Falling Away (18 page)

I nearly lose it, though, when the ancient radio mounted under the cabinet next to the kitchen sink plays “Even If It Breaks Your Heart” by the Eli Young Band. I force myself to keep it together, even when “Leave the Pieces” by The Wreckers plays, but that one is hard, because I want to be as strong as the lyrics in that song, but don’t feel like I am.

So now I’m lying in the narrow bedroom off the kitchen that’s always been mine when I visit my grandparents, staring at the fifty-year-old painting of a cabin on a snowy hillside with tall pine trees in the background. That painting has always been how I get to sleep in this room. The moon shines through the window over the bed, streaming silver light onto the painting on the wall, and I imagine myself in that scene, a little log cabin with a fire cheerfully blazing, snow falling peacefully outside in thick fat flakes.
 

It’s not working tonight, though.
 

I miss Mom.

I miss Ben.

I miss Nashville and my life and my friends and how things were before I got that call.
 

Most of all, I wish I could take back the things I said to Mom the last time we called.
 

I grab my phone off the little bedside table and stare at Ben’s entry in my phone book. I want to call him, want to hear his voice. But even wanting that scares me, because I don’t do that. I don’t do emotional connections to guys.
 

I learned not to do that a long time ago, the hard way. I learned it when Dad left Mom when I was eight. I learned it at fourteen when the high school junior I just
knew
was in love with me took my virginity, then told everyone at school. I learned it again with the next “boyfriend”, who ditched me the very second I finally let him have sex with me; literally, he finished, zipped up, left, and I never saw him again.
 

And I kept learning it with every guy I thought I liked, every boyfriend I stubbornly hoped would actually fall in love with me. But none of them ever did. They all acted like they liked me, like I meant something, and once I’d put out a few times and they got what they wanted, they took off and left me wondering what I’d done wrong. It wasn’t until Marcus that I realized how stupid I’d been.

I put thoughts of Marcus out of my head. And I certainly don’t call Ben.
 

I text him instead:
Thanks for your help today.
 

His response comes quickly:
no prob.

I don’t know what else to say. I have to think for a long time. I type several things, then erase them. Finally, I send the simple truth.
I’m sorry. Under different circumstances maybe we could have taken it somewhere. But it is what it is.

Under different circumstances. You know how many times I’ve heard that?
 

I already said I was sorry.

Don’t be sorry. You headed back to school soon?

Tomorrow AM.
 

Well…I don’t know what else to say but have a safe flight, then.
 

That sounds so distant, so unlike Ben, that it actually hurts. My fingers type without consulting my brain:
You’re making me second guess myself, Benji.

I’ll come get you right now, wherever you are.
 

I choke when I read that. I nearly tell him yes, I nearly give him Grandma and Grandpa’s address, but I don’t. Because if I was confused before, him coming to get me in the middle of the night would only confuse me more. And as nice as he’s being right now, I know it won’t last.
 

No. Sorry. Just no.

You know, I’ve always known women were confusing, but Echo, I really don’t understand you.
 

Me either. That’s part of the problem.

Goodbye, Echo
.

That sounds so permanent.

I don’t know if I can ever go back to Nashville.
 

And I can’t stay here. There’s nothing left for me in San Antonio. Nothing but memories. It was Mom’s home, it’s not mine. And now she’s gone, and I just can’t stay.
 

I get that. But that’s not why you’re pushing me away.

No, it’s not.
 

But you won’t tell me why.

I did.

No, you gave me excuses.
 

Damn it, Ben. I don’t know what else you want me to tell you.
 

Exactly my point.
There was a pause of several seconds, and then he sent a follow up text:
Go to sleep, Echo. Go back to Nashville tomorrow and just keep breathing. You’ll be okay, someday. One day at a time.

I can’t figure out what else to say after that, so I don’t text anything back. In the morning, Grandpa drives me to the airport and sees me off at security. He promises to ship me the boxes of Mom’s things. I manage to keep it together all the way to Nashville, all the way to the apartment I share with three other girls.

Thank god for those girls, because they live for three things: partying, boys, and music.
 

I’ll need huge doses of all three to move on.
 

Addendum: I’ll need huge doses of partying and music to move on. I’m done with boys for a long, long time.
 

Which has nothing to do with the strange, empty hole I feel inside me…a hole that is frighteningly Ben-shaped.

Even admitting to myself that I feel Ben’s absence like a chasm within me has me trying to fill that hole with whiskey.

Lots and lots of whiskey.

ELEVEN: Going Home

Ben

I managed to waste a week. I don’t even know what I did for that week, to be honest. A whole bunch of not much. A whole bunch of feeling sorry for myself, hating life, hating women, hating football, hating my life. Just…hating in general. Drinking. Avoiding my phone, refusing steadfastly to look at the last texts I’d exchanged with Echo. Also steadfastly refusing to call Mom and Dad.

It was inevitable, though. I had nothing left here. Nothing left anywhere.
 

It’s almost funny how big a bitch hindsight is; once Echo was gone, I realized with lightning-bolt suddenness and vivid clarity that I’d fallen in love with her. I mean, sure, I knew nothing about her. But it wasn’t just a physical attraction. It wasn’t just the sex. It was just…
her.
I want to know everything about her, I want to know what happened to her father, I want to know why her mother was alone for so long. I want to know why Echo is so shut down, so unable to talk about herself. She didn’t make a big deal of it until right at the end but, looking back, I realize that she always deftly avoided talking about herself. I want to talk to her from dawn till dusk and find out everything about her, and I want to hold her and shelter her secrets and…I want her to be happy.
 

I know that feeling, loving someone enough to want their happiness to be my priority. It’s why I left Nashville, after all. Kylie deserved happiness, and she’d found it with Oz. I couldn’t give her anything, couldn’t stomach seeing her happy with him, couldn’t stomach seeing her at all, so I left. It was as much for her as for myself, I now know. I needed the space and time, as well. I needed experiences that didn’t include Mom and Dad and Kylie and football.
 

I grew up while I was gone.
 

Not all the way, though, because I still need Mom and Dad. Now I don’t know what to do. I’d thought I’d found myself on this journey around the country, but it turns out once football was taken away I still don’t know who I am.

So I’m sitting on my couch just past dawn, my cell in hand, ESPN on the TV, muted, trying to make myself call home.

And then my phone rings. It’s Mom.
 

“Benny!” Her voice is so soothing, so familiar, that lilt from growing up fluent in three languages. “You haven’t called in so long, I was getting worried. I just…felt like I had to call.”
 

My throat is thick, choked off with heat. “Mom.”
 

She hears it, of course. “Benny? What’s wrong, sweetie?”
 

Twenty-two, a grown man, and she still calls me Benny. “I don’t even know—ahem—” I have to pause and clear my throat and start over. “I don’t even know where to start, Mom.”
 

She’s quiet for a long, long moment. “I think it’s time to come home, Benjamin.”

“I can’t.”
 

“It’s been almost two years, honey. If you’re not over her by now, no amount of running away will change that.”

Ouch. “It’s not that, Mom.”

She sighs. “Let me get your father. Hold on.”

Shit. Shitshitshit. I can talk around Mom, because she won’t push an issue. She doesn’t have that directness in her. Dad, however, will dive straight into the heart of the matter and won’t give up until I’ve spilled it all out for him.
 

“Son.” His voice comes on the line after a moment.

“Hey, Dad.”

He must have been working out, as I can hear his breath huffing quickly. “So. Out with it.”
 

“I got hurt,” I say.

“Explain.”

“Took a hit to the knee. A bad one.”

“How long are you out for? You need surgery?”
 

I swallow hard. “I already had surgery, and a month of PT. And…I’m out permanently.”

He doesn’t answer right away. “Shit.”
 

“Yeah.”

“And this happened when?”

“Month, almost a month and a half ago.” My damned voice is small, like I’m a little boy again.

“And you’re just now telling us?” He sounds pissed, but with Dad pissed usually comes from worry. “What the hell, Ben?”

“I—I don’t know. I didn’t want to tell you. I didn’t want it to be…real, I guess. I don’t know, Dad.” I have to swallow and blink. “I had to handle it on my own.”

“I’ll be there this afternoon.” His voice is gentle but allows for no arguments. “Get your shit together.”

“Dad, I don’t know what I’m—”

“Which is why you’re coming home.”

“You don’t understand—”

“And you can explain on the drive home. This ain’t up for discussion, son.”
 

I don’t have the energy or the will to fight it. “See you soon.”
 

“Damn straight. Be ready.”

He shows up at the door of my apartment at one that afternoon. He doesn’t knock, just walks in as I’m stuffing the last of my clothes in a duffel bag. He stands in the door of my bedroom, massive arms crossed over his chest, brows drawn, staring at the cane leaning against the bed.
 

I ignore him until I have the bag zipped, set it on the floor beside the other suitcase and duffel bag that contain all my clothes and other belongings, of which there aren’t many. I take the cane in hand, turn slowly to face my father. Take a hesitant step toward him. My knee is really messed up again. Once Cheyenne died and I met Echo, I’d stopped exercising it and started overusing it, so now it’s stiff all the time and sore and always throbs with pain. To the point that any progress I’d made with Cheyenne has probably been totally undone. I can barely walk on it, even with the cane. Not that I’d admit that to Dad.

“Jesus, Ben. You need a
cane?
”

“Not forever. Just…for a while.” I take another step.
 

His eyes waver, and then he rushes across the space between us, wraps me in a bear hug. “Ben. God, Ben. You went through this alone?”
 

“I’ll never play again, Dad.” My voice cracks, and I have to breathe hard and deep to keep it all at bay. “I may never even be able to run again.”

“What happened?”

“Just a bad tackle. I had two on me, taking me down. Then this other guy comes at me, and just…drilled my knee. Hit me from the side, all his weight in a flying tackle and my knee just crumpled. Done. Just…done.”

“And you went through the surgery, the therapy, the loss of your career, and you didn’t even fucking tell me? Ben, I don’t get it. I just don’t get it.” He pushes back and paces away.

I balance on my cane. “I didn’t know how to deal with it. My career was over. I didn’t know what to say, I didn’t know…anything. Like I said on the phone, I just needed to deal with it on my own first.”

Dad scrubs at his face with both hands. “I guess I can respect that. I don’t like it, though. I wish you’d called. I’d have been here with you. Mom and I both would have.”

“I know. I just couldn’t.” I shake my head. “I’m ready to go. Just got those three bags.”

Dad grabs all three, hikes one over his shoulder and carries one in each hand, and then leads the way out to my truck. I follow him, hating that he has to carry my shit for me. He tosses the bags in the bed of the truck, bungees them in place and covers them with the rolled-up tarp I keep in the bed for that purpose, and then slides into the driver’s seat. It took me that long just to get into the passenger seat.
 

After swinging by the manager’s office to settle up, we’re out of San Antonio within half an hour, and I don’t look back. There’s less than nothing there for me.
 

The first two hours pass in silence, the radio on, tuned to country. I want to change it, because country does nothing but remind me of Cheyenne and Echo. But Dad has a rule: the driver controls the radio. And he likes country. So I’m stuck with the memories.
 

Finally, as the third hour begins, Dad glances at me, and his eyes are knowing. “There’s a girl, ain’t there?”

“What?”
 

He shrugs. “That look on your face, it’s the expression of a man with woman troubles. Only one person on earth can put that look on my face, and that’s your momma. So, what’s up?”

I shake my head. “I don’t even know where to start, Dad. I really don’t.”
 

“It’s not still Kylie, is it?”

“No. It’s not about Kylie.” I roll down the window to block out “Oh Juliet” by Joel Crouse.