“Thanks for the invitation, though,” I added. It sounded awkward and I also felt that way.
“Yeah, sure. You’re welcome. I know you said how much you love your place but you’ve also been talking about being lonely there.”
“What? No, I haven’t. I love it. I love being on my own,” I told him. “It was what I always wanted.”
“Great, you got what you wanted.”
“As did you,” I pointed out. “You said no to the woman who suggested getting a practice dog so you could try out being a dad. I asked you why you don’t have a girlfriend or a wife and the answer was simple, that you don’t want one. You like being on your own, too, and if you don’t want to wash your hands after working on your car, then you don’t have to.”
“I always wash my hands.”
“You know what I—”
“Yeah, and you’re right. I like my life the way it is, exactly as it is. I don’t want anyone around bothering me.”
“You were just throwing out an idea without really thinking it through,” I guessed. “You were worried about me because I was acting so mopey and annoying, like I had done in Utah, too. I’m not really that person, though.”
“No,” he said. “I don’t think you were being mopey or annoying. But I probably hadn’t thought enough about my idea. That part is right.”
“Right,” I agreed. It didn’t feel right, though. It felt like we were arguing although we were both saying the same thing.
“Right,” he echoed and I was tired of that word. This was wrong somehow.
“I’m sorry,” I said. I was sorry that he was upset—he seemed to be upset? I was sorry that we were talking this way, like we were angry. I wasn’t—was he?
“I better go,” he told me next.
“Right,” I agreed again. No, this was wrong!
“Maybe I’ll see you after the game. Bye.” And he hung up.
I had been dreaming a lot about my dad, since his death had been so much on my mind. I did it again that night and I woke up gasping, just like he had when he had taken his last breaths. It was a long time until morning, and when it arrived, I found that I wasn’t any happier. I went for a hike then I cleaned my apartment, then went grocery shopping, and then I sat on my couch which I fully hated. I spent a while looking online for a new one but it was ridiculous to buy something when what I had worked just fine. I was being ridiculous.
I took a long time getting ready for the game that night and I went to the stadium hours early, but I skipped tailgating in the parking lot with Taylor and Kiya, and maybe Victoria. She’d been absent from a lot of our lunches and I wasn’t even sure if she was going to the game at all, because she’d said she was tired again.
I sat in my office for a while, not bothering to turn on the lights or wake up my computer, until the doors of the stadium finally opened and I went in with the rest of the excited crowd. I wore my Wilder jersey and I reached back to run my fingers over the letters.
Morgan Hurley, the wife of the cornerback who’d had the extra ticket, was a nice woman. She knew a lot of other people in the seats around us and she introduced everyone, and they were also welcoming. They were all excited about the game and seeing the guys they knew, but they seemed to take it more in stride than Idid. In my case, every muscle was tense, even the ones around my ears and especially the ones in my stomach. But they were eating and sipping drinks and laughing together, like they might have been out having fun at a bar rather than watching their husbands, boyfriends, and brothers play a very, very important football game.
“I mean, Xavier and I have been together since high school,” Morgan told me when I said that she seemed calm. “I’ve seen hundreds of games. Maybe a thousand?” She mentally calculated for a moment and then shrugged. “He transferred in college and he’s been with three teams since, so there have been a lot of new places, too. You just have to roll.”
“Your emotions slide away, like water off a duck’s back,” I suggested, and she nodded in agreement.
“But I do get upset sometimes, like if he takes a hard hit or especially when he gets injured. I get very upset. But I’ve learned to keep it in. Sometimes they put cameras on us and I don’t need anyone to see that I want to go down on the field and stab somebody, or maybe I’m swearing at the coach for not giving Xavi the playing time he deserves.”
Playing time was an issue for me, too. Yes, the guy who’d been the starter last season was very good, and he deserved to be out there. But so did Ronan. He really did, because not only was he an amazing football player, but he was also an amazing person—funny, kind, sweet…
“Are you ok?”
I nodded at Morgan and at her friend who was leaning around her to stare at me. “I got something in my eye,” I explained. My thoughts harkened back to something else she’d mentioned. “Did you say that Xavier had been traded before?”
He had, twice. She talked about moving to new places, meeting new people, finding housing, settling in. It reminded me a lot of my life with my dad, except that they had money and other resources to help them along the way. They also had two kids and she was pregnant with their third, which upped the difficulty factor by a lot. But she said that it was just part of the life she and Xavier had signed up for. “We have a house in the town in New Jersey where we grew up, near family, and that’s where we’ll live when he retires,” she explained.
“I just want to stay in one place,” I mentioned, and the friend who had been staring at me shrugged dismissively.
“You won’t be the one deciding,” she sniffed. “That’s all front office horseshit.”
I watched Ronan on the field. He’d talked about the possibility of playing somewhere else next season. He could leave and it wouldn’t have anything to do with me. I wiped under my eyes again and this time, Morgan handed me a napkin.
