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He tugged his ponytail again and took a moment before he answered. “I met Cierra when I was a freshman in college. The football team had been at the school training together but most of the other students weren’t there yet. I was lonely and scared out of my mind and when—”
“You were scared?” I interrupted. “Of what?”
“Well, let’s see. I was afraid I wouldn’t be good enough to play, that I’d sit on the bench and then they’d find a reason not to renew my scholarship. I’d never paid a lick of attention in high school, so I was pretty sure I was going to fail my classes and that would have been grounds for kicking me off the team. I’d also never been away from home before, not for any length of time to live on my own. My family isn’t close and we don’t get along so well, but they were there. Do you know what I mean?”
I nodded, because it was the same way with me and Aubin. We weren’t like other pairs of sisters that I knew, girls who were friends and told each other secrets, who fought because they loved each other so much. We’d never had that kind of relationship, which was why I had been overwhelmed with happiness when she’d picked me to be her maid of honor. But no matter what, she was my sister and maybe our family was a mess, but we were there.
“I got introduced to Cierra right when she arrived on campus and she just about knocked me over. Not many people can do that,” he clarified, and it was true. I’d seen him play football. “She was so beautiful and confident, and she was a sophomore so I felt like, wow, an older woman. She’s seven months older than I am, to be exact.”
“Cradle robber.”
He laughed again. “Anyway, we got together fast and we stuck that way. I guess my friends figured we’d reunite because things are habitual. You’re just moving along without thinking about why or if there’s a reason for it.”
“You didn’t have a good reason to stay?”
“I really liked her. I loved her back then, as the man I used to be,” Bowie said. “But in the years after, I grew up a lot and Cierra was a lot the same. She likes to party, she likes buying clothes, she likes to take selfies and make videos of herself. She’s an influencer and you can see what she’s up to.”
I had already done that. I’d been checking her posts a lot and they fascinated me. “I’ve seen her,” I admitted. “She’s beautiful and she looks like she’s having so much fun all the time.”
“Her job is making people think that she is, keeping up appearances. That meant we didn’t see a lot of each other. I’m with the team and she hates it up here, or I’m in Arizona training in a little town that she also doesn’t care for. In college, Cierra liked being that big fish, you know? But now, my ponds are too small for her. I’m too small for her.”
I stared at him. “You’re too small?”
He laughed pretty hard. “I mean, I don’t want the spotlight,” he explained when he’d stopped. “I just want normal things, to play football and have a place I like to live, to be with my friends, to relax and not worry about how I look or how other people see me. I don’t care to go to product launches and constantly pose for pictures, I don’t like wearing jewelry and suits with no shirts underneath them. I told Cierra what I wanted in life, which was to get married and have kids, maybe to coach football after I retire, to live in a place not too different from where we are right now. Not New York and not L.A., which are the only two cities she considers to be habitable. We talked and I told her those things, and we decided to end it.”
I remembered what Malina from my squad had said about that, how it hadn’t seemed like a “we” decision in his ex-girlfriend’s posts about the breakup, but Bowie appeared to believe that he was telling the truth when he claimed that he hadn’t dumped her.
“Anyway, I think we’re both happier apart,” he continued. “She texts me every now and then to tell me about the guys she’s with and from the pictures I’ve seen, they seem more her speed than I was.”
No, if she was doing that, then their breakup wasn’t mutual at all. “What do you write back?” I asked curiously.
“I say I’m happy for her, I guess.” He shrugged. “I haven’t sent pictures like that to her, because I figured she wouldn’t be interested if I was seeing someone else.”
Oh, she probably would be, and I was interested in that myself. Was he with someone? It was only idle curiosity on my part, but I really wanted to know.
Before I had to ask, he added, “I’m not, anyway. There’s nothing to tell her.”
“You were together for a long time and maybe you’re not ready for someone new. It probably takes a while to get free of everything emotionally. Not like a relationship is a prison,” I noted. Maybe they did feel that way, at times.
“My life didn’t change a whole lot when Cierra and I were over. Would yours?”
“You mean, if Ward and I broke up?” I asked, and he nodded. I let myself think about how my life might be without my boyfriend in it. “Things would change a lot for me,” I admitted. “We’re not together all the time—we don’t actually see too much of each other. We’re both busy, me especially.”
But Ward knew where I was and what I was doing, almost always. He knew what I was going to wear, because he liked to come when I went shopping (those rare occasions) so I didn’t pick anything too racy, the things he said would make me look slutty and would attract male attention. He knew my friends, too. At least, I’d had friends in high school but they had fallen by the wayside as Ward and I got serious. My time had been taken up with classes, jobs, cheering, my dad, and my boyfriend. Because even if we weren’t physically together, he didn’t like me going out too much with anyone besides himself. He was worried about my safety, just like Bowie had also worried when he had asked me to text him when I arrived to pick up my dad at the country club.
“Lissa? What are you thinking about right now?”
“It doesn’t matter how things would change, since we’re not breaking up,” I stated. “It doesn’t matter.”
He opened his mouth but as he did, a car’s headlights flashed through the front window as someone turned into our driveway.
“That must be my dad,” I said gratefully, and I went to open the door and wait there for him to come in. I waved in relief as he walked up the front path and when he got close, I put my arms out for a hug. It was because I loved him, yes, but also so I could get close enough to smell him. I picked up the clear odors of cigarette smoke, which he shouldn’t have been around or personally inhaling with his health somewhat precarious after the accident. I also picked up on a lot of booze. There was beer for sure and I thought whiskey, which meant that he’d been spending too much money. I also caught perfume. Perfume?
“Dad,” I said, and shook my head.
“Don’t start, Lissa,” he told me, and moved me aside so he could step into the house. Then he stopped abruptly, because Bowie had stood up from the couch and now took up most of the living room. I hadn’t noticed before how close the top of his head came to brushing the ceiling. “Who are you?”
“I’m Garrett Bowman, sir.” He extended an extra-large hand to my dad, who took it very gingerly and nodded in return. My father, who didn’t follow football and hated the team, would have had no idea that this was a Woodsmen player, but I thought it might still have been a bit of a shock to find a giant in our living room.
