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I might have had more reservations if I’d known how quickly this would fall into place. But now that I’ve agreed, I’m not about to back out on her.
Which is exactly how I find myself with a marriage license and a couple of strangers in a park. Just before I hear her father yell her name in the distance.
15
Quentin
Coach Westfield’sbright blue eyes blaze as he looks down his nose at me.
“I’m just going to be straight with you, son.”
“I’m not your son.”
“I’m well aware, and it’s going to stay that way. Whatever it takes.”
I clench my fist, running my thumb over my knuckles under the table. I’m fairly certain punching a pro ball coach will get you kicked off any future draft lists.
“Just say what you want to say.”
He looks me over again, his eyes scanning my skin where my tattoos are and shakes his head. Doesn’t matter that his own son has nearly as many, I’m still trash and worse yet, trash with the wrong last name. He glances out the window and then back at me.
“Your uncle should have raised you better. Man’s a fucking asshole, but he could have done better by you after what happened to your father.”
I don’t say anything. I love my uncle. He kept me off the streets, gave me a place to stay, and helped me get into college with a scholarship. I couldn’t ask for more than that. I wasn’t one of his kids. And he and my dad didn’t exactly get along.
“At least he recognized your talent. Even if you’re determined to piss it away with all your extracurricular bullshit.”
I clench my jaw and shift in my seat. “Is there a point to this? If you want to talk me into staying away from your daughter, it won’t happen. I love her.”
“Love her?” He laughs. “You don’t know the first thing about love if you think whisking a nineteen-year-old girl, with her whole future ahead of her, off to get married is love. You don’t even know her.”
“I know everything about her I need to know. Iloveher. I didn’t whisk her away. It was her idea.”
“Because she’s fucking nineteen years old, and you’re the first man to give her attention. She doesn’t love you. She’s in love with the idea of you. When she wakes up to the reality—and trust me she will—she won’t want it. I’d guess if you treat your grades the same way you treat staying on the field, you’re probably barely floating by. One more infraction you’ll be off the team and you don’t have the grades or the money to stay in school. So you’ll be on the street—a high school grad like a million other guys out there trying to find some shitty nine-to-five that barely pays the bills. Maybe, if you’re lucky, you could be like your old man—get a mechanic job that at least lets you drive an old beat-up piece of shit around town. Living in some roach-infested apartment, no savings, no prospects, barely able to feed the two of you. You think she loves you enough to live like that?”
I don’t answer. My throat’s tightening and the nausea starts to fill my belly.
“Or do you think she starts to regret the fact she didn’t go to college? Starts to miss having a credit card with no limit. Catches the attention of other men while she’s working at whatever dive bar she’s forced to wait tables at to help pay the rent. Probably one with a lot more sense and money than you. As pretty as she is. Might take a month, tops.”
“You’ve got her wrong if you think she’s like that.”
“Oh, I know my girl. She’s as loyal as they come. Like a fucking rottweiler for the people she cares about. She defends her brothers enough, trust me. She’ll stay with you. Even as things get bleaker and bleaker. While she watches her whole life pass her by and all she has to show for it is a shitty job and no future. Her friends will move on. Her brothers will go on to play in the pros. She’ll come home for the holidays and see everything she left behind. Catch up with old friends to hear all about the adventures they’re having and the jobs that afford them basic things like cars and houses. Her brothers will offer her help. They both have the kind of hearts that won’t want to see her suffer and she won’t take it. She wouldn’t want to embarrass you like that, damage your ego even more than it already will be watching your friends play in the pros while you sit around on Sunday talking about what could have been. She’ll tell you you’re perfect the way you are. Do anything to keep your ego inflated. So she’ll make herself small. Force herself to fit into your tiny fucking world. And you’ll have to watch it all happen. Know that it was you who took all the opportunities for a bright future away from her. Someone who could give her a life that she truly deserves. That what you want?”
I turn to look out the window. The acid in my stomach rises up my throat.
“I didn’t think so. And I think you know, somewhere—deep down, that I’m right. So I’m going to give you another option. One that gives you both a better future. You pack your shit and you leave. Leave her a short note. I’ll give it to her. Tell her you changed your mind. That she’s too young for you, and you’re not ready to settle down after all. Then you never contact her again. In exchange, I’ll help you get transferred to a different college. Get you a clean slate where you can use your last year and that last name of yours to prove you’re draft-worthy. Give you a chance to get into the pros and not end up in the gutter. Give her a chance to have all the opportunities she deserves. Ones she’s worked her whole young life for. Let her chalk this up to lessons learned about men like you. You both get a future you deserve.”
I’m not sure if it’s possible to feel your own heart shatter, but if it is—I am. My chest is so tight, I almost can’t breathe, and my heart feels like it’s in a vice. Skipping to a beat I don’t recognize. Because while every bone in my body wants to rebel, I just keep picturing her in that shitty apartment bogged down with all the worries she’s never had to deal with in her life. Ones I lived with through my whole childhood until my dad got locked up and my uncle took me in. The same things that drove my mom to California and left me on my uncle’s porch with a duffel bag. Things I wouldn’t wish on anyone. Least of all Madison.
“You know I’m right.” Coach Westfield drives in the coffin nails one by one with the stamp of the back of his pen on the table. “She deserves more. I think whatever your intentions were with her, you know that much.”
I stare at the floor for a long while, trying to imagine a world where Madison ends up better off with me. But I can’t see it. Instead, I just see the light slowly dimming in her eyes with the creep of time. When I continue to disappoint her, and she continues to lose one opportunity after another that she could have had without me.
“Do you have a piece of paper?” I ask at last.
16
Madison
