Page 156 of Game Plan

Fucking Evan Nichols.

He didn’t just send my girl to the hospital tonight, but he also fucked me up pretty badly too.

If I lost football, I would not only lose my sport, but also my scholarship, my shit, and the last shred of control I had left.

Sitting on the tiled floor, I pressed my back against the wall and stretched my legs, crossing them at the ankles as reality slammed into me like a ton of bricks. My world was collapsing around me, and my options were limited…or almost nonexistent. I swallowed hard, the only thing preventing me from bawling my eyes out.

I was a fucking failure. Or worse…seconds away from turning into one.

Breathing felt impossible, as if my lungs were slabs of concrete.

My future was slipping through my fingers. And no, it wasn’t even a football pun. It was the truth. Every time I thought I’d fixed my joint, something else went wrong, and I was back at square one. Life was clearly sending me a message I was too stupid to understand. Everything I loved, except my relationship, was teetering on the edge, about to be ripped away.

I wasn’t a victim. I had to take charge. I had to fight back. I had to reclaim some of the control I’d lost. But what was I supposed to do? How was I supposed to make it all work now that I was hurt again?

Sweat beaded on the back of my neck. The world felt heavy, pressing down on my shoulders.

I didn’t know how long I stayed there, frozen on the bathroom floor, unable to wrap my head around the shittiness of my situation—a cruel joke that seemed unfixable—and struggling to think of a solution. I was usually good at coming up with game plans. I had playbooks full of strategies for every situation. Right now, though, it felt impossible to keep going without involving a bunch of specialists and my coaches and losing my starting position on the team. At the moment, I despised myself for diving headfirst off that cliff over a year ago. My heart kicked in my chest, and my palms turned clammy. I was screwed. There was no other way to define the truth. It hurt like hell. It was fucking ugly, but it was mine to accept and deal with. Bile rose in the back of my throat. Once I came clean, there would be a permanent mark on my player’s file, and scouts would probably be skittish about recruiting me later, wondering if my shoulder would hold up through the intensive training and pro-level games. Being backed into a corner against my will was the worst kind of feeling. My heart rate became a deafening staccato.

I eyed the vanity, trying to convince myself the thoughts in my brain were shit.

I had made promises.

I had sworn it would never happen again.

I had even convinced myself I could do better.

I was losing everything anyway. What was I even risking at this point? It was either this…or hanging up my cleats for good. I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t wanna stop playing football. It was part of my identity. Baked into my DNA. It wasn’t just a sport. It was an extension of me…of who I was.

Could any doctor really fix my shoulder for good? Right now, I had a hard time believing it. My shoulder was doomed. I was doomed. I had to take matters into my own hands. I was the only one I trusted to figure out what my body needed. Just this once, and then I’d be over with it. I could get real medical help during the off-season. Yeah. If I could survive the next few weeks, I would have more time to heal and find someone competent enough to get my shoulder back in the game.

Okay, that was a solid plan. It made sense and fit into my football schedule. I only had to fake it a little longer. I could make this work. Keep my head down, do my job, and hide the pain from everyone. A little voice in my head whispered that I was wrong, but I shoved it down. That voice didn’t know me, or my dreams, or my situation, or the pressure crushing me from every direction. I shouldn’t listen to it. Nah, I had to do this my way.

My starting position on the team. My scholarship. The scouts. Playing pro.

Those were the things that mattered in my sport, and I had to focus on nothing else.

I wiped the tears streaming down my cheeks with the back of my hand. Some days, I became someone I barely recognized. Was my plan really bulletproof, or was I just fooling myself into thinking it was? I could get caught at any moment. The idea squeezed my throat like a vise. I felt lightheaded just imagining what would happen if someone found out. Pressure always got the better of me. It always felt like it was crushing me to pieces and taking me hostage.

I inhaled and exhaled, but it did nothing to soothe the storm raging inside me.

My thoughts felt wrong. My body felt wrong. My entire existence felt wrong.

Leaning to the left, I cracked open the vanity door, hand digging beneath a box of tampons and toilet paper stacks I kept under the sink. I pushed a few towels aside until my fingers brushed against the first-aid kit at the very back.

I pulled it out, wincing as pain shot across my right side and the bruises on my jaw.

Opening the red box, I slipped my hand inside, fishing one of the three glass vials I kept in there and closing my fist around it.

My stomach churned. I breathed through my nose. I was going to be sick.

I shut my eyes and shook my head. How had I become this guy? The one masking the truth and putting on a brave face. I couldn’t believe this was what my life had turned into.

The room spun around me. It felt like I was losing my grip on reality. In the last few months, I had entered a spiral of make-believe, lies, and deception, and I had no clue how to exit it. My hand shook, and I tightened my hold on the glass vial. The room was closing in on me. I was suffocating and forced a breath in, trying to bring oxygen back to my brain and calm the fuck down.

Using the heel of my other hand, I wiped off the new batch of tears blurring my vision.

I had not only become a pathetic version of myself lately, but also a liar. A lying liar who lied to get away with what he knew was wrong. I swore I had thrown away every glass vial. I had made promises. I was not just failing myself this time around, but the ones I loved and who loved me back. If I kept going down that road, I would lose not only my sport, but also the only girl I’d ever loved. I would ruin us forever. No one could ever replace Melinda Shepard in my heart. I knew it, and yet, I couldn’t seem to stop the feeling that I was barreling straight into hell, damn the consequences. In my heart, I knew I had choices, but they were drifting beyond my reach. Football was my life. I had to make it work in the long run. I had seen how shooting drugs had turned out for athletes I used to respect, and yet I was following in their footsteps. I had judged them for their bad choices, and yet it hadn’t prevented me from doing the exact same thing. Despair was a powerful drug, one that could lead you down the wrong path if you weren’t careful.