The Wrong Game: A Sports Romance

by Kandi Steiner

  “You’re scared,” I said. “I get it. Trust me, I do. I mean, dating… love… it isn’t a game that you just play your part and everything works out. Unfortunately, you have to have the right person on the other side of the board, too. What he did to you, it’s… awful, Gemma. It’s absolutely horrifying and I’m so sorry you had to go through it alone.”

  “I don’t want your pity.”

  “No, I know you don’t,” I said, still holding her. “I’m just saying that…” What was I saying? It seemed I couldn’t figure it out, couldn’t find the right words. “I’m just saying that, yeah, love hurts. But life without it?” I shook my head. “It isn’t worth living.”

  Those words hung between us, suspended in space, and I waited for her to grasp them. I tried to find something more. What I’d said wasn’t all I wanted to say, it wasn’t everything she needed to hear. But, I needed time. I needed her to let me hold her. I needed her to just… trust me, to give me time to prove her wrong.

  And so, I held her, and I waited for her to use what little words I had as something to hold onto, something to believe in.

  But she just laughed, and shoved me away.

  “Unbelievable,” she murmured when she was out of my hold. Her eyes met mine, fire burning around the irises. “He cheated on me, Zach. Before he died, he cheated on me, and I had to bury that secret. I will never know why. I will never know how long. Not that any of that matters, because all that does matter is that he was the perfect husband, he said all the right things and treated me the way any woman would beg to be treated, and even still… he betrayed me.”

  I wanted her back in my arms, wanted her to feel my heartbeat when I told her I would never do the same. But she kept stepping away, farther and farther, putting more distance between us.

  “You feel these things now, but some day, you’ll wake up, and you just won’t anymore,” she said. “And I can’t do it. I can’t stick around and wait for that break.”

  I shook my head, following her as she tried to walk away. “You think you’re the only one who has been through shit, Gemma?” I asked, heart thundering in my chest. “You think you’re the only one who’s been hurt? Micah was diagnosed with cancer, too. Did you know that?”

  Gemma stopped, turning enough to meet my eyes.

  I nodded. “Yeah. When he was four. And I was eighteen. I was in my freshman year of college, on a paid scholarship to play football. I was living my dream. And suddenly, I had a choice to make. Could I have stayed and played football, left it to my parents to figure out what to do about my brother?” I nodded. “Of course, I could have. That’s what they said I should have done. But you know what I actually did? I quit. I made a choice to put my family first, above my dreams, above anything else because they are what matters most to me. And yes, I lost the girl I thought was my everything then, when she decided football was what she really loved — not me. But you know what? I’d still go back and make the same choice, again and again. Because I love my family, and they matter most to me. They needed my help — financially, emotionally — and I was there for them. So you can say what you want about Carlo, but you don’t know me enough to say that you know how I will or won’t act in the future. My family?” I said, beating on my chest. “My wife? She will be my everything. I’m a man of my word, Gemma.” I paused, standing taller. “That’s one thing you can’t take away from me.”

  Gemma blinked, watching me like I was a completely new person. “I…”

  “Didn’t know?” I shook my head. “Yeah, well, unlike how you so delicately put it before, I would have told you. One day. When we got to that point. And I believe you would have told me about Carlo, too. That’s how love works. You learn more about each other, you trust, you give and you take in equal measure and yes, you take a fucking risk,” I said, exhausted now.

  Gemma just watched me, and I took another step, closing in, holding my arms open.

  “My brother wasn’t promised another year, Gemma, and he’s here. He’s living his life without a single ounce of fear, even though he was told he wouldn’t see the age of five. If he can do that, then you and I? We can do anything. But we can’t take another single second for granted. We are going to make each other happy, Gemma. And sure, sometimes, we’re going to hurt each other, too. We’re going to mess up. That’s how this works.”

  She didn’t move as I made my way toward her, and a crisp whip of wind swept between us as soon as I reached for her, pulling both of her hands into mine. I lifted them, pressing my lips to her knuckles and holding them there as my eyes found hers.

  “You have to take a risk, yes. I won’t lie to you. You have to face a fear.” I smiled. “But, just like I held your hand at Tilt, I’ll hold your hand now. If you’ll let me.”

  Her eyes watered again, her hands squeezing mine in return. I felt it, her want to lean into me, to fall into me.

  But she didn’t.

  “Gemma,” I said again, eyes still on hers. “Trust me.”

  She swallowed, closing her eyes as more tears were set free with the motion, each of them racing down to join the others that had fallen.

  She squeezed my hands, and then she pulled hers away.

  “I can’t.”

  The words were just a whisper, a truth spoken so softly I wanted to believe it was a lie. But Gemma turned, leaving me to watch her go, powerless to keep her or convince her that what we had was enough — that it could be what she’s always wanted, if she only gave it the chance.

  All I could do was stay.

  All I could do was let her go.

  Gemma

  Everything was fine.

  That’s what I told myself as I bruised my knees, bent on the kitchen floor scrubbing the bottom of my oven. The fumes from the cleaner somehow brought me comfort, and I sang along to the music blasting from my speaker. It was Sunday, and I’d spent all day at Soldier Field. We got another win. We were well on our way to the playoffs.

  Everything was fine.

  The week had somehow flown by and dragged on all at once, but I was staying busy. I threw myself into work when I was there, and after, I cleaned, did yoga, tried out some new recipes I’d been wanting to take a stab at. I’d gone through some old keepsake boxes, ones I had put away in my back closet. I’d even picked up the old ukulele I used to play by the bonfires in college. I didn’t remember much, but it was a challenge to try.

  Everything was fine.

  It was an early game, noon kickoff, so I was home with plenty of time to finish my to-do list for the weekend. The sun had just finished its sink behind the buildings downtown when suddenly, my music was cut off, and I turned, finding Belle standing by the speaker with wide eyes as she took in my condo.

  She looked at the windows — the ones I’d cleaned from top to bottom. Then, she scanned the new frames and canvases I’d hung above the couch. Her eyes continued their survey, taking in the spotless kitchen, the shampooed floor, the ukulele propped in the corner by the edge of the couch, the three pans of brownies I’d baked — I was planning on bringing those into the office.

  And then, her eyes found me, still bent on my knees on the kitchen floor by my oven. I wiped my brow with the back of my yellow rubber-gloved hand, and smiled. “Hey, Belle.”

  Her face crumpled. “Oh, honey. This is bad. This is really, really bad.”

  I sighed, turning back to the oven, Brillo pad already scrubbing before I answered. “I’m fine.”

  “Clearly.”

  “I am,” I defended. “Look at this place. It’s spotless. And I’ve been doing yoga, and meditating, and I baked some goodies for the office, and I went to the game today and we won and we’re probably going to the playoffs and everything is just…” I inhaled a breath, unsure of why my chest suddenly stung, why my eyes were blurring with tears. “Fine. Everything is fine.”

  Belle rounded the kitchen island, sinking down until she was on the floor with me. She watched me scrub for a moment, and the more she stared, the more I felt l
ike a bug under a microscope.

  And the damn spot I was trying to get wouldn’t come up. What even was it? Baked pizza cheese? Something from the tenant before me?

  I scrubbed at it harder and harder, my arms aching, hair falling in my face. But it wouldn’t come up. Nothing would make it budge. I growled, throwing the Brillo pad and plopping down on my butt as my chest heaved, and I stared at that spot, my eyes blurring.

  “It won’t come off,” I said, voice breaking as I gestured to the dark, mysterious smudge on my otherwise spotless oven. “I can’t get it off.”

  Tears blurred my vision, and I tried to open my eyes wide so they wouldn’t fall, but they built up until they fell over my cheeks, anyway.

  Belle sighed, opening her arms from where she sat beside the oven. “Come here.”

  I crawled into her embrace, and my best friend hugged me close to her like my mother never did. She rocked me a little, soothing me with a gentle shhhh as I cried, and I hated that I was crying, I hated that I was being weak.

  I hated that nothing was fine.

  “Talk to me,” Belle said, still rocking me, her fingers running through my hair that had fallen from my messy pony tail. “And don’t spit bullshit and fake I’m okay crap. Tell me the real stuff.”

  I let out a long breath, pulling back until I was out of her grasp. I peeled off my gloves, and Belle grabbed one of my hands in hers a I used the other one to swipe away the tears from my face. I stared at the shiny, spotless tile Belle and I both sat on, trying to find the right words to say.

  “He didn’t come to the game,” I started, sniffing, not knowing why that mattered. “I went, and I went alone, I didn’t even bring anyone. And I told him to leave me alone, I told him I was done, but I don’t know…”

  “There was still a part of you that thought he might show up,” Belle finished for me.

  I nodded.

  “You miss him.”

  I nodded again, this time crumpling a little. “I don’t know why I feel like this,” I admitted. “I’m the one who called it off. It’s for the best, I know it is, but I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I can’t wake up to even one day where it doesn’t feel like there’s a giant brick on my chest. He hasn’t texted me, which is what I wanted, right? But then I look at my phone every time it buzzes hoping to see his name.” I shook my head. “It’s sick. I’m sick.”

  Belle chuckled, smoothing her hand over mine. “No, you’ve just got it bad.”

  “What? The flu?”

  She scrunched her nose. “More like you’ve been bitten by the love bug.”

  I groaned, leaning into her. “That’s what I was trying to avoid.”

  “We don’t exactly get a say in it, baby girl,” she said, rubbing my back. “Hate to be the one to break that to you. What exactly did you say to him, that last night you guys were together?”

  I sighed. “I basically told him that I didn’t trust him, I didn’t trust anyone, and even if he was saying he wanted to be with me now, even if he believed it, one day he would wake up and feel differently and I couldn’t do it again.”

  “He’s not Carlo, Gemma…” Belle whispered.

  I pushed back, looking into her soft gray-blue eyes. “He doesn’t have to be. Carlo was desperately in love with me, Belle. You saw us together. You saw the way he treated me, the way he loved me, and then he just… he just…”

  “He changed his mind.”

  I didn’t answer. I didn’t have to.

  “What spawned all this? I thought you had thrown all this out, I thought you were going to give it a chance and try with Zach?” Belle shook her head. “You saw him with me at the game and almost punched me in the throat. You like him. Things were going great. What changed?”

  I sniffed, standing without another word and crossing my living room to where the box of Carlo’s things was shoved behind my couch. I picked up the letters — both mine and Brielle’s — and handed them to Belle, sinking back down onto the tile next to her.

  She stared at the names for a moment, casting me a curious glance before she opened mine first. She read it silently while I picked at my nail polish, and as soon as she folded it away and opened Brielle’s, it only took three seconds for her to curse and toss the paper across the kitchen.

  “That motherfucker.”

  She stared at the letters across the room like she could set them on fire with her gaze alone. Then, her eyes found me again, her brows bent together.

  “This is what was in the box Sofia brought by?”

  I nodded.

  “God, Gemma… I am so, so sorry. That’s awful. I’m just sorry you had to see that.”

  “He wrote the same thing to her that he wrote to me,” I whispered, eyes pooling with tears again. “Neither one of us mattered to him. It was all just a game — up until the very day he passed.”

  Belle was quiet for a moment, and I swore I could feel that silence like a cold, wet blanket sitting on top of both of us.

  “Do you think he just… did he write them before knowing how bad he really was? Did he intend to give me mine in private, and give her hers? I mean…” I shook my head. “I was never meant to see that letter, the one to Brielle. But I did. And now…”

  My voice faded, and my best friend just sat there on the floor with me, still quiet, still processing. When she finally spoke again, she did so with her eyes fixed on me, but I just stared at the tile.

  “Okay, I know that must have hurt. I know it must have triggered everything you were trying to forget, every awful fear you were trying to overcome by trusting Zach. But babe… Zach is different. You know that.”

  “Do I?” I challenged. “I thought I knew Carlo, but I was wrong. I never suspected…” I shook my head. “Seeing those letters, it brought back all the hurt. It reminded me of everything I felt, and once I remembered, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how I could have ever forgotten that pain.”

  Belle frowned.

  “I can’t trust Zach,” I told her. “I can’t trust him, or love him, or be loved because I just feel like I’m being stupid. I feel like one of the dogs in Pavlov’s test that never learned its lesson, that’s just waiting to be put down from being too dumb to be useful.” I shook my head, picking at my polish again. “Carlo ruined it, he ruined me. I want to love, and can’t at the same time.”

  “Do you really think Zach would cheat on you? Do you think he can see anyone but you?”

  “It’s not about that,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s just… everything. Love is dangerous. Falling for someone, trusting them to take care of your heart, to keep loving you even when times get hard… I mean, you know.” I gestured to my best friend. “You’re the same way. You’re smart. You don’t love and you stay safe.”

  “I also stay lonely. And let me tell you something,” she said, making sure I was looking at her before she finished her thought. “The way I live? It’s not glorious. It’s not free of hurt or pain or any of the shit you go through with love. And at least when you’re in love, you have someone else to go through it all with.”

  My shoulders fell. “I just don’t want to get hurt.”

  “Right,” she said. “Because you’re totally not hurting right now.”

  I didn’t respond, but her words hit me subtly, softly, but with a punch — like a needle prick to the heart.

  “Look, I’m not telling you what to do, Gemma,” Belle said. “But I will tell you this. The way Zach looks at you? The way he saw the best in you, before you’d even shown it to him? The way he fought for you, still fights for you, the way he opens up to you and lets you see the things that scare him most?” She shook her head. “That is rare. It is so, so rare, babe. And I’m not going to say what’s the right decision, but I will say that if I were you, if it were me in your shoes?” Belle smiled, taking my hand in hers. “Girl, I would chase that boy. And if I caught him again, if he let me have another shot, I’d never let him go.”

  “And if he leaves me in a year, or two? If
he cheats on me? If he…”

  “If-if-if,” she mimicked. “If he leaves, or you leave, if one of you changes your mind and this whole thing goes down in flames? Well, at least you tried. And at least you got to feel the kind of love most people dream about. At least, for even a few short steps in this life, you got to have someone walking beside you — someone holding your hand and caring whether or not you’re okay.” She swallowed. “That alone is worth the risk.”

  I closed my eyes, setting free a new wave of tears as the brick on my chest lifted, my lungs trembling for air, heart beating faster.

  I wanted him.

  I knew he could hurt me. I knew I could hurt him. I knew it could all go up in a catastrophic dumpster fire in the end. But I couldn’t let go — not yet.

  I didn’t want to exist in a world where we didn’t at least try.

  “Oh, God,” I said, covering my lips with one, shaking hand. “This is what always happens. I felt out of control, so I just… flipped out. I let my emotions rule everything. I should have talked to you first. I should have talked to him.” I shook my head. “What do I do? How do I… I said so many awful things. He opened up to me, and asked me to stay, and I just…”

  “Hey,” Belle said, lowering her gaze to mine. “He doesn’t owe you anything, okay? He may not want to try again. But, you won’t know that until you try.” She shrugged. “This is it. You have to make your move, and then, you have to wait and hope he makes one back.”

  Make my move.

  I ran over her words in my head, still sitting on that cold tile floor as visions of Zach’s smile, of his dark, loving eyes surrounded me.

  Belle was right.

  It was now or never, and there was no guarantee that anything would work. He didn’t owe me a second chance, but I would beg him for one, anyway.

  It was time to make my move.

  I hoped I’d make the right one.

  Zach

  “Ugh, gag me,” Micah said Saturday evening, crossing his arms over where he sat next to me in his bed.