As soon as the results on his name had loaded, I’d gone slowly back to the hammock-chair, trying to take it all in.
Former All-American Blasts NCAA, NFL
Frederick’s Former Teammate Goes Scorched Earth on Social Media
Adam “The Hawk” Hawkins Says Copeland Frederick Sought Help
No One Safe from Hawkins’s Screed: Coaches, Teammates, Administrators Implicated
Since I’ve never followed football a day in my life, it’d taken a few clicks to put it together: Adam had once been the best college linebacker in the country, an apparent savant at memorizing plays. He shocked pundits by declining to go pro—first in his junior year, when everyone was fairly certain he would be a first-round draft pick, and then again in his senior year, when everyone wasabsolutelycertain. He was vague about his reasons: “Injuries,” he sometimes said. “Other interests,” he sometimes claimed.
Probably he would’ve been left to comfortable obscurity had that been the end of his life in the public eye. But five years later, he became the headline again, for a tragic, terrible reason: His former college teammate and longtime best friend—a man who had found massive success in the professional league Adam never went into, a man who was big like Adam, with dark blond hair and a bright smile and kind eyes in all the photos that popped up online—drowned on a summer holiday weekend, not far off the coast of Southern California.
Alone on a small boat he’d rented. A cocktail of substances in his system. A past full of mental health challenges that Adam eventually claimed football exacerbated and forced him to ignore.
I admit it: I followed a few of the links to his social media posts before I closed my browser.
Adam Hawkins in raw, roaring pain in full view of the world, calling out every person who could’ve helped Copeland Frederick, but didn’t.
I’d felt awful for looking. Like I’d spied on him, even though there was nothing private about what he’d done.
Afterward, I resolved not to let it preoccupy me anymore. It was terrible, what happened to Adam’s friend, truly devastating. But I had my own mess to worry about, and it wasn’t as though Adam had been a neutral party in helping to make it.
Of course, then Tegan had brought up his past in the car, and my resolution went out the window.
I just . . . I didn’t want him to have to talk about something painful. I didn’t want to violate his privacy.
Obviously, it makes nosense. The same way it doesn’t make sense that I can still feel the strength of his arm across my chest, or that I can still see his green eyes watching mine as he asked if I was okay.
There’s a knock on the bathroom door as I’m on stroke number whatever—I lost count a long time ago—and when I open it, Tegan stands there in sleep shorts and her senior class T-shirt. For a second, it’s as if she’s forgotten that she’s still mostly mad at me. She smiles drowsily and says, “Gotta pee,” so I duck out and wait for her to finish.
When she’s done, she opens the bathroom door again, sticking her head out.
“You can come back in.”
I guess she’s remembered—there’s some of that arctic chill back in her voice. Last night, after her interview with Salem, she barely spoke to me, told me that she was “all talked out” when we got into our room and I tried to engage her.
But her inviting me back in, that’s an opening, and I stand next to her at the vanity, watching her in the mirror as she picks up my brush for her own use. She does it the same as me: sections, strokes. Unfortunately, I can’t think of anything at all for an opening.
“Are you going to keep interrupting me today?” she says, meeting my eyes in the mirror.
I blink back at her. I don’t know what she means. It nearly killed me, but I was a statue during her interview with Salem yesterday.
So was Adam Hawkins, come to think of it.
Not that it matters.
“I didn’t interrupt.”
She loudly and dramatically clears her throat. Then she says, “Does that sound familiar?”
I can’t help but smile. Tegan gets a lot of joy out of draggingme.
“No,” I say, but I guess it does. I can think of a few specific throat clears.He was actually so nice to her, compared to some of her other boyfriends, she said about Miles Daniels . . . or Lynton Baltimore.Our mom basically always wanted men to love her, she’d said.She was a fun mom, but she could get distracted.
“Well,” I say, ceding the point, “I don’t really think you’re supposed to do much talking on our outing today, so I won’t do any throat-clearing.”
She shrugs, noncommittal. I’ll probably need to keep on with the throat-clearing.
