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Fifty Yard Line 15
Poppy
Itriedagainto study, to read, to pick out something to wear tomorrow. My roommate arrived and looked at me. She tilted her head and said, “You must have had some weekend.”
“What?” I asked.
She tapped the side of her neck. I reached for my neck and then went into the bathroom. I didn’t really look at myself in the mirror at his place. I barely wore clothes all weekend. My eyes went wide at the realization that I had a hickey on my neck. I decided not to comment, but as I stepped into my room, she was holding up a shirt that all but shouted the school football team owned that shirt, or me, or something since it said property of on it.
“Poppy, what the hell is going on?” She turned that shirt and I realized why she was so shocked. “Parker? Are you…Brady Parker? Our quarterback? Mr. January?”
“Mr. who?” I asked.
She went over to her desk and pulled out a calendar. She flipped it back to January and there he was in all his football glory in that uniform, and I gasped. I tried to play it off and asked as nonchalant as I could muster, “What?”
She went wide-eyed and said, “He broke your arm!”
“I broke my arm. I didn’t move when two very large football players were heading right for me. And Brady didn’t see me—”
“Brady?” she asked and fanned herself with that calendar.
“Mr. Parker.” I closed my eyes hoping it made it less obvious. I had made a commitment to him not to talk about him, his personal business. Did that include me? I wasn’t sure. This was…rapidly getting out of control. He said he didn’t do serious. Truth of the matter remained, even if he did do serious, he was graduating and I had two years left of school, so where was this going? No where and fast, no matter how awesome he was.
“Oh, I would call him Mr. Parker if he asked me to, too.” She made a little shimmy move and that made me really angry.
I gritted my teeth and said, “What happened to he broke your arm?”
“He didn’t break my arm and he wouldn’t have to break my arm to get my attention.” She fanned herself with the calendar again. “It’s written all over your face, Poppy. You want to throw something at me for saying that. Tell me. We’ve been roommates for two years and the only boy you’ve brought around has been in books, so…what is going on?”
She took a seat. I walked over and pushed the window up so we could get some air. The heat was on thanks to the snow, but we had no control over the thermostat, so it was getting warm and probably due to the conversation it was in fact a bit too hot in here.
I took a seat on my bed, picked up the shirt, held it and said, “I don’t know.”
I didn’t talk to her about all of it, just the basics of us becoming friends and the obvious encounter that left a hickey on my neck. She said after much deliberation on the last part, “Well. I think that is a territorial thing. It’s obvious. Right there on the center of your neck, so how can he care if anyone knows about you and him when he is marking you up like that?”
I hadn’t thought about it since I hadn’t realized he left that mark on me. I started to wonder if I left any marks on him.
She got up and headed into the bathroom. I looked at my phone and wanted to send a text, call, something. After the awkward way we got off the phone the last time, I just…didn’t know what to say. The time kept ticking. He didn’t text me either and…the next thing I knew…it was Friday.
I sucked in a deep breath and pulled that t-shirt with his name on the back of it, over my long-sleeved shirt which was over a thermal shirt because it was cold out. I had to cut the thermal shirt to fit over the cast and the long-sleeved shirt was one I bought recently because it was a college shirt and supported our team and it was a men’s, so the cast fit inside of the sleeve.
I had a press pass, and I took it in case I needed it. I needed to see him. I needed to tell him that I missed him something fierce. I could barely sleep, eat, and I was scared to death that I messed this up because it took me a minute to understand what was happening. I was not just in lust with Brady Parker, I was in love with him. It didn’t matter if he was leaving next year. I loved him now.
I looked at my roommate and said, “I really hope I don’t come back here tonight.”
She nodded and said, “Me too because you’ll be coming back to an empty dorm.” She wiggled and said, “I have a date.”
I laughed and nodded. “Well, have fun.”
“I always do.” She waggled her brows at me. She did. I was privy to some of her exploits. We had a nice talk about not bringing people to the dorm after the second one.
I called for a ride because either way this went, I would either go home with him or be in no shape to drive. I got there entirely too early, used my press pass to get access, and went to the field. It was empty but for the other press setting up, some of the workers getting things organized and such. I walked down to the fifty yard line and stood in the spot that changed everything about my life. I sucked in a deep breath and closed my eyes. When I opened them, I took several steps back and then went up into the stands where I belonged. I was not going to be a sports journalist. I was going to use my new camera to capture photos from a very safe distance of this game.
This horrible, brutal, game.
Brady took one more sack and I winced, turned, and tried not to look. I put the camera away and used my press pass to get access to the space before the locker rooms. When it was half-time, the team came grumbling down that tunnel. Clicking along behind them was Brady Parker, holding his side with one hand and his helmet in the other.
“Brady?” I ran over to him, and he frowned down at me. “Are you hurt?”
