I didn’t go back to my seat until Tate fully understood what I was saying, and he’d pulled his phone from his dress pants to start rectifying the damage he’d caused.
From the jump—and held to their own elevated standards—the Patriots played like shit. Us, on the other hand, played like we had fuck all to lose, when we were the team who had the most at stake.
Taking back the lead in the fourth quarter, Carlion took off down the field right off the snap, slanting in to draw in the defense and then blasting by them, deep into the zone, wide open by the time the football landed snugly in his two hands. He strolled in for the touchdown like he owned the place, and it was the smoothest play of the game.
We walked off the field at the Gillette Stadium with stars in our fucking eyes, a 33-30 win over our AFC rivals, and over ninety percent of my throws completed. We were heading into the playoffs as the number three seed. This time last year, I’d missed out on this same incredible feeling my mashed-up brain was too afraid to fully accept and embrace. It could all still be taken away, and I couldn’t relax while the risk of dashed dreams hung over my head like a neurotic storm cloud.
I’d bagged my mom two tickets for the game. Taj had left with Angel two days after Christmas, so that was a downer, also maybe why my teammates’ wild excitement barely penetrated. I couldn’t catch a fucking break when it came to her. Even when my career was coming together like a complete puzzle, she was the piece that had come loose from the box.
“Seven! Hey, wait up!”
Mopping the sweat off my face and hair with a towel, I craned my neck, one of the Patriots’ cheerleaders jogging up the field, pom poms rustling in her two hands.
“Katlyn,” I said, recognizing the petite brunette with the professionally made-up face and golden, sparkly tan. I put my arm around her waist as she stretched up onto her toes in her spandex micro shorts to hug it out.
She beamed at me, a concoction of unnaturally straight white teeth and candy pink lipstick. “I probably shouldn’t be saying this, but nice game out there. I’m so happy for you. Congratulations, Seven. You deserve it.”
“Thanks. I hear Nicky’s all set to sign with the Giants.” Nicky Reid, my wide receiver at Boston University, had been drafted by the Kansas City Chiefs as the number ten, first round pick. They never started him, and now he’s a free agent.
“On the dotted line. He needs his QB out there with him.”
That on-field chemistry between a quarterback and his receivers was pure magic. Without Nicky as one of mine, my college football record would look a hell of a lot different today. “If he hits up Boston in the offseason, we could run some plays. Warm him up for New York.”
“He would be all over that. Great idea.” Katlyn propped her knuckles on her slim waist, shiny pom poms limp at her sides. “How’s Angel? Alexis Javine is walking click-bait. You’re dealing with her, right?”
“I’m dealing with her. Me and Angel are still cool, but you know how it is. That long distance just seems to grow wider.”
“Then don’t let it. I’ve always rooted for you guys. You’re so good together it makes me sick. And I know you, Seven. Giving up isn’t in your vocabulary.” She smiled at me, the look in her charcoal-lashed eyes softening. The home crowd roared in the confetti-strewn stands, Patriots fans no strangers to the playoff party train. “It was good seeing you, though.”
“It’s always good seeing you. My mom’s here, so…”
“Yeah.” Katelyn backed away, toward the rest of the Patriots cheerleaders. “I’ll tell Nicky to call you.”
“You do that.”
“And may the best team win!”
“We will,” I called back.
I loosened the top three buttons on my shirt and kicked the front door closed behind me. Most of the team had made plans to go out and ride the playoff high until it burned into the ground, but I wouldn’t be joining them on any of those nights. I needed to stay at a hundred percent until the postseason came to an end for us, and if the next few rounds kept going our way, that wouldn’t be any time before February.
A nineties R&B song played on the wall-mounted TV, and I walked to the balcony, Dog greeting me halfway in a series of whimpers and high-pitched, fragmented woofs. “Good boy,” I said, bending to scratch his ear and settle him. He followed me outside, panting with his tongue hanging out of his slobbering mouth.
Rebecca sat curled up on one of the lounge chairs, a cigarette between two fingers, her eyes pink and swollen. I didn’t respond well to the guilt that snaked through my veins and pounded at my temples. Tate was no good for Rebecca, but she should be free to make her own mistakes and learn from them. It was just too bad this particular mistake had thought he was invincible, and he’d crossed into shit concerning me and Angel that he shouldn’t have been anywhere near. The videos in question had gone up in a puff of smoke, though, and the fired-up anger in me that never got to fully come and out play sat quietly sulking, still hopeful for the opportunity to have it out with Alexis.
Angela pushed for going ahead and suing Alexis on the grounds of defamation, but putting this negative attention behind me, going into the playoffs, was more important. I hadn’t ruled it out, and if anyone was going to believe me over that deceiving bitch, a lawsuit seemed the smartest way to go. I could’ve even approached management, but rearranging the lineup now would be a poor, detrimental call, and I might not think very much of him, but collectively, as a winning team, we did need our left guard. When Ross brought every ounce of energy and determination to the field, like today, he left little room for criticism.
Rebecca surprised me by saying, “He told me everything.”
“Who?” Like I didn’t know.
“Tate.”
I said nothing. The high from this afternoon’s win still struggled to get off the ground, and I had a cacophony of unrelated noise blaring in my head to sort through so I could concentrate on football. In short, the prospect of finally playing in the Super Bowl, in my crucial third season with the Dolphins, had me dazed. It wasn’t a feeling you could prepare for.
“If I’d have known he was passing on what I said to Alexis, I wouldn’t have told him anything. He lied about most of it, anyway. I never told him you’d broken up. I wouldn’t. I didn’t even know he knew her.”
“This is his fuck-up, Rebecca. Not yours.”
Through curls of smoke, her frown evened out into an enquiring look. “You aren’t mad at me?”
“Next time maybe don’t discuss me as much, but no, I’m not mad at you. Couples talk, and you trusted him. This is on Tate.”
A sob erupted from her chest, shoulders juddering as her head tilted forward and she pressed her palm to her forehead. She’d been back in Miami one day, and this is what I’d done. She’d probably be better off away from me, where I couldn’t breathe down her neck any time someone with a Y chromosome sniffed in her direction.
Angel didn’t know what the fuck she was in for when she did eventually move in.
Tapping Rebecca on the elbow with the back of my hand, she shuffled over. Face still covered behind her fingers, I squeezed my too-big body onto the lounger next to her and draped my arm around her shoulders. I plucked the burning cigarette from between her two fingers and dropped it to the floor, stamping it out with the sole of my Hugo Boss dress shoe.
T he Miami Dolphins had gone and done it. Defied the odds and ended the long, depressing Super Bowl drought. Their performance in the playoff rounds had been nothing short of sensational. Came out for every game fighting to become the AFC champions.
The host city, Minneapolis was a whirlwind, from deboarding the plane at MSP to walking to U.S Bank Stadium with thousands of die-hard fans, the raucous stampede of Dolphins and Eagles supporters vibrating with energy. I’d been pulled along in a sea of teal and midnight-green, inconceivable that the infectious elation for one side would have burned to bitterness by the end of this weekend.
I hoped to God that side wasn’t ours. I didn’
t know how Julian would treat such an impactful loss. His dad also being here somewhere with Tabatha and Susan wouldn’t go down well if Julian came off that field with anything other than a win. And Rebecca had boycotted the game in lieu of the shitty way Tate had handled himself, but Julian hadn’t kicked up a stink over her passing on the ticket he’d bought for her. Despite her insistence she was doing fine, we could all see Tate had left a dent in her, and it was killing Julian to just sit back and allow the breakup dust to settle.
Holding up my cell phone to take a selfie of me and Taj pressed together in our jerseys and hats, sucked into the chaotic mayhem, an incoming call from my Grandpa Killian flashed onto the screen once the picture had been snapped.
“Angel, is Michael with you?” He didn’t even wait for me to say hello, his tone urgent.
“Yeah,” I flicked a glance at my dad walking beside Olivia and then handed him the phone. “It’s Grandpa.”
Seconds into the call, my dad’s face drastically collapsed from happy and relaxed to alert and distressed. Muffled by the lively crowd, I couldn’t hear any of the brief, choppy conversation. We’d stopped walking, though, separating from the other fans pouring into the stadium.
“Elena and Bear have been in an accident,” my dad said once he was off the phone. “They’re in the hospital.” The color drained from his face, and I felt the blood rapidly leaving mine.
Olivia flapped around him asking what needed to be done, how could she help.
“Apologize to Julian,” he said to her, detached now from his surroundings. “I need to book a flight Back to Boston now.”
“Okay.” Olivia nodded, my dad’s panic spreading. “Go straight to the airport. Give me your room key and I’ll collect your things from the hotel.”
“I’m coming,” I blurted, my heart jackhammering. I couldn’t believe he was planning on going without me. Dampness striped my cheek before I realized I was crying, and all the good, positive energy fizzing in my blood trickled out of me, leaving me ice cold.
“Hey.” Taj’s hand cuffed my wrist. “They’ll be okay. Right?”
“I’ll get you a flight back to Boston with me tonight,” Olivia reassured Taj, since he couldn’t fly to Los Angeles without me.
I gave him and Olivia a quick hug, Taj holding on for a little bit longer. Fueled by pure adrenaline and fear of the unknown, I plowed the wrong way through the crowd with my dad, pushing to get back to where we’d started, away from the Stadium, Julian, and the game that hadn’t kicked off yet. This amazing, unbelievable day had turned into a horror fest.
I took the phone from my dad and searched through the best-available, non-stop flights. He was in no state to handle credit card details. I found and booked one scheduled to take off at seven thirty-five, so that gave us two hours.
“It was a car accident,” my dad said when we were in a cab going nowhere. The gridlocked traffic surrounding the stadium was the stuff of nightmares, and my dad’s irritation grew with every minute we sat stationery, no closer to Elena or Bear and no nearer to Boston. “All the details aren’t known yet, but Elena’s been taken to theater, and Bear was being assessed. I missed the damn call from Mass General. Luckily, they retrieved your grandfather’s number from the contacts in Elena’s phone.” He leaned forward in his seat, pulled off his Super Bowl 52 cap and snapped at the helpless driver, “Does this thing actually drive?”
“It’s not his fault, Dad.” I pulled him back with a hand on his shoulder, apologizing to the stunned driver on my dad’s behalf. “We picked a bad time for an emergency exit. All the roads are blocked. It’ll clear soon. Game’s starting shortly.”
The Game. Julian was none the wiser to my absence, and if his ignorance stayed that way until the final whistle, then that would be a small blessing I would grab onto with two hands.
My dad hadn’t mentioned the word ‘fatal’, but I lowered my expectations of how Elena and my baby brother were doing to avoid any unwelcome surprises. Elena was in surgery, and then she would come out. Bear may not even need surgery. It definitely did not sound like they were beyond help.
Even when we made it to the airport on time and we’d taken off, cruising at altitude, I couldn’t rest. Those worst-case scenarios advanced into images refusing to fade, and my mind became flooded with them, ravaging my brain cells until exhaustion finally got the better of me and I titled my head on the window panel. My dad huffed and fidgeted beside me, his irritability increasing the more I tried to reassure him. So, I left him alone, neither of us exchanging anything more meaningful than the odd, trivial sentence in regard to the flight, how long it would take to power walk through the airport with not one piece of luggage between us. Nothing heavier than that. The shock of the news hadn’t quite worn off yet, and even though we weren’t saying it, that didn’t make us any less afraid.
My dad was ready to burst out of his skin, never mind his seat, when the plane’s wheels eventually hit the tarmac at Logan International. It was dark, late, and rainy. And now we were here, I couldn’t wait a second longer to get off this redeye and see Bear and Elena. Even being in the same city as them felt like a huge load off.
“Your grandfather should already be here waiting to take us to the hospital,” my dad said as we deboarded the plane. All those other passengers were a nuisance he couldn’t get past quick enough.
I didn’t know if it was just seeing him after so long, standing forlorn in front of his car, or knowing I was one step closer to the hospital, but I was perilously close to breaking down right there in my grandpa’s backseat.
“I have some news.” Grandpa stepped on the gas, steering us away from the airport. “Bear’s left lung collapsed, and he has a rib contusion. There was no internal bleeding, so surgery wasn’t necessary, and he’s not in any immediate danger. He’s doing well, Michael.” A Miami Dolphins air freshener hung from the rearview mirror, swaying from the motion of the SUV. Then a splintering, guttural sob racked my dad’s shoulders, the terse sound so unnatural coming from him.
My Grandpa reached over, cupping the back of his neck in a loving squeeze. It was too much to watch, and I looked out my window, tears silently sliding down my face.
Twenty-three degrees outside, an onyx sky punctured with billions of silver stars cloaked Memorial Stadium as my Grandpa took the toll road for the East Boston Expressway. The car was deathly quiet as the traffic slowed at the entrance to Sumner Tunnel, and I kept my gaze trained on the window, staring at nothing as the strip of white light fed along the top of the tunnel, bleeding into one continuous line. My ears popped from the pressure of being underwater, already sensitive from a rough landing. The car ride couldn’t have been longer than fifteen minutes, but to me, it felt like hours had passed once my Grandpa turned off into the General Hospital’s entrance.
To avoid wasting any more time while Grandpa found a parking space, I grabbed my bag and jumped out at the drop off point with my dad.
My grandpa reeled off the floor and room number for Bear, my dad already on his way to the building.
“Thanks. See you in there.” I closed the rear door and hurried after my dad. A thick layer of crystalized frost covered signposts and the sidewalk, and I slipped twice trying to catch up.
After locating the Children’s ER, we plowed through the hallways and climbed the labyrinth of back stairs, too impatient to wait for an elevator to the pediatric department where Bear was receiving his treatment. We veered off at the next landing and pushed through a set of double doors. I squirted sanitizer into my hand from a mounted dispenser, rubbing in the cool gel as I half-ran, half-walked to the nurses’ station.
Once our identities were confirmed, we were shown to Bear’s room, the private space too big and open for a someone as small as he was. He should have his mom in here with him, I thought as I approached him, propped-up in the raised, child-sized bed in a medical gown, the white sheets ruffled at his waist. A clear plastic tube had been inserted into the side of his swollen chest, and a nasal canula f
ed him oxygen, another machine monitoring his heart, maybe. I didn’t know. His soft, golden hair curled around his head and ears while he slept, his breathing coming in shallow, but rhythmic bursts. A bandage covered the left side of his head, halfway up his hairline, and the same side of his face had been grazed, purple bruising flowering his eye.
God, I loved him so much. I wanted to touch him, but didn’t take that risk, unsure of how much—if any—pain he was in.
I turned as my dad’s footsteps quietly squeaked over the linoleum floor. He wasn’t as reserved as me, and he bent over the raised sides of the bed to kiss Bear’s cheek, swiping at the tears that had come loose as he lifted his head and sniffing back the rest before stepping away to tear off a sheet of paper towel from the dispenser over the sink to clean his face with.
“What did the nurse say?” I asked him in a low voice, so I wouldn’t disturb Bear. “And what is all this?” I waved at the medical machinery along the wall, at the tube coming out of Bear’s chest.
“The tube’s to allow his lung to re-expand, and they’re giving him oxygen to help reabsorb the air around the lung more quickly and to lessen his symptoms. He’s got two bruised ribs, no fractures.” He sucked in air, looking around the room at nothing, fighting for composure. I heard it in his tone as well as saw it on his face that he was blaming himself. If he hadn’t been in Minneapolis… with me…
Keeping Seven Page 12