by G. , Whitney
Kyle Stanton wants you to know:
* * *
I should’ve never wasted my fucking time on you.
I hope that your new best guy friend has way more sense than I did and won’t tolerate your bullshit.
I blocked him on Facebook after that.
In the middle of the worst heartache I’d ever felt, I picked up my life and moved back to the States—trading in London’s grey skies for a city that served far drearier ones.
I needed to start a new chapter of my life, one devoid of Kyle Stanton.
Kyle: Then
Boston, Massachusetts
Fourth Season
(Well, Fifth. We Haven’t Spoken Since the Fourth)
“What do you mean you haven’t found any national articles that are written by Courtney Johnson?”
“Exactly what I said.” Taylor tossed me a plastic football. “Can you focus on signing the rest of this merch, please?”
“She should be the number one sports reporter in the country at this point,” I said.
“Kyle.” She let out a breath. “You eat, breathe, and sleep whatever is in the media. Wouldn’t you know if she was writing already?”
I glared at her, hating how she could never just do a task like I asked. Especially the ones that pertained to Courtney.
“I glance at people’s headlines, Taylor.” I refused to ever explain this again. “I don’t read anything unless it’s a goddamn profile because, as you know, journalists tend to twist things.”
“Except Courtney Johnson?”
“Yes. Except Courtney Johnson.”
“Okay, fine.” She held up her hands in a subtle surrender. “I’ll ask around and see if she’s writing under a pseudonym.”
She walked over to me and handed me an envelope. “I uh—I found this a few weeks ago, but I didn’t want to give it to you until the season ended.”
Curious, I opened it and saw a random address in Seattle, Washington. “What’s this?”
“I did some digging,” she said. “Turns out, after she left London, she moved to Seattle with a friend.”
I raised my eyebrow. “Does this friend have a name?”
“I didn’t get that much, and I wasn’t sure if the address was temporary or not.” She paused. “I had someone go by and check and a guy answered the door, so I’m guessing it was a short-term thing. Still, doesn’t hurt to see if she forwarded her mail once she left.”
“Thank you.” I ran my fingers across the zip code. “Try Rose Johnson, or maybe Ryan Johnson. Oh, and get me my contract. I need to add some clauses and adjustments in her name just in case she tries to find me.”
“She could easily just turn on the TV or click on a sports blog.”
“Please don’t make this any more difficult than it needs to be.” I glared at her. “I think I know my fucking friend far better than you do.”
“As you wish, Kyle…” She tilted his head to the side as I opened a notebook. “You’re not doing the merch anymore?”
“I will, after I write Court a few letters. This is far more important.”
“Reebok is paying you fifteen million a year.”
I ignored her, writing down all the words I wanted to say.
My letters were never returned, never acknowledged. The name “Courtney Johnson” never appeared in any national papers, neither did any of the variations.
I spent the rest of the season desperately trying—and failing—to replace her as a friend.
Someone like her was better than no one at all, but no one I found ever came close.
No woman wanted to be “just friends” without getting a taste of the lifestyle in return, and they all had agendas that were tucked behind their lips.
With the exception of a few teammates and Grayson, I had no one left to talk to.
And with every day that passed, the uneasy tightening in my chest worsened.
Months passed, and it never let up.
Then my life took a turn for the worse.
My fans started rooting against me.
“Kyle Stanton sucks. Kyle Stanton sucks…”
Courtney: Now
Atlanta, Georgia
Present Day
“I’m only here because my boss threatened to fire me.” I stared at Kyle across a locker room office in Atlanta a week later.
My back was pressed against a cold cement wall, and he was staring at me in a slightly muddied football uniform.
He should’ve been at the press table, reveling in his team’s 50-12 win and bragging about being one game away from earning a repeat trip to the Super Bowl.
Instead, his eyes were currently glued to mine.
“I would really appreciate it, if you would answer a few questions and tell me why you’re doing what you’re doing, so I can go back to Seattle and write my piece.”
“You already wrote it,” he said.
“Kyle, now is not the time to—”
“Your thesis,” he said. “You never published it publicly, and I’m still the same guy that I was then, and I’ve never said much to the press. I think that would explain a lot of things.”
“It doesn’t explain why you’re demanding a trade in the middle of a historic season.”
“I’m a very sore loser,” he said. “I can’t deal with someone winning something that I think is mine…”
My eyes widened. “What?”
“I wasn’t kidding about marrying you when we turned twenty-eight, Courtney.” He looked into my eyes. “And I can’t be just your friend.”
“We haven’t been friends in years, Kyle.”
“We had a temporary break,” he said, glaring at me. “I know we weren’t talking that much before that, but still.”
“Still what, Kyle?” I felt tears pricking my eyes. “Still what?”
“I’m not trying to be unreasonable,” he said. “But surely you can understand why I’m upset about you having a serious boyfriend without telling me. Even if we weren’t talking, I feel like you could’ve sent me a petty message or something.”
“So, you could show up to ruin it?”
His lips turned up into a faint smile, but he didn’t let it stay.
“It’s not like you ever got down on one knee and proposed, Kyle.”
“I should’ve.” He walked over and slipped his arm around my waist, pulling me close. “I really should’ve.”
“Kyle.” I needed to push him away, but I couldn’t. “Kyle …”
“Yes?”
“Let me go.”
“Tell me you mean that, and I will.”
I didn’t say a word.
“I’ve never loved anyone else the way I love you,” he said. “Never.”
“You have one hell of a way of showing it. You still haven’t apologized.”
“You know what?” He tightened his hold. “I’m sorry, Courtney. I’m sorry for telling you the goddamn truth, when no one else in your life was willing to state the fucking obvious.”
I tried to break free, but he didn’t let me go.
“I’m sorry that I was the only one who knew you well enough to say what you needed to hear, instead of what you wanted to hear.”
“It was the way you said it.”
“That’s what you keep telling yourself.” He glared at me. “I’d said it nicely for years and you brushed it off. The moment I was brutally honest with you, you took it the wrong way.”
“Is that why you slept with so many women after that night, then?” My chest ached. “I saw all those stories.”
“That’s not the point of this conversation.”
“You hurt me, Kyle,” I said, feeling my voice crack. “I know we weren’t together—that we never technically were, but—”
“Whose fault is that?” He looked into my eyes. “I offered to fly you to me, offered for you to live with me … I offered you everything and you turned me down.”
“How do you think I feel, Kyle?” Tears fell down my face. “How the fuck do you thin
k I feel?”
“I don’t know.” He slammed his hand against the wall above my head. “You never fucking said anything. You were playing games then, and you’re playing games now.”
Silence.
The sound of rain tapping against the windows filled the room.
“I didn’t exclusively date any-fucking-one.” He glared at me. “No one else ever meant a goddamn thing to me. No one except you.”
“Kyle—”
“No.” He didn’t let me interrupt. “If you honestly think that I didn’t love you, that I haven’t loved you all this time, then let me know right now.”
My heart raced in overtime, clenching in pain as it ran laps in my chest.
“Is silence your way of saying no, Court?”
“It’s my way of saying that I don’t know what to do.” Tears fell down my face. “I really don’t know.”
“If I were a better man then, I would’ve done things differently. For starters, I would’ve pursued you freshman year,” he said. “I wanted to…”
His voice trailed off, and my eyes widened.
“But I knew that wasn’t a good move because—” He shook his head. “I wasn’t ready to settle down or pursue anything serious.”
“Kyle, you barely knew me then. I know you’re trying to make a grand speech and all, but that’s still a lie.”
“You’ll remember it someday,” he said. “I’m not lying. Bottom line is, you’ve always been meant for more, Court. That’s all I was trying to say while you were in London… All I was trying to say.”
“What do you want from me now?”
“To pick up where we left off and prove that we belong together … Can you tell me if I have a chance of getting you back?”
Kyle: Now
Atlanta, Georgia
Court remained teary-eyed and speechless in my arms.
“I only wanted what was best for you,” I said, shattering the quiet again. “I didn’t want you to settle.”
“Three months after we fell apart, I lost everything, Kyle.” Her voice cracked. “I lost my scholarship, I lost my job offer at Swanson, and I lost my mother.”
I stilled. “What?”
“I wanted to call and tell you so badly,” she said. “But I thought you’d just say that I was making another excuse.”
“I wouldn’t have said that, Court.” I rubbed her back.
“Maybe,” she said. “My mom was in debt up to her eyeballs when she passed. They gave me fifteen years to pay it off, so as much as I wanted to build something of my own and live out all of those things that you made seem were so fucking easy, I couldn’t. I had to focus on paying the bills and keeping something steady. It’s never been settling. It’s survival.”
“I’m sorry, Courtney.”
“I really wanted to call you…” She cried, burying her head in my chest. “You’re the only person I ever wanted to call…”
I held her close as she cried against me, and then I bypassed team security to check her into a hotel.
Courtney: Now
Atlanta, Georgia
Present Day
* * *
In the morning, I woke up alone in a hotel room, tucked under blankets.
There was a note on my coffee table in Kyle’s stick-figure handwriting.
Left to go handle some things. I’ll call you around noon.
Breakfast is on your counter.
* * *
P.S. Please consider publishing your thesis. It’s still the greatest piece of writing I’ve ever read.
Pushing the covers off my body, I walked over to the kitchen. Picking up the silver tray cover, I saw strawberries, waffles, and a Pittsburgh salad.
Before I could pick up my fork to taste it, the suite’s doorbell rang.
I put on a jacket and walked over to check the peephole. Some guy in a suit that I didn’t recognize.
“Yes?” I opened the door just a bit.
“I’m here looking for a Miss Courtney Johnson,” he said.
“That’s me. Who are you?”
“I’m with National Bank.” He gave me a small smile. “I was told you were in town temporally, so I wanted to stop by on behalf on our company.”
“I think you have the wrong person.”
“There was a large deposit placed in your personal account this morning, and another one in the account that you’ve been using to pay your mother’s debts,” he said. “I wanted to personally drop by and let you know that you can close the latter since the amount exceeds far more than what’s needed. You can transfer the remaining balance to yourself.”
My knees went weak and I held on to the doorframe. “How much was the amount?”
“Ten million, Miss,” he said. “Ten million in each account.”
Courtney: Now
Seattle, Washington
Present Day
* * *
When I pulled out my thesis, the words still read as effortlessly as they did during my senior year.
Still, I reworked it for an entire week, and my fingers flew across the keyboard like never before.
Michael Router tried to insert his fumbled words into my document here or there, but I flagged them all.
This draft was all mine, and I knew, without a doubt, that it was my best work to date. I also knew that Kyle was more than right about me needing to move on the moment it was out in the world.
I was done playing on the sidelines.
Kyle: Now
Boston, Massachusetts
If there was ever a game when I silenced my fucking critics and left them stuttering in shock, it was Sunday’s game against the Patriots.
I caught every pass, rushed for a record breaking five hundred yards, and ran into the end zone for six straight touchdowns.
No one in the media, and no one in the locker room, talked shit about me after that.
And only one person stood outside my condo’s windows to shout hate: The seven year old girl.
Courtney: Now
Present Day
* * *
Kyle Stanton: A Four-Part Profile by Courtney Johnson and Michael Router
* * *
Sports Unlimited Scores a Touchdown with 45M Online Reads in a Single Day
* * *
10 Reasons Why ‘Courtney Johnson’ is Probably Michael Router’s Other Pen Name; Still the Most Renowned Sports Journalist of Our Time
My phone buzzed with its hundredth Google alert on Monday morning as I sat inside my office—taking it all in one last time.
My inbox was flooded with emails I’d dreamed about for years, my voicemail was full of messages that were long enough to rival an album, and my coworkers were uttering, “Great job, Courtney!” any time I walked into the hall.
And yet, none of it mattered anymore.
I was officially done working here.
For real this time, forever this time.
I opened all of my desk’s drawers—assessing the things I wanted to keep, but there wasn’t much.
“If you’re looking for the bonus check that you deserve, it’s right there.” Mr. Bruce stepped in front of my desk, smiling. “Five thousand dollars and the next weekend off. I would’ve given you this weekend, but The Wall Street Journal is here, and they want to profile you and Michael for a feature called A Return to Real Sports Journalism.”
“Me and Michael?”
“Yes, the two of you.” He motioned for Michael and three reporters to step into the room. “Well, on second thought, Miss Johnson’s office is a bit too small. Let’s go across the hall to Michael’s instead.”
I grabbed my purse, a framed photo of me and my Dad—along with my ‘Hail to Pitt’ mug—and then I hit the lights before following them.
As we stepped inside Michael’s office, I looked around at all the things that I once thought should’ve been mine.
“You’ve always been meant for more, Court. That’s all I was trying to say…”
“So, is this where all the magic ha
ppens, Mr. Router?” one of the reporters asked. “Do you do all of your work here, or do you spend more time at coffee shops for the written part?”
“Yes.” He smiled. “Usually, I write for four hours in the morning, and then I call Courtney in here after lunch, so we can collaborate.
“Collaborate?” I asked.
“Yes, collaborate. We have a lot of fun during our daily sessions. Don’t we, Court?”
“It’s Miss Johnson to you.” I crossed my arms. “We’re not friends.”
“As you can see, she’s the more serious journalist between the two of us.” He laughed, and the reporters laughed along with him.
“Well, we’re very interested in how you managed to get the most elusive player in football to sit down for so many interviews. Not only that, but you made it feel so personal and raw.”
“Exactly.” The other journalist chimed in. “We’ve been chasing him for years. How’d you do it?”
“Well, I …” Michael cleared his throat and looked over at me. “Let’s allow Courtney to answer some of the questions. It was her first major byline after all.”
“Yes, it was.” Mr. Bruce looked over at me. “How generous of you to share your spotlight, Michael.”
“Well, Miss Johnson?” The reporter smiled. “How did you do it?”
“I’m quitting today,” I said, the only words that I could get to fall from my lips. “I’m done being your bitch.”