God, it’s good to be playing ball again. I’m fucking hungry for it. I play harder than I’ve ever played in my life—run faster, jump higher, make catches I didn’t think were possible. It doesn’t pay much, so I keep my day job at the bar working from nine to four, then practice, then home. It becomes a routine. I make friends with the guys on the team, drink with ’em, hang with ’em, go to keggers after games, big bonfire parties in the country outside the city with dozens of people getting wasted and having a great time. I get in drunken brawls, make out with wasted girls in the shadows…
But making out never goes anywhere.
I can’t.
I just can’t.
I don’t think about Kylie much anymore and I sure don’t ask Mom or Dad how she’s doing. I don’t want to know. I mean, I do, but I don’t. If things start to get hot and heavy with a girl I can only see Kylie, and I think about how long I waited for her, how I saved my first kiss for her, saved it until I was seventeen, at which point I got drunk and wasted it by accident on Allie Mercer.
My brain has gone haywire. I want to move on, but I can’t. I freeze up. And I can’t even explain it—I can’t get the words out.
Eventually, I stop bothering with girls. It never goes anywhere, and it’s not fair to them to lead them on, make them think it’s going somewhere it’s not.
My self-loathing is a great motivator. I turn the gut-churning hatred of my own failings into insane rushing and reception stats, which get me noticed by scouts. I mean, that’s the entire point of the experimental league, after all—to get a place, other than at a university, which grooms raw talent and discovers untapped potential.
Halfway through the season, we’re in a game, in the third quarter, playing Los Angeles.
We’re up by fourteen, both TDs mine. We’re on our own forty, second down. Timo Jeffries, the QB, calls the play, feints a hand-off, which gives me time to cut through the lines and sprint downfield. I slice left…BAM, the ball hits me dead center and I’m gone, blasting toward their end zone.
Only, I’m not alone. Their defense has been double teaming me the last three drives, and it’s fucking effective, goddamn them. So there are two defenders on me, and though they couldn’t stop me from making the catch, they’re fucking fast and they’re on me like white on rice. I try a fake right, one of them buys it and I lunge left, but the other has me around the waist, dragging me down. I lean into the tackle and push forward, straining for one more yard or two.
More defenders are rushing up the field, catching up. I’m seconds from letting myself hit the turf when I see it happen in slow motion.
A big-ass dude with dreads hanging around his shoulders, a fierce grin on his face, is coming straight for me. I put a hand out and start to go down, but he flies at me anyway, and he hits me on an angle.
I feel it; it’s like a fucking Mack truck smashing into me. But he missed his tackle. Instead of nailing my midsection, he misjudges and his shoulder drives into my right knee.
I hear the crack of bone snapping; feel an explosion of raw agony. I’m down, and no one knows what just happened except me and the guy who hit me. A body drives me into the dirt, and another hits my knee, and I hear someone screaming.
It’s me.
I don’t hear the whistle; don’t feel anything but the pain in my knee.
“Shit, man, you okay?” It’s the guy who hit me, his helmet off, dreads dangling around his worried face. “I didn’t mean it, man, I’m sorry, you okay?”
I can’t breathe from the pain.
Someone is kneeling beside me, and I feel hands on my knee, and then I’m being lifted onto a stretcher. They set me down too hard and I feel dizziness wash over me, darkness rushes up and I’m out cold.
TWO: Now What?
I’m in a hospital bed. My knee is wrapped and elevated, and I’m alone.
I just woke up from surgery. I remember agreeing to whatever they had to do. I remember saying I’d call my family afterward. I remember the mask and the anesthesia floating through me.
And now I’m alone, and my knee hurts, and I don’t know what’s next.
Fuck. This isn’t good. Not good. I don’t know how bad my knee is, but I’ll probably miss the rest of the season, at least.
A nurse comes in. “Oh, you’re awake. How do you feel, Mr. Dorsey?”
I shrug. “Okay, I guess. It aches.” That’s an understatement. It fucking kills.
“Need something for the pain?” she asks. The nurse is a pretty middle-aged woman with brown hair and brown eyes.
I nod. “Sure.”
I want to ask, but I don’t.
So I wait until she returns thirty minutes later with a paper cup containing two pills and a half-can of ginger ale. I take the pills and settle back, then finally get the courage. The nurse’s name tag identifies her as Pam.
“Pam?” I touch the bandage around my knee. “How bad is it? When can I play again?”
Her expression goes carefully blank and she doesn’t answer right away. “Um, I think maybe you should talk to Dr. Lane, Mr. Dorsey.”
“Shit.” I lean back and squeeze my eyes shut. “That’s not good.”
She tries to smile, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “You’ll be all right, sweetie. I’ll page Dr. Lane for you.”
Two hours later, a tall, thin, balding man in a lab coat sweeps into the room and pulls up a seat beside the bed. “Ben, how are you, son?”
I shrug. “Depends on what you’re about to tell me, Doc.”
He’s quiet for a minute, and then he leans back in the red plastic visitor’s chair, letting out a long sigh. “Well, then…I’m not gonna bullshit you, son. You messed up your knee pretty bad.”
“How bad?”
His eyes meet mine, and I see pity in them. Fucking pity. “Pretty bad. The hit you took…that was a career-ender, Ben. I’m sorry.”
“Career—” I have to clear my throat and blink hard several times. “Career-ender. You’re kidding. Tell me you’re—you’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
Dr. Lane shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Ben. You’ll need intensive physical therapy just to be able to walk on it again. With months of work, you may be able to jog short distances. But competitive football? That’s over for you, son.”
How many times is this guy going to call me son in one conversation?
I nod and stare at my knee rather than at him. He’s just the bearer of bad news; it’s not his fault. Smashing his nose in would be bad form, I’m guessing.