.” I chance a look at him, and I see his eyes are full of hope and desperation. He really wants this. “So, your girlfriend…” I trail off.
“Yes, I need to drop this playboy image. I need to be seen as trustworthy, a one-woman man. I figured with our history, we could play up the high school sweethearts who found each other again.”
“But we weren’t high school sweethearts. The media will dig back through everyone we went to school with to find out. They’ll grill our families, my brothers. When they find nothing, the media will call it lies.”
“Okay, so how about the sister that was off limits? Now we’re of age, our families are rejoicing that we found each other?”
“Rejoicing?” I laugh. “That’s a bit of an overreach, don’t you think?”
“It doesn’t exactly have to be true. We can let them in on our plan, so they aren’t blindsided. We can start seeing each other, get the family blessing and let colleges see I’m not the playboy they thought I was.”
I sit quietly with this info for a minute. “What happens if this does work, and you get a job offer? When we end it, you could look like a heartbreaker. The media will turn on you. You know how they pick sides without knowing the truth. I’ll look like the jilted girlfriend. I can’t go through that humiliation.” I stop talking as I realize I’ve just given a little of myself away.
If he wants to ask questions, he gives me the grace of not doing so.“If that happens, and I do get an offer, I’d make sure to do right by you.We could put out a statement together.”
He’s already decided he won’t stay. He’ll use this for what he can get and then leave, anyway.
“Jackson, I don’t know if this is a good idea. I don’t enjoy lying. And how do we fake a relationship? It’s not as easy as just saying we’re dating. We’ll have to sell it, make it look real.”
He just nods.
“Can I ask you something? Why do you want to leave here again? I mean, I understand when we were kids, making it to the NFL was your dream. You worked hard, you did it, you made it and you got your time. Why do this to yourself all over again? You have nothing left to prove. This town loves you, the kids at the school love you, why would you leave them? From what I see, you’ve got a good thing here. People already count on you, right here,” I pause before asking my next question. “Do you want out because you think you’re better or because you want tobebetter?”
He thinks for a minute. “When we were kids, I wanted to be famous. It’s every kids dream. Your brother and I would watch old tapes and pretend I was the quarterback; he was my receiver, and that we were the dream team on the field. We talked for hours and hours about what we’d do when we made it big. We were going to buy mansions next to each other and matching Lamborghinis.” I smile because I remember hearing them plan their lives out together.
“When we got accepted to the same college, we really pushed for it. We thought we were one step closer to making it happen. Sophomore year, when it was clear Adam wasn’t going any further, but I had a chance. I swore I was going to make it just so I could still bring him along with me. For all the times he pushed me to practice, to be better, to work harder. For all the times your dad took me to practice and try outs and bought my cleats and pads when my mom couldn’t afford it, I said I was going to make it and repay them all.”
He takes another sip of his wine and keeps his eyes down. “Then I blew it. I wasted my chance by being a dick. By letting the spotlight get to me and turn me into exactly who I didn’t want to be. Then I was embarrassed and didn’t want to come home where everyone could see what a douche I had become.”
I remember the night he was leaving to report to training camp after his rookie season. I had come home from school and overheard him and my dad talking out back. My dad was encouraging him to be himself.He was explaining he didn’t need to be anyone other than Jackson Gage. He told him he could stop the train of destruction he was on, clued him in that not everyone was his friend or there to guide him to do the right thing. There was time to get his reputation back. He just had to focus.
But he didn’t. He continued with the same mistakes and partied even harder.
Then the unthinkable happened in his life. I remember that time period—his mom had gotten sick and passed quickly after being diagnosed with cancer. I saw the correlation between his mom passing, his dad bailing on him at a young age and the way he was living his life as a young adult. By his fourth year, when he got hurt, it was clearhewas his own demise. Yes, the media played up his nights out and his binges and women. He became an all-around bad boy, but Jackson did nothing to clear that up. Never explained the real reason, the real hurt behind all the nonsense that was swirling in the media. It was like he just gave up.
Grief can really play with your mind. It doesn’t ever end; you just learn to live in a new day. It changes from season to season, and we are somehow supposed to learn to adapt to that new season. The partying was how Jackson adapted. He just didn’t care anymore and no matter who tried to talk to him, he wouldn’t listen. It was something he needed to work out for himself, no matter how destructive it was for him.He needed to become what he loved most about his mom, but how could he do that when she wasn’t here to teach him?
“I get you want to make up for your mistakes. Make it up to the people who helped you, but there’s nothing to make up for. You did what you did, it was who you were at the time and now you’ve grown. Everyone who matters sees that. Everyone who matters understands the reasoning behind your actions.”
“I didn’t do what everyone thinks I did, Francesca. I just didn’t correct them.”
I give him a questioning look, and he continues. “The tattoo. I don’t have a tattoo that every woman swears they’ve seen. Of all the things that could have pushed me over the edge, it was that ridiculous story.” He drops his eyes and lets out a breath.
I think back to all the stories of the women who have ‘seen the holy grail’. A tattoo of a football with Jackson's jersey number five inthe middle of it, placed ever so precariously on his dick. I mean, when I read the first TMZ story that had a blond bimbo swearing she almost sucked the ink off him, I died a little inside.Then, with every passing week, a new woman would come forward and say they saw it too. I couldn’t believe he would even get a tattoo, let alone there, and then run through women like it was nothing.
“Why didn’t you just say it was false?”
“And how do I prove it? Show everyone my dick?” He grows angry, but then shrugs it off. “Let them think what they want. I wasn’t a womanizer then, even though it looked that way, and I’m certainly not now. I just regret mom had to see and hear that nonsense. Even worse, that I didn’t get to clear it up with her.”
I slink into my side of the couch, pulling my tank lower as if I can cover what I did. When that story broke, I wanted to tell him what I had done, wanted to feel close to him, and him to me. I wanted to tell him I had done it to celebrate his rookie game. I wanted him to be proud. If he actually had the tattoo, I wanted him to know I didn’t care, and I had done the same thing.
