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Just like I am.
My door swings open and Olivia’s eyes are wide. What is she doing back in here? I stare at her with a blank expression while she glances down to see the broken glass and then back up to me.
“I heard it on my way out and wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“Do I look okay to you?” I snap. What does this girl want? “I can take care of myself just fine.”
Her eyes narrow and there’s a blazing fire within them. “You don’t look okay. You look hurt, lost, and…” She pauses, suddenly unsure of herself. “Broken,” she finishes, her gaze dropping to the glass scattered on the floor. My chest constricts. She sees it. She knows. Maybe she doesn’t know the details, but she can see that I’m not even half the person I was before I lost football, before the title of an athlete was taken from me forever. If a stranger, a girl I’ve known not even twelve hours, can see that, then what do my siblings see? A pathetic excuse for the brother they once had?
My features harden. “Get the fuck out.”
Olivia blinks, dumbfounded, as if she can’t believe either what she said, what I said, or both. She nods and closes the door. Her footsteps are soft as she hurries out.
Welcome to the neighborhood, Olivia.
AFTER A WHILE, I clean up the glass and change to go buy a new phone and stock up on more alcohol. The sun seems too bright and I wish it was cloudy. It seems more fitting that way. Of course, I get a new employee who is in training still and it takes forever to get my phone. My leg bounces or my foot taps the entire time. Keeping my temper in check ends up being emotionally and physically taxing.
Why do I keep being handed shitty hands?
My parents were murdered with my baby sister in the house when I was a kid. I grew up faster than normal kids because even though my grandparents took us in, my brothers and sister looked up to me; and I was in charge. They wanted me to protect them, stand up for them, and for me to try to be half the man my father was.
My grandparents had a handful with four young kids, all roughly one year apart, so I had to sometimes step out of the brother role and into a more fatherly one to keep my brothers in line. Lucy had enough issues for a while, but once she was able to manage them, she was never a troublemaker. I’ve had to always do my best so I wouldn’t let them down. Yet I still manage to find a way to do that.
Football was my saving grace, my one constant through it all to keep my sanity in place, and now, it’s gone too. I don’t have a place where I feel at home. I don’t have a place where I can remember my parents. I can’t be reassured by the weight of pads on my shoulders and a helmet on my head. My one and only dream, lit by my parents, has been demolished. My father would understand that I can’t do it now, I know, but it doesn’t feel any better that I can’t live the life he pictured for me.
Who is Corey Kennedy? I don’t know, because my life revolved around football. My focus was on it 24/7, one hundred percent of the time. I skipped parties, instead studying and doing homework to stay on top of my grades. My friends were my teammates. I left them behind completely when I moved to get away from everyone. Rarely did I meet someone outside of that circle. Not only did I suffer from a career-ending injury, but now I’m pathetically friendless.
I wake up every morning, hating life. Why get out of bed? I don’t have a dream to strive for. Why care about school? I don’t want the degree I’m trying to earn. Why eat healthy and exercise? I don’t have to because I’m not playing football anymore. My life has consisted of nothing but shitty hands that throw my life out of order, leaving me to clean up the mess afterwards.
Life fucking sucks.
It’s that simple.
A text from Lucy on the drive home chips a bit of the anger away. Not a lot, but just enough to where I’m tired and ready for a nap. Naps are my best friend. Sleep and alcohol, really. Anything to make me forget that my life is shit for a while.
MY ALARM BLARES, nagging me to wake up. I have school today, but my body feels too heavy to move. My head aches from the mere thought of trying to go to class. A class I have no desire to take because I never planned on relying on a degree, especially not a political science one.
I don’t have it in me today to force myself out of my bed. My hand reaches out and slams down on the clock, luckily hitting the snooze button. My body seems to sink further into the bed, anchoring me by the heaviness of my sorrows. Sometimes, I get the urge to cry. No shit. I’m a “big-boned” muscular football player, tough and mean-looking half the time, and I want to cry.
Shit.
I was a football player. Now, I’m just a large guy. Still. Sometimes, my eyes burn, my throat gets scratchy, and it’s hard to take in small breaths. This, what I feel, what I’ve lost, it hurts. It’s such a deep ache I’m positive it’s grown roots and attached itself to every part of me to ensure that I carry it around every day. And what sucks even more?
I’m the only one who knows it’s there. I’m the only one who can feel the burning throb as it pulses with stinging lashes repeatedly, leaving welts with no time to heal. The only thing everyone else sees, what my siblings see, is the same ol’ me. I don’t look different. My ailment isn’t something physical they can see. No one knows the depths of the pain, not even me. For all I know, it’s endless and this is how I’ll live the rest of my life.
Might as well miraculously die now.
Olivia said I’m broken. She’s wrong. I’m more dead than alive. I’m a living corpse, decomposing a little more every day.
The thirst for alcohol awakens me, as does the realization that while school started a few weeks ago, I’m a day away from having missed too many classes. A half-hearted chuckle cracks the silence around me. At this point, there are two words in my mind.
Fuck it.
I don’t want it anyway. Tossing the covers aside, I manage to make it to the kitchen to the bottles of Bourbon. I sit on the kitchen floor, half delirious from what little sleep I’ve managed to get the past couple of days, and start drinking.
Time quickly blurs with my empty stomach growling for food. That’s not what I need, though. This. Drinking. That’s what I need. The burn numbs my pain, takes my mind somewhere else. Not to happier thoughts, but maybe to a place more stable than this. Through my haze, I eat chips and make trips to the bathroom.
Someone knocks on my door and calls my name.
