Going Long (Waiting on the Sidelines #2)(36)

“What…do you mean…you were the one that was here for her last night,” I said, my teeth pushing into my bottom lip, as I stared at him and my heart thumped through my entire body.

He just chuckled a little and looked down, shaking his head a bit, like I was some f*cking joke, an embarrassment to myself. I was being a fool.

“I don’t need to tell you what I mean…bro…you know exactly what I mean,” he finished then slowly started backing up the steps, keeping his eyes on mine, while I stood there as the earth crumbled beneath me. My body was shaking, and I was struggling to get a full breath. I wanted to charge after him and slam his body into the wall, but his words, his confession, had me paralyzed. I watched him turn slowly as he reached the landing to the next floor. Then, just before he reached his door to open it, he leaned over the rail and gave me one final knockout punch.

“Time to move on, man. She has.” His words followed by the smack of his door shutting.

I just stood there, wide-eyed, in the stairwell for the next several minutes. This was the second time in two days I was living this nightmare. It was like Groundhog Day, and I was Bill Murray. I looked back at the door to Nolan’s floor and thought about busting into her room and questioning her, but I didn’t really want to hear any more excuses. I kept replaying her face when she confessed that she had kissed him back, and the thought of her admitting to much more just killed me. Had she been unhappy for a while? Did she want to break up weeks ago? Months ago?

My feet somehow had carried me back to my Jeep, and I sorted through my thoughts all the way to my dad’s house. Truth was, Nolan had been unhappy, almost from the beginning of our semester. It always felt like she was pulling away, but she still seemed so happy to see me. And she made the effort, too. Drove to Tucson to see me, came to my games. But I wasn’t around…and when I wasn’t, and Nolan was alone, I really didn’t know what was happening. The thoughts were making me sick.

I was close to empty when I pulled into the driveway. My dad and Rosie were sitting at the breakfast bar eating pasta when I came in. The house smelled like a home, a smell I could get used to. That’s how Nolan’s house always smelled. Since Rosie had been staying to care for my dad, meals were becoming a common occurrence. Not just the usual frozen ones either, but slow-cooked, all-day-prepared meals.

“Reed, what are you doing here, son?” Pops said, sliding out a stool with one of his crutches to make room for me. “Come on, plenty to eat. Rose made a real good dinner tonight.”

A little deflated, I slumped over to my dad and took a seat while Rosie got up and fixed me a plate. She put the pasta in front of me and kissed my head while she squeezed my shoulders a little. “Always good to see you, mijo,” she said, sitting back down to finish her dinner.

“You staying the night, Kid? Or what,” my dad asked, not even looking up from his plate; he was so engrossed in his meal. I sort of worried that my dad was going to eat himself into another heart attack with all of the food he’d been eating while he was laid up with his leg. But, I also knew Rosie, and she found a way to make the most amazing things out of low-cholesterol ingredients. She wasn’t above tricking my father into being healthy.

Swirling the spaghetti strands around my fork and spoon, I just nodded. “Yeah, I think so. That okay?” I asked.

“Sure is; Jason’s out until tomorrow. It’ll be nice to just be me and you again,” he said, but then Rosie cleared her throat a little to remind him she was here. “Oh, and Rose of course.” He looked up and smiled at her, and I thought for just a second that maybe I caught a hint of something else. But I let that go, and instead went back to thinking about my own broken relationship.

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I thought about calling Nolan the morning after I spent the night at my dad’s house. I thought about it again that night, and then again every night for the next two weeks. But every time I got my phone out and started to punch in her contact, I stopped and realized she wasn’t calling me either. Then I thought about that prick Gavin, and the words he spoke. “She’s moved on.” Maybe, she has?

My birthday came and went. I made an excuse with Pops when he had a big dinner planned, told him Nolan had some internship thing at a special needs camp. He bought it, which was amazing, because I was shit at lying. I couldn’t seem to get myself to make it real. We weren’t talking—hadn’t talked for almost three weeks. But for some reason, I felt like if my dad still thought everything was fine, then maybe we’d find our way back, and no one would ever need to know.

I suppose part of it was pride, too. I felt betrayed, yes, but I also felt oddly ashamed. It felt like everyone knew my girlfriend had left me for some tattooed nobody, like they just stared at me, and pitied me. I knew I was just being crazy, but my head was doing a lot of crazy things lately.

Somehow, though, I managed to keep the football side of my head on straight. My numbers were ridiculous, and stories were starting to swirl on ESPN and in the papers about what I might do next season. Dylan and I talked frequently, even more so now that she was seeing my brother. She told me all of the press was common for a quarterback my age, in a draft year like this, so I just kept my mind on that—focused on the prize. Where going to the NFL was a future dream before, it was an out-clause now, a way to start over, and become a third version of Reed Johnson—not the shithead teenager or na?ve college guy I had been, but my own man—free to date any woman I wanted, whenever I wanted, and however long I wanted. Maybe I’d try that for a while.