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FORTY-FIVE

lorenzo

For days I’ve thought about all the options available to me while lying in bed at night and doing absolutely nothing about them.

I could go to Ruby’s parents and tell them they’re fucking up her life and see if they have a shred of understanding of who their daughter is.

I could be brutal to Ruby and tell her that if she thinks she’s proving anything with this move, then she needs to grow up.

I could get her aunt and uncle’s info. I could find a way to fuck this up for her.

Or I could propose to her. How’s that for forever? Or I could forget the NFL and go to Canada. There’s a Canadian league. Canadian football. I’d probably be a legend.

It’s amazing how many choices I have, but not one of them will get me what I want and get Ruby what she needs. I spent so many years thinking I could make things okay for her, that I could be the one to save her if I got the timing right. But just when I thought I was close, it all blew up.

The only thing keeping me sane is football practice. I still can’t participate in most of our drills, but at least I’m out on the field working with my team. It feels like the only forward momentum in my life.

“Just let her go,” Cash counsels me in the locker room on Wednesday after a sweaty morning practice. I’m not sure whether that means he doesn’t understand the way I need Ruby or if he understands perfectly.

It’s not loneliness that I feel without her.

It’s more like sickness, the weighty feeling of being unwell, because seeing her every day was simply part of what I did to stay alive.

The same way I take showers and sleep and eat the big fucking salads Ruby always made fun of in order to just feel human, I talked to Ruby or sat on the couch with her or shared a meal just to feel like myself.

“I am letting her go,” I tell Cash grouchily. “Do you see me chasing after her?”

“Let her go in your head, dude. Acceptance. That’s all you can do.”

“Not a fucking chance. I’m not like Ruby. I can’t build my world around something and then just move clean on from it when it’s not perfect. There’s a sickness to her, honestly. The way she cuts things out of her life and never looks back? It’s not normal.”

“Eh.” Cash shrugs. “That’s hobbies. Interests. Not people.”

“She does it to people too. She loves to act like she has no friends except me, but that’s her choice. She’s had more friends throughout her life than anyone I know, but the life cycle of her friendships is complete in a matter of weeks. She moves on and never thinks about it again.”

“All right, look, I don’t blame you, because I would never stay friends with an ex, but aren’t you the one who refused to be friends with her? She didn’t cut you out.”

“Because there’s no going back to being friends. I’m not letting her soften the blow by acting like we can just take a step back and be what we always were. That’s a lie and she knows it.” I close my locker. “She killed everything we had. I’m not taking the blame for that.”

So I say. But what if I did rip away what was left of us? What if going back to being friends was just her hitting the pause button while she worked her shit out? Maybe we could have worked our way back to happiness.

“You want to grab some food?” Cash looks me over carefully. I must have a miserable expression on my face.

“I’m not hungry.”

“I can tell. Dude, you need to eat.”

“I eat.”

“Not enough for the weight you lift, apparently. You’re getting skinny, and sorry, but I don’t have it in me to cook and feed you like Ruby does.”

“Fine, let’s go grab some food,” I say to get him off my back.

Cash brightens, seeming to take this as a good sign. As we walk out the door, he slaps me on the back. “Proud of you, man.”

“For eating?”

“For letting go of the hand-wringing, must-control-everyone thing you do. Things’ll get better if you let go.”

“So far it’s not working.”

“Like over a lifetime, not a couple days.”

I rub absently at a mosquito bite on my arm. “I don’t want to think about what could happen to her over a lifetime.”

“Do I have to pull out that butterfly metaphor?”

I look at him. “No clue what you’re talking about.”

“You know it ... if you love something, set it free or some shit?”

I smile for the first time in days. “Please go on. I could use a laugh.”

Cash looks mildly embarrassed. “Okay, so it’s corny as fuck, but you feel me.”

“Yeah, I feel you. She’s the butterfly. Whatever.”

“Right. And you stopped trying to protect her from everything and let her figure it out herself.”

“And that’s supposed to be the right thing?”

“Yes.”

Everything I trust is telling me that where I am now is the furthest from right I’ve ever been.

Ant: Hey. You around?

I stare at the text, its meaning confusing me more than any three words ever have. Anthony never texts me.

Lorenzo: Yeah

I put my phone in my pocket when it dawns on me that he meant to text someone else that message. I bury the little flare of hope that was just starting up inside me.

I head into my PT session and start on my warm-up exercises. My phone buzzes inside my pocket. Anthony again.

Ant: Can I come by in a little?

I wonder if he’s high. Sara is nowhere to be seen, so I take a break and text him back.

Lorenzo: Yeah, but I’m at an appt now. You know where I live?

I hear Sara’s voice from an adjoining room and she sounds a little pissy, so I do some halfhearted shoulder rolls while I wait for my cousin’s response.

Ant: Your mom gave me your address.

Okay, so he didn’t text me by accident. Which makes things even more confusing. I think back to the last time I saw him: my mom’s birthday party. I don’t think he spoke to me all day, but who knows. Breaking up with Ruby overshadows everything else that happened that day.

Lorenzo: I’ll be home in an hour.

I don’t know what I expect when I park in front of my place an hour later, but it’s not my cousin sitting on the front stoop with two cans of orange soda resting between his sneakers.

My stomach tenses with the thought he might have been sent to deliver me some kind of bad news.

Someone’s sick, maybe even dead. Jesus. Who would it be?

“Ant,” I call. He looks up and I search his eyes for clues, but he looks normal. A little shady, but that’s his way.

He cracks open one can of soda and hands it to me when I reach the steps.

Our grandpa used to give us orange sodas back when Ant and I were kids and would spend Saturdays at his house.

I almost refuse the can because I don’t feel like drinking liquid sugar, but something makes me take it.

“Thanks.” I sip from the can. “So what’s the occasion? ”

He lifts a shoulder casually, like this isn’t the first time he’s reached out to me in years. “I was nearby. Thought I’d check up on you.”

“Nearby doing what?”

“Girlfriend doesn’t live too far away.”

“Girlfriend. That’s new.”

“Yeah.” He looks down as he pops open his own can of soda, trying not to smile.

I sit on the hot concrete steps, and we shoot the shit for a while. It’s awkward, but when I realize he’s not here to bring bad news, I relax. He tells me about his girl and his job.

“So how’s your season looking? You gonna play?”

“Looks like it. Knock on wood.”

“And then what? The Combine?”

“That’s the plan. Everyone says I should be good to go by then, long as I don’t fuck myself up this season.”

He nods and goes silent for a minute. “So you still want to play pro?”

I laugh shortly. “Yeah, man. Haven’t I always?”

“I mean even after all these years? You still want it as bad as you used to?”

“Unless there’s some hidden danger you want to warn me about.”

He shakes his head, then drinks down his soda for an impressively long time.

“Something on your mind, Ant?”

He takes a heavy breath. “I’ve been thinking about the way we used to talk about being pro football players. The stupid little promises we made, right?”

“I guess we made promises. We were kids.”

“Yeah, but with you being such a guilt-bearing son of a bitch, I don’t know ... I just wanted to make sure you’re not still thinking about those things.”

“Trust me, I’m well aware you’re not interested in being my future roommate. Even if I do buy a fifteen-bedroom mansion with two pools and an indoor football field.”

He smiles. “Don’t forget the go-kart track.

” Back in elementary school, we wrote the whole thing down in a spiral notebook, adding to it as new ideas bubbled up—the dream house we’d buy together with our millions of dollars, the cars we’d collect.

I wonder whether that notebook exists anymore.

“But that’s not what I meant. It would piss me off if I found out you thought you owed me something because of what happened in high school. ”

“Owed you something?”

“Like a football career or some shit.”

I turn to stare at him. “Come on, man. Because of the way we talked when we were little? Are you serious? I’ve centered my whole life around the game. I want it because I want it.”

“Good. Because I don’t want to figure into your life as an obligation. I don’t want a single part in shaping what you do with your life. Okay?”

“What is your problem, Anthony?”

“I know I told you I blame you for the way my life got completely thrown off track, but we both know that’s bullshit. Obviously I’m responsible. Maybe I was too angry to accept that back then, but I know it now. It wasn’t your fault.”

I’m still for a minute, caught off guard by his words and the unexpected relief that comes with them. “Okay,” I say slowly. “I get it. But just so we’re clear, I didn’t need you to blame me. I blamed myself.”

“Then stop,” he says sharply.

I nod. “You want to tell me where this is coming from and what it has to do with my future?”

“I don’t want you to do anything for me, Lorenzo. I don’t want that responsibility.”

I swallow. “What made you think you needed to come here and tell me that?”