Supernova

by Anne Leigh

  Scott was the brightest star in my life.

  And I know that the brightest stars in the sky don’t twinkle because the air around them is stagnant or that they changed colors.

  They twinkled because the atmosphere experienced turbulence, thereby creating a stream of photons to either be deflected or not, creating the twinkling effect.

  One day, the media buzz would be deflected and another star would catch their attention.

  Until then, I chose to ride this turbulent ride with him.

  Scott

  I don’t hate interviews.

  Contrary to what had been said about me, I don’t have this innate, burning hatred for the media.

  I was a private person; I liked my personal space and everything inside it to be kept inside my bubble.

  However, I also recognized that without the media, football wouldn’t be as big of a sport as it was.

  The endless game analysis, the detailed play-by-play animations, the constant dueling of commentators on what, who, why the best players and plays were – they all kept football relevant.

  So even if I liked to keep to myself, I understood the business of football.

  The media was necessary for the league.

  It was why as a quarterback, I was required to do two interviews a week to the league’s media partners.

  I could skip the interviews, I didn’t care about the fine, but I wouldn’t be setting up a good precedent to my teammates and to my fellow football players.

  It was my responsibility as the leader of the Royals to show up with my mug, and right now I had to answer the questions that Jenny Carter, Sports News’ resident football analyst, was going to be asking me.

  We were in a small office at TriMedia’s downtown location in Atlanta, a hell of a coincidence if you asked me. I didn’t think that the incident between Dex and I would be blasted all over the news, but it was what all of the sports stations seemed to be airing out this week, ahead of our game against the Falcons.

  She’d prepped me with the questions by emailing them to me yesterday, and last night I was reading them while Bridge dozed off on the other side of the phone.

  My girlfriend looked serene while she was sleeping, but I could hear the anxiety in her voice, and what she wasn’t telling me showed in her eyes.

  Women have come and gone in my life. As long as I’d thrown a football, I’d known that girls liked to be with athletes. I dated lots of girls in high school who only wanted to be with me because I was a quarterback. How did I know they were only with me because I could throw a football?

  Because that’s all they ever talked about.

  Kara had been different. She rarely talked about football, and aside from her beauty, it was what attracted me to her and what gave me the guts to ask her out even if she was my best friend’s sister.

  Kara didn’t mind that girls hung around me, she knew who I was with and that’s why I thought that it would be okay to break up with her time and time again and leave her hanging while I focused all of my attention on football.

  I didn’t screw around with other girls, I had too much on my plate and I was actually happy with her.

  When we broke up, it left a huge ass dent in my ego, and it also made me realize that I couldn’t take women for granted like that. That even when they said everything was okay, maybe not everything was.

  I learned my lessons with Kara, and I didn’t want to make the same mistakes with Bridgette.

  Not when she was the woman I could truly see myself being with past my football career. Past all the media hype. Past everything that was being hurled at us right now.

  I felt the intrinsic need to protect Bridgette.

  I wanted to shield her from the ugly side of fame, especially because I knew of her parents.

  I wanted to keep her locked up and never let her out of my sight.

  I felt her anger and frustrations last night when she talked about the reporters hanging around Paint Me Mine, the place where she worked part-time to help kids express themselves through painting. She hadn’t said a word to the reporters who followed her everywhere she went, but she’d raised her voice talking about the paparazzi knocking on the door of Paint Me Mine, wanting to get a look inside.

  To Bridge, that was the last straw.

  I was scared shitless that she was going to break up with me, that she’d finally had it and she was going to tell me to screw off and forget about her.

  But my woman wasn’t easily breakable.

  She’d been wary of the spotlight before, but now she was fighting back. I’d never forget the night when she wanted me to tell the world about her. I’d wanted to scream and shout to everyone that she was mine and I sorta did. I wanted it to be trickled out to the media slowly, effortlessly, so that the glare would be muted, but Dex had not made it easy on us.

  So here I was, trying to change the rhetoric about what happened, play the offense as Coach had called it, so I wouldn’t have to do so much defense.

  The green light had come on, communicating to me that we were now live on air.

  The interview was being done live so there would be no chance for corrections and edits once the words came out of my mouth.

  Jenny’s mouth started moving and her green eyes smiled at me as she gave the introductions, “I’m with Scott Strauss today, the Los Angeles Royals’ most valuable acquisition since their move from St. Louis to Los Angeles.”

  I grinned at the camera, my right hand on my right leg, as I tried to diffuse the assortment of energy flowing through me. My agent, Trayton, had coached me this morning on what to wear, a simple dark blue dress shirt and slacks. He said that jeans were too casual, and since the setting was more intimate than the regular post-game interviews, he wanted me to look nicer.

  I’d sent Bridge a picture this morning and she’d given me the thumbs-up emoji. Right now, she was in the lab so she’d see my interview after it aired.

  “Thanks for having me here, Jenny.” I’d done a couple of interviews with Jenny. She was the consummate professional and she never strayed off the topic. I’d talked to her before and after interviews to know that she was happily married to the baseball player, Cristo Saxon, so I felt that she also knew the burden of fame when erroneous reports swirled around.

  “How are you doing, Scott?” Her smile held enough wattage to power up the city yet she made me feel comfortable.

  “I’m actually doing okay, just preparing for Sunday’s game,” I answered. Although I’d been busy deflecting the unwanted media attention, I also had to mentally prepare for Atlanta’s defense, a powerhouse in the NFC South.

  “You’ve grown a lot as a player. I remember interviewing you in your rookie year. You had all these amazing stats, twenty-five touchdowns, thirty-eight-hundred and ninety-five passing yards, seventy percent completion rate. Everyone was calling you the second coming of Dan Marino. Now, you’re one of the top three quarterbacks in the league, and you’re barely entering your third year. What’s changed since then?”

  “It helps a lot that I have a great coach and a great team. I wouldn’t be able to accomplish much if my O-line wasn’t there to give me space to breathe and my receivers are just amazing,” I breathed in, talking about football was the easy part. I could do it in my sleep. I didn’t memorize my own stats, I didn’t need to fluff my football pads with my ego. I did, however, remember every game, every pass as if they were a movie that played in my head. I’d thrown hundreds of passes and I always wanted to feel the same exhilarating feeling every single time.

  Jenny talked more about the Royals’ strategy in the previous games and like any good analyst; she dissected our offense and picked up on the changes in the defense.

  “You’re used to blitzes aren’t you?” Her green eyes were giving me enough warning that she was going to bring up the huge elephant in the room.

  You couldn’t be a good quarterback if you expected the defense to do the same thing over and over again. Blitzes kept me on my toes.
When four or more three hundred pound men were trying to rush over to you to get the ball or force a pass, you’d better be on high alert and function as if they weren’t there.

  My agent stated that my results at the combine were one of the highest ever recorded because of my ability to react both in and out of the pocket. I made mechanical moves depending on what I saw, and I could read defense as if they were an open book. Maybe it was the way my brain was wired or how my nerves were aligned, but I didn’t get scared when I saw giants coming at me. Instead I felt more pumped up when I read the defense accurately pre-snap and calmly throw through progressions.

  “I guess I am,” I answered Jenny and she gave a light chuckle.

  “How about when the blitzes happen in your personal life? Let’s talk about the video with ten million views and growing since this past weekend. What happened?” She’d given me enough time to think about my answer, and while I’d been tight-lipped about the incident when a reporter asked me at an interview after our practice this Wednesday, I knew that now was the time to say something about it. Bridge was getting the brunt of it in L.A. and I wanted to give her back her quiet life, or as quiet as the media would allow her.

  “It happened,” I said as I wasn’t going to deny that it did because everyone could see that I wanted to get my hands on my back-up and punch his face in.

  “Am I correct to assume that it happened because of the past between your girlfriend and Dex Berger?” She was straight in her line of questioning, no hint of malice like the salacious gossip sites that abounded on the web.

  “Yes, they were involved a long time ago, but there’s nothing between them now,” I replied, wishing that I had not put myself in this position in the first place. But Dex had pushed all my buttons, and I didn’t want anyone to question that Bridge was mine.

  “Your girlfriend…” Jenny started and I nodded my head, letting her know that it was okay for her to ask about her. “Her name’s Bridgette Cordello?”

  My agent showed me the video that was spreading like molasses, and I thought it had started when I was screaming at Dex. I was wrong. The video recording started when Dex was on stage singing like a lost puppy, and he’d called out Bridgette’s full name on it. There was no way we could erase her name and at this point, it was useless. Trayton and I agreed that the best strategy was just to confront it head-on.

  “Yes, that’s her name,” I answered, a heavy weight landing on my shoulders. Being a regular Joe had its advantages and right now, what I would give to just have Bridge and my relationship left in peace.

  “Pretty name for a beautiful woman.” Jenny’s expression softened and I knew that she was on my side. “Her mother’s name is Bettina and her brother is rugby’s second son, Bishop Cordello?”

  “They are.” I didn’t want to say more. “And yes my girlfriend’s a gorgeous woman.”

  Jenny’s eyes lit up with curiosity, “How did you two meet?”

  “We met when I was still in college,” I said, my feet itching to stand up and my hands straining to throw a football. I didn’t hate interviews, but I hated taking my personal laundry out for the whole world to see. “Right now, she’s really busy with school and she doesn’t need the extra stress of the media following her around which is why I’m hoping that talking to you will lessen the attention on her.”

  Jenny’s left brow rose and her face gave me a stilted look, “You do know that her being your girlfriend will just fuel the hunger of the public’s interest in her, right? And now that there’s a video of you fighting with Dex because of her, everyone wants to know everything about the three of you…”

  I pictured the paparazzi clamoring for shots of Bridgette and hordes of faceless reporters wanting her statement, and I had the urge to just hit something. Dex hadn’t made it easy on us, he had interviews about how he and Bridge were ill-fated lovers and up until a day ago, he was still yacking to my teammates about how he wanted her back.

  “If the paparazzi left her alone, I promise that I will answer every question about us,” I breathed out my answer. “I’ve never been the guy to talk about my personal relationships, but if that’s what it’s going to take, then you and every reporter in the world can ask me questions about her and I’d never say no comment.”

  It was a stretch, but after more than two years of being in the NFL, I had a few tricks up my sleeve.

  “Anything?” Jenny’s other brows rose to greet her hairline. She didn’t look like she believed me. I’d never answered personal questions before and I never wanted to, but it was the only way I thought of that could retract the attention from my girlfriend.

  “Ask away,” I said, almost daring her. I stretched my back on the seat, alleviating the tension rising up all over my body.

  “Does her brother approve of your relationship?” Her question wasn’t on Bridge, but with Bishop being quite a popular rugby player, I wasn’t surprised that she was asking me about him.

  “You’d have to ask him, but the last time I saw him, he was happy for his sister and I.” Bishop had actually texted me what he thought of the media two days ago. It was filled with expletives and for a guy who didn’t curse much, that said a lot. He also asked me to protect his sister at all times, so I called him. I wanted him to know that Bridge was my priority and that I’d do everything I could so she didn’t deal with the fallout.

  She was affected by the fallout, undoubtedly, but as much as I could, I wanted to shield her from the masses.

  Jenny’s voice was appeasing, “She sounds like she means a lot to you.”

  “Yes.” No hesitation on my part.

  “What about Dex? How is your relationship with him? How is it going to affect your games?” She was just asking what everyone wanted to know.

  “I’m just trying to win games. My focus will always be on football. As for he and I, Bridgette has informed him that whatever they had in the past is in the past. I have nothing to say about what happened between them. What’s important to me is that she’s with me now and that she loves me.” There was no sugarcoating my statement. The truth would come out. Always. The damage had been done. Now we were just trying to mend the mess and prevent it from creating a bigger hole.

  My teammates had been perceptive about the tension between Dex and I, but after two years, they must know that I didn’t react without a cause, so in practice, we all did our jobs.

  Coach had sat Dex and I down for a chat. I didn’t say much while Dex did all the talking. He spouted off the same bullshit as always; that he was going to work on himself and that he just wanted to say his piece to Bridgette. I shrugged my shoulders at his words. All I said was that we had to work as a team and if we couldn’t do that, then maybe Coach should think about re-organizing the team.

  I never liked to bring my status as the Royals’ prized player to the table, but I knew that Berger wouldn’t listen to me if I didn’t pull rank. I always gave someone the benefit of the doubt, and I wanted to ensure that we worked together as a team. It wasn’t my choice that I had Berger as a back-up. And I for sure didn’t have an inkling that one day, I’d fall in love with his ex-girlfriend.

  But it was what it was and I had to make it work.

  He was my back-up and he would remain as one until he got a better deal somewhere else.

  I put him in his place by telling the Coach that maybe Castle would be better as a second stringer and that shut Berger up.

  Since he’d been traded to the Royals because of his endless partying during his time with the Vikings and off-the-field antics such as airing out his extreme sport activities during the off-season, he’d wanted the media to change their perception of him. He wasn’t going to do it at the cost of my relationship with Bridge.

  “Have you met her mother?” Jenny asked, and I caught the eye of her producer, signaling that she had a few seconds to wrap it up.

  “No I haven’t.” I’d seen Bettina Cordello on TV. When I was browsing for sports channels, sometimes she’d be on a shop
ping channel or a regular station. I never really paused to hear what she was saying; I just knew that Bridge looked a lot like her mom.

  “She sounds like a really special girl. What’s the best thing about her?” Jenny nodded to her producer while her eyes were on me.

  This time, I turned my gaze away from Jenny and looked at the camera. “Her smile. When she smiles at me, everything else fades to black.”

  “You can’t give them the edge, Scott.” Trayton, my agent, said over the phone. He’d been with me since I graduated from college and he had steered me in the right direction on and off the field. I wouldn’t have the endorsement deals that I have if it wasn’t for his savvy business acumen.

  I listened to him talk about the cons of letting the media ask me everything about my relationship with Bridge, but it was done.

  I’d made the statement and I was going to follow through with it.

  When he was done telling me for the third time that I should have returned the focus back on football, I capitulated, “I hear you, T. I just want them to stay away from her. As much as possible I want to give her the college life that she had before the media learned about our relationship.”

  “That ship sailed the minute you wanted to throat punch your back-up.” If it was possible to see a sneer over the phone, I had no doubt that it was the look he was sporting right now. “You have to keep it cool.”

  I kept it cool. I had not lost my cool even when Dex was throwing bullshit at me in the locker room and even on the field during games. “I had to say something to him. Bridge is mine, she’s not ever going back to that shitbag.”

  In the years that he’d known me, I’d never been as emotional as I was now, especially over a girl.

  “Alright, I got it. Whenever a reporter asks you about her, if you can, try to bring it back to football. If not then say something short. Don’t explain. And just don’t answer questions about Berger. No matter what he’s still your teammate and until then, you just have to keep being the bigger man that you are.”