by Erica Hobbs
I poured another three fingers and repeated the ‘throw-back-and-swallow’ routine. The heat spread even further. I did it again. Slowly, the pain numbed. This was exactly what I needed. It felt better than I’d felt all day. Why hadn’t I thought of this before? It was so much better than beating the treadmill to death.
***
The sunlight pierced into my eyes like a thousand daggers when I opened them again. I was on the floor in my living room. The drapes were open. An empty bottle of whiskey and a tumbler lay on the floor next to me. When I sat up, my head pounded. I pressed my palm against my forehead.
What happened? I remembered drinking whiskey, vaguely. I lay back on the carpet and closed my eyes. This was much better. My phone rang in the bedroom, a shrill sound that bore straight through my head. I groaned, clawing at my head. The phone rolled over to voicemail, only to ring again. I swore and pulled myself up, stumbling to the bedroom where I’d left the phone.
“Yeah?”
“Where the hell are you?” Coach Clay sounded pissed off.
“What?”
“Warmup started ten minutes ago, and you’re asking me what?”
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to get the sponge in my head to function like a brain. Slowly, it all came back to me. It was Saturday. I had a game.
“I’m on my way,” I said and hung up.
I grabbed my bag where I’d left it the night before and pressed the elevator button. I wasn’t going to get to the stadium on time to warm up, that was for sure. My thighs ached like nothing I’d ever felt before. That was what I got for drinking after training my legs that hard.
***
When I arrived at the stadium and made my way to the locker room, the rest of the team was just coming back from their warm up. Coach Clay walked to me.
“I don’t even want to know what your excuse is,” he said. He looked as if he was ready to take me about.
“Okay,” I answered.
He frowned at me. I swallowed hard, holding my breath. I hoped he wouldn’t smell the alcohol on me.
“Get dressed,” he barked and stormed away.
I walked over to my locker and felt eyes on me. When I turned, the team members were all looking at me, some staring outright, some glancing now and then.
“What?” I asked.
They carried on like nothing had happened. I found my game clothes and started padding up. The room swam around me, and my head felt like it was going to explode. I focused just on keeping my balance.
This was going to be a hell of a game, and not in a good way.
Chapter 30
Damien
Something was very wrong with Jake. Not only did he arrive majorly hungover, but he looked like he didn’t even care about football. Anyone who knew Jake – which pretty much covered the entire Colorado state and fans in other areas – would tell that this was not what he was like.
I had no idea how Coach Clay hadn’t noticed the whiskey smell surrounding Jake like a cloud. Maybe he’d ignored it because Jake was his favorite. That pissed me off even more. I made the smallest mistake, and I was the runt of the team, but Jake could waltz in here wasted, and no one would say anything?
Granted, this was the first time. Ever. And my mistakes had been happening a lot lately. Still, it wasn’t fair.
“You okay there, buddy?” I asked, walking up to Jake.
“Fine,” he said without making eye contact. How nice.
“Okay… if you need anything, shout.”
I clapped him on the shoulder. Jake flinched and moved his body away, spinning around faster than someone in his state would. He swayed slightly on his feet but his eyes pinned me, and there was a hell of a lot of anger behind them.
“Please, don’t touch me,” he said in a calm voice. If I’d just heard his voice, I would have said Jake was in control, but the look in his eyes told a different story. There was an animal inside, begging and clawing to get out. I walked back to my own locker.
“Sucking up, runt?” Clyde asked. Immediately, I was pissed off. I didn’t respond. With Jake in the mood he was, I didn’t have to. It wouldn’t take much to set him off.
“Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?” Jake called from across the room. Clyde blinked at Jake. He’d always stood up for me, but with the intention of creating peace, not with hostility like this.
“What did you say to me?”
Clyde turned around and took two large steps to reach Jake. He pressed his face right up against Jake’s. There was no way he wouldn’t get a gulp of that whiskey breath. He didn’t respond to it. Was everybody going to ignore the fact that Jake was probably violating some rule?
“I’m just saying, lay off. We’re supposed to be a team.”
Jake’s words were the same as they always were, but his attitude was all wrong. He looked like he was about to beat the shit out of Clyde.
“Break it up!” Coach Clay shouted, storming back into the room. “What the hell is going on here? I can’t turn my back for one second.” He shoved Clyde and Jake apart. “If I see anything like this on my field, you’re both suspended.”
Jake turned around grumbling. Clyde strode back to his locker, shouldering me out of the way. This was going to be a fun game.
Of course, I knew what was going on with Jake. I’d seen the tabloid pictures. I’d recognized Amanda. I didn’t know how she’d managed to pull it off, but it was getting the desired effect. Jake was completely unhinged. I had no idea how his girlfriend was doing to deal with it, but judging by Jake’s inability to deal with any situation right now, I was willing to bet she’d dumped him.
I wanted to ask him how it felt to be rejected for the first time in his life. I didn’t get a chance. We lined up, Jake in front, and ran onto the field.
The crowd went wild the way they always did when we ran onto the field. The lights blinded me so I could only hear them. Everything fell away, and it was only the field and the team we were playing against that remained. My heart beat faster. My hands started to sweat. I took a deep breath.
Calm. I had to stay calm. Jake had taught me how to control myself, how to manage my anxiety, so it didn’t rule my game. I had been able to start taking charge ever since Jake had taken me under his wing.
Half of the game went alright. We weren’t playing very well – Jake was all over the place, and we couldn’t depend on him as a captain. It didn’t take long for the guys to figure it out and take charge on their own. Everyone seemed to be cutting Jake some slack. It wasn’t fair, but it was happening, and somehow we were surviving. We were losing, though.
After a timeout, we all lined up for the play. Members of the other team crouched opposite our boys. A guy built like a gorilla faced Jake, and I could see the white of his teeth as he smiled or sneered.
“A bit off your game there, boy?” he asked, loud enough for me to hear. “Can’t let your personal life get in the way of the game.”
The whistle blew, and the play started. Jake rammed the guy into the ground so hard I doubted he would still be able to breathe. It was pure anger. The player had been asking for it. We psyched each other out all the time, but Jake had a weakness right now.
We lined up again.
“Do you put all your girlfriends in the same row when we play? Easier to spot them all?”
Jake broke the line before the whistle blew and charged the guy, hitting him in the throat. The ref blew the whistle and marched up to Jake. I walked toward them, curiosity driving me.
“You better watch yourself,” he said to Jake. “This is a warning.”
Jake nodded and turned around.
“Unless none of them could make it,” the other guy called after him. “Or you have no one left.”
Jake froze. I saw his face, a mask of terror and fury. I saw the moment he snapped. It was like everything that made Jake, Jake, went out of him. He turned around, adrenaline countering whatever alcohol was still in his system. It was like he had wings on his feet. It onl
y took a second to get on top of the guy and ride him to the ground. Another second and he’d managed to get his helmet off and a third before he’d broken his nose. Blood covered the player’s face, and Jake kept on pummeling him. It took three guys to pull him off.
“Get off my field!” the ref shouted in Jake’s face. I wouldn’t have been that close to him. Jake looked for a moment as if he was going to attack the referee as well, but he managed to swallow his rage and storm off the field.
The crowd had fallen silent. It was a shock for them to see their favorite player become an animal.
The other player was helped up. His shirt, his hair, everything was caked with blood. Coach Clay walked onto the field.
“You’ve been training with Jake separately, right?” he asked me. I looked around. I thought no one knew about it. Had Jake told on me? The team all looked surprised. Maybe it was only Coach Clay who knew. Well, it was out there now. Fucking fantastic.
I nodded. What was I going to do?
“Good. I need you to do the play.”
I blinked at the Coach. I could feel the collective disbelief of the team around me. It echoed my own. Coach walked off the field, and I was left with the others.
“What’s that all about?” Clyde asked.
“Maybe that’s what happens when you put in extra time,” I said to Clyde. He pulled a face.
“You cocky piece of shit.”
I shrugged and walked back onto the field. There was a game to play, and I was the one who was going to lead our team to victory. This was the big break I’d been waiting for, for so long. I couldn’t believe it was finally happening. It was almost surreal.
I squatted down in the front line where Jake had been, my hand on the grass for balance. The lights were blinding. The crowd’s roar was deafening in my ears. Everything was perfect. Everything was the way it should be.
A pang of guilt shot through my chest, but I shoved it away. This was my life. This was what I wanted. My hard work was paying off. Yes, so a nice guy had gotten hurt. But I deserved this. I’d been working towards this moment my whole life and no one had noticed me for so long; this was what was meant to be. Jake’s life was his own problem.
***
We didn’t win the game in the end. But the score was so much closer than it had been before. Jake walked off the field from his position on the bench before we reached him. He was in a bad mood. I would be too if I were him.
Coach followed us to the locker room. We were all in front of our lockers, sitting on the benches. Coach stood in the middle of the room, looking at us one by one.
“You played well today,” Coach said. “It wasn’t a win, and that’s disappointing, but given the circumstances,” he glanced at Jake, “you managed to save it.”
He put his hands on his hips. I glanced at Jake. He was staring at the floor. His cheeks were bright red, his eyes were watery, and he looked dangerous.
“I don’t even want to know what that’s all about. Fix yourself up, or this is going to become bigger than you want it to.”
Jake nodded once. I wasn’t sure what Coach meant, but I was sure Jake’s football career would be on the line. I tried not to be smug about it, but I’d wanted Jake’s spot for as long as I could remember and today, I’d gotten it.
“Damien,” Coach said, and I snapped my head around, feeling guilty. He hadn’t known what I’d been thinking though. “You performed above and beyond today. Well done.”
Coach said one or two more things to the team as a whole before he left the locker room. The players got up and started stripping, ready to have a shower. No one said anything to me – there was no clapping on the back the way they did with Jake. But it had been said out loud that I’d done well, and it was common knowledge now I’d been putting in extra training. No one said anything, but it hung in the air.
I breathed in the smell of success and walked to the showers, feeling like I was finally going somewhere that mattered.
Just before I walked to the showers, I glanced over my shoulder at Jake. He still sat on the bench, his elbows on his knees, head hanging.
Chapter 31
Alyssa
The first thing I felt when I woke up was the pounding in my head. The second was the piercing sunlight through drapes that failed to keep it out. The third was that I wasn’t in a room I knew.
I sat up in bed and regretted it. The room spun slowly around me. I was in a double bed, Amanda plastered across the pillows on the other side. The night returned to me in a flash – going out dressed to the nines, a place I didn’t know, alcohol. A lot of alcohol. I lay back on the pillow. If I was going to survive at all, I had to stop moving around.
The ache that had sat in my stomach since I’d spoken to Jake was back. The alcohol had helped a bit, and I’d kept drinking, chasing peace. It had been an illusion. Alcohol didn’t heal heartbreak. It just made me feel like crap the next day. I should have known this from experience. I had tried the drown-my-sorrows routine with James, too. It hadn’t worked then, either.
Amanda rolled over and groaned.
“We should check ourselves into wellness clinic. To get a rehydration drip,” she said. I chuckled. The way of the rich and famous, eh? I usually did greasy food and coffee.
“How about breakfast?” I asked. “Or lunch, depending on the time.”
I reached for my phone to check. It was open on Jake’s contact in my phone book. My stomach turned.
“What’s the time?” Amanda asked.
“Lunch,” I said, glancing at the digits in the corner of my screen. I’d suddenly lost my appetite.
“Let’s order in. I don’t feel up to going out into the sun.”
Amanda rolled out of bed, and I watched her pad to the other side of the room on bare feet. She was perfect even when he was hungover. She wore a purple satin nightie that looked like it had come from a lingerie catalog and her hair was barely a mess. She’d taken off her makeup before we’d gotten into bed as there was no smudging on her face. I, on the other hand, looked terrible after a night out. I wore Amanda’s pajamas because I hadn’t brought my own. That was the only reason I wasn’t wearing boy boxers and an oversized t-shirt. My hair probably looked like something had nested in it, and I knew for a fact I had goth raccoon eyes because I never took off my makeup after a night of boozing. On top of it, my eyes were swollen – I could feel it – as a result of sleeping with the mascara on.
Jake hadn’t managed to see inside me to notice the good stuff, after all. I’d thought being this person on the outside didn’t matter if you saw who I really was. Then looking like Amanda in the morning wouldn’t have been a prerequisite.
I pushed the thought away and rolled out of bed, too, using the headache to interfere with my thinking processes. Jake knew who I was before we’d started dating – it wasn’t like we’d just jumped into something without getting to know each other at all. He’d told me it was because I was different that he liked me.
The joke was on me. He just took what he wanted and moved on. But it was no fault of mine; he was the asshole in this picture. I wasn’t the problem.
Amanda ordered lunch over the phone and made us cocktails which were supposed to make us feel better – tomato juice with some spice in it and a healthy dose of vitamin B on the side. It did nothing for my headache. I didn’t taste very good, either, but I didn’t say anything. Mentioning I didn’t like tomato juice after she’d made an effort to prepare it for me would be rude.
The food arrived. Amanda had ordered herself a chicken salad. I sat down with eggs and bacon, pork sausages and fries. The grease was needed. The salad wouldn’t do anything to help, although I doubted my food would do anything for my waistline.
“How do you bounce back from a hangover eating that?” I asked when she popped a piece of lettuce into her mouth.
“I don’t, really, but do you have any idea how many empty calories there are in alcohol? I need to balance it out with something healthy if I want to stay a siz
e four.”
Right. The weight thing. As sweet as Amanda had been, I would never be able to be close friends with her. All the material things mattered to her – weight and clothes and money – and I just couldn’t relate. I had other things on my mind. Like a job, a future, a relationship. For what that was worth.
“Thank you for letting me stay over,” I said, remembering I’d never mentioned it. “It was great of you to let me stay.”