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“Maren––” I hear five minutes later.
I don’t say a word in fear I will either completely lose it and bludgeon him to death with my cast, or worse explode into hysterics and beg him to touch me. The silence carries on and on, palpably dense with our collective emotions, cluttered with our thoughts. An eternity later I hear him get into his sleeping bag, feel the heavy presence of his body lying next to mine. Then the light turns off.
A love bigger than time and distance…what a load of horse manure.
Most people spend a lifetime searching for that one person who’s meant for them, their one true mate and all that junk, and never find him or her. I found mine when I was ten and a day doesn’t go by that I wish I hadn’t. Because it’s not a gift. It’s not even romantic. It’s a curse––one I’ll never be rid of.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Maren
The road to destruction is not a straight line. It begins as a subtle wobble and slowly evolves, picking up speed as it spirals downward. Two years of living in bliss. It couldn’t last. I knew it in my bones. We were too happy. Everything was too perfect. I wasn’t that lucky. Secretly, I was waiting for a shoe, or in this case, a cleat to drop.
I chose to follow him to OU because nothing would’ve kept me from him. He was as essential to my health as gravity and oxygen.
Noah was getting ready for the NFL combine. He was training like a man on a mission, like the man I knew him to be. All the scouts were saying first round. The question was, which team.
It was a catastrophic non-contact injury. It happened while he was working out with a highly sought-after trainer in Dallas. A knee dislocation and subsequent tears of ACL and MCL with nerve and arterial damage meant his football career was over. I tried everything. Dane and Jermaine tried everything. And still, he was sinking into depression at an alarming speed. It was one too many hits. First he was robbed of his family, then his dream. It’s enough to take down even the toughest among us.
I watched it happen and couldn’t do a thing to stop it, powerless against the force of his insidiously quiet despair. True fear is watching the person you love in pain and destroying themselves. True agony is not being able to help.
After surgery, painkillers of the prescription variety became a staple, as common as his protein shakes once were. Then he started drinking heavily. Whether he was functioning or not, he spent more time drunk than sober. Everyone was worried. Nobody could talk sense into him. He was unreachable, present in body but not much else. Then things went from bad to worse.
Pep rallies are a big deal in my town. As big a deal as football, God, and American-made pickup trucks––not necessarily in that order. It was the first one held that fall, football season just underway. The mayor at the time got it in his head to have some of its local sports heroes say a few words and I was tasked with introducing the tennis team. Both the boys’ and girls’ teams showed promise that year to succeed at a national level and I was excited for them. Held at the high school stadium, under the lights, all the guest speakers were mic’ed up to be heard over the crowd and the band.
Noah had promised to attend. We drove separately since I was coming from campus and he’d moved back into his house. The rally was well underway when I spotted him at the edge of the football field near the goal posts, leaning against the fence with a flat look on his face. I was pretty sure he was drunk but there was little I could say or do from where I was seated near the sideline bench with the other speakers.
By the time the girls’ volleyball team was introduced Crystal was standing next to him, chatting animatedly. She was still as stunning as ever. The hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention, my gut agreed. And yet I brushed the feeling away, chalking it up to leftover jealousy.
My attention was momentarily diverted to my sister, who had recently been released from the hospital after enduring yet another surgery. When my gaze returned to the spot where Noah and Crystal were standing, they were gone.
It took only seconds for full-blown panic to set in and even less to make my legs move. Have you ever lost something important? A ride when you have to get to your SATs? A passport while traveling? A child in a store? It was that kind of panic.
As I rose from my chair, a few of the other speakers gave me queer looks. I garnered even more attention from the student body, and yet nothing would’ve stopped me from going after him. Not wild horses––nothing.
