Falling Away (19 page)

How do you explain what happened? With Cheyenne, first, and then, even more difficult, with Echo. It seems impossible. How do you explain the significance of what happened with Echo?

I can almost taste your kiss
…

Jesus, that song is fucking killing me. It’s the reverse of what happened, in some ways, because I feel like it’s my heart that was broken, not hers, but the emotion behind it is just slaughtering me.
 

I punch viciously at the radio until something else, anything else, comes on. I leave it at a pop station, something electronic and recycled and auto-tuned and polished with a packaged, factory-processed shine. The kind of empty bullshit that I loathe, but it holds no emotion and no sting of pain.
 

Dad glances at me with something awfully close to amusement in his eyes. “Well, that explains a lot.”
 

I growl. “I don’t think I can talk about it, Dad.”
 

“Is it worse than everything with Kylie?”

I shrug. “Different. Everything with Kylie was a long time building, and it was mostly my own fault for waiting so long. This is different.”

“Well, I’ll let you be for now. We got us a long drive ahead of us, though, so if you feel like talking about it…”

“I can’t, Dad. I just can’t. It’s too much, too soon, and I don’t even know where to start or what I’m gonna do.”

“If there’s a question of what you’re gonna do, then it ain’t over, is it?”

 
I sigh. “Not really. Here’s the short version: I met her in San Antonio. Under…unusual circumstances, and just leave it at that. Turns out, though, that she goes to Belmont. And I
really
don’t want to go back to Nashville, for a lot of reasons. I’m as over Kylie as I can get, but it’s still going to be hell having to see her. Plus, my football career is over, and all my friends at school are football buddies. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I don’t—I don’t know who I am, Dad. And being in Nashville is just going to confuse me even further. Kylie, football…and now Echo is there too…it’s the last place on Earth I want to be. But I couldn’t stay in San Antonio any longer, and with my knee fucked up I can’t drive for long, and I don’t know where else to go.”

“Got yourself a pile of troubles, it sounds like.” Dad switches the radio station, but tunes it to a more traditional country station, the older stuff, George Strait, Clint Black, Alan Jackson, Garth Brooks. “What’s the deal with…Echo, you said her name is?”

“Yeah. Echo. It’s hard to explain. Partly because I don’t even know what the problem really is. She wouldn’t say. She just…shut me down, but I could tell the reasons she gave weren’t the real ones.”

Dad mulls on it. “Well, in my experience, when a woman shuts down like that, it’s out of fear or the need to protect herself, usually a bit of both. She may be afraid of what she’s feeling, you know? I mean, obviously I don’t know her or the situation, but that’s my experience.” He glances at me. “You want my advice?”

“Sure.”

“When we get home, take some time to settle in, first, okay? Let me get you in to see Doc Petersen, get another opinion on your knee. And then I think you need to face the mess you left behind in regard to Kylie.” He glances at me, eyes sharp. “She and Oz got married, you know that, right? They’re living in Nashville. They’re happy. But I can tell she’s upset about you, how things ended. You left real sudden, you know? And before you left, things were—”

“I was an asshole. Please don’t remind me.”

“I think she just wants her friend back—”

“I really don’t know how I’ll handle that,” I interrupt. “I don’t know how I’ll feel seeing her again. I feel like I’ve had enough time and space to know that I’m past the craziness I felt back then, you know? Especially because I’ve got all this with Echo on my plate. But it’ll be hard, regardless.”

“I guess all I want to say is just don’t
not
handle it. You two were best friends for far too long to let it sit.”
 

I nod. “Yeah. You’re right. I’ll handle it, I promise.”

“Good.”
 

We drive in companionable silence for many hours after that, sometimes talking, mostly not; Dad and I are alike in that we don’t need to talk for long periods of time. Somewhere past midnight, I convince Dad to let me drive for a bit so he can take a break. He falls asleep quickly, head against the window, and I let the road hypnotize me, let my thoughts spiral loose and free. I let myself think about Echo, about how much I miss her, how much I want to not even go home first, how I want to find her at Belmont and demand a resolution, demand truth. I let myself think about Kylie, too, for the first time in a long time.

I can’t say I would have done anything differently, given the chance, because I’m just not sure how else I could have felt, under the circumstances. But I do wish I’d been a better friend, thought about Kylie more and myself less. I was worried, though, you know? Given initial impressions and first reactions—judging totally by appearances and rumors—Oz should have been trouble, could have been really bad for Kylie. Could have taken her down the wrong path. But fortunately for her, he turned out to be a decent guy who really does love her. But it could have turned out much differently.
 

It didn’t, though, and like Dad said, I owe it to the friendship we had to fix things.

*
 
*
 
*

I’ve been home for two weeks, resting, staying home, lying low and keeping to myself, trying to figure out what the hell I’m going to do. Moping, basically. Finally Dad all but drags me to Doc Petersen’s office in step one of the fix-Ben’s-life program.

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to concur with the doctor in San Antonio,” Dr. Petersen says, a sympathetic expression on his aged face. “Given a lot of hard work, you’ll see normal everyday mobility. Walking, even jogging, won’t be a problem. But competitive ball? Especially on the professional level? Impossible, I’m afraid. If you’re tough enough, you might get a season or two out of it, but one injury, push it too hard, and you’ll be worse off than ever. And even if you were careful, the strain would eventually just be too much.”

I nod, and flinch at Dad’s hand landing heavily but comfortingly on my shoulder. “I see. Thanks, Doc.”

He smiles at me. “It’s the end of a dream, son, and I know it’s hard to hear. I’ve been treating athletes my entire life, and this is by no means the first time I’ve delivered news like this. It’s hard. It just sucks, in modern parlance. But even if you can’t play professionally anymore, you can still be involved in the game, right? For some, it’s too hard to be around what they can no longer do. But for others, coaching is a way to be part of the game they love. Think about it. I know your father can help you in that direction, if you were to so choose.” He stands up and claps me on the bicep. “Like I said, it’s the end of one dream, son, but that doesn’t mean it’s the end of everything.”

I nod, and the doctor leaves Dad and me. “I know, Dad. Finish my degree first, and then think about what’s next.”
 

He laughs and slaps my shoulder. “You got it, son. A college degree, even if you don’t end up in that field, will never be wasted.”

“My credits are all toward political science, Dad.” I laugh with sarcastic self-deprecation. “What the hell was I thinking?”

He shakes his head and laughs. “You know, I always wondered that myself, but there ain’t much you can tell a kid your age.”

“At this point, I think I might be willing to listen.”

Dad shrugs. “You’ve got time, kiddo. You’re what, thirty credit hours short of a degree? That’s a couple semesters, Ben. Just finish it. Then you’ve got a degree to show for yourself, and you can rethink your career in the meantime. With so little left to complete your degree, it’d be kind of stupid to try to totally change your major, if you ask me. If you decide on something else, you’ll have your basic requirements out of the way, so you could get a second bachelor’s or a master’s or something and only have to take catch-up pre-reqs.
 

“And, like Doc Petersen said, there’s always coaching. Volunteer to coach Little League, or apply to coach at a high school or junior high. Get some coaching experience under your belt, and I can talk to Mike about getting you on the Titan sidelines. There’s a whole world of possibility out there for you, Ben. You just gotta figure out what you want. This is one closed door. There’s countless other doors still standing open.”

“But that was the
one
door I’d been working toward my whole life. I remember sitting in the box with Mom at six years old, watching you play, and just
knowing
I’d do that, too.” I have to swallow hard past the lump. “I don’t know what I was thinking when I chose poli-sci. I was thinking it didn’t matter because I’d be playing pro ball.”

Dad nods. “I know.” He claps me on the shoulder yet again and leads the way out of the exam room. “Come on. I’ll buy you a beer.”

I look at him skeptically. “Dad. It’s barely noon.”
 

“So it’ll be a lunchtime beer.”
 

I grin. “Sounds good.”
 

So we sit at a burger joint and drink beer and talk about the next season for Dad. It would be his last, he’s decided. Not surprising news to anyone. He’s played hard for a long, long time, and put up some receiving records that will probably not be broken anytime soon.
 

When we’re done, Dad slips me a scrap of paper with familiar feminine writing on it.
 

Ben, meet me for coffee at 1:30
. She’d written the name and address of a coffee shop near Belmont beneath that and signed her name with a swirling scrawl:
Kylie
.
 

“It’s quarter after one, kiddo. Best get moving,” Dad says. “And Ben? I know it’s gonna be hard, but just…think before you speak, okay?”
 

I just nod. Once upon a time I probably would have taken umbrage at that, so I take it as a sign of having matured that I am able to see it for the wise and likely difficult-to-heed advice it is.
 

He hands me the keys to his Rover. “I can walk to the stadium from here. Just be careful, okay?”

“Thanks,” I say, waving as he heads out.

*
 
*
 
*

By the time I find a parking spot within a couple blocks of the coffee shop, it’s already a few minutes past 1:30. I take it slowly, allowing myself to lean on my cane and not use my knee too much.
 

She’s sitting in a thick leather armchair, sipping coffee from a ceramic mug, flipping idly through a house copy of
TIME
magazine, positioned so she can keep an eye on the door. She sees me the moment I enter, and her face lights up as she leaps out of her chair, sloshing coffee on the floor as she hurries to set the mug down.
 

“BEN!” she shrieks, rushing toward me. Her arms go around my neck as she slams into me; it’s like none of it ever happened, in that fraction of a moment. “Benji…oh my god…Benji, it’s really you!”
 

My heart flops, squeezes, and aches, and I don’t know how to decipher the rush of a thousand different emotions. “Ky. God, I’ve missed you.” And…I had. I really, really had. I just hadn’t let myself realize it until now.
 

Benji. How do I handle the ache those two syllables engender? It was her nickname for me, and then it was Echo’s, and now? Does it belong to both? Neither? God, I don’t know. I don’t know. I just know it’s good to see her, but that initial joy is quickly tempered by the other emotions connected to Kylie.

She lets me go and backs away, and I plant my cane and lean on it. Her eyes go to it. “Ben? What’s…what’s with the cane?”

I shake my head. “Let me get a cup of coffee and we can catch up.”

She gestures at the table between her chair and another, which she’d claimed with her purse. A mug of black coffee sits on the table, and I’m sure she’s sugared it to within an inch of its life, just the way I like it. “Got you covered.”
 

So we sit, and I’m acutely aware of Kylie’s gaze following my limping progress across the coffee shop, and the careful, ginger way I sit, extending my leg. I grab my mug and sip at the coffee, and take in the reality of Kylie. She’s more gorgeous than ever. Her curly red-blond hair is longer than it’s ever been, bound in a loose, low ponytail, flyaway strands drifting across her forehead and brushing her chin and shoulders. She’s wearing a below-the-knee khaki skirt and a white V-neck T-shirt, and while her clothes aren’t revealing, they accentuate her curves with classy, sexy, sophistication. She’s got calf-length black leather boots on with a heel that makes her even taller and makes her long legs longer. She’s wearing minimal makeup, as usual, and the purse she slides between a hip and the chair is a black leather Dior.
 

Life has been good to her, it seems.

And then she casually drapes a hand over her knee so the track lights overhead glint and gleam off the diamond ring. It’s a brutal reminder: she’s not my Kylie anymore. Her electric blue eyes fix on me, and then follow my gaze to her ring. “Oz and I—”

“Got married. I know, I heard. Congratulations.” I struggle to sound genuine, and I’m surprised by how bitter I feel, suddenly. Which is stupid. I’m not in love with Kylie anymore. I’m not. Right? So why do I feel this way?

“Ben—” she starts, her glow of contented happiness fading.

I hold up a hand, silencing her, and take a deep breath. “Kylie, let me get a few things out, okay? The first and most important is that I’m sorry. I treated you—and Oz—like shit. I was an asshole. I did and said things I had no place doing or saying, and I’m sorry. I hope you can forgive me. I wasn’t the friend you deserved. I should’ve—I should’ve seen how happy you were with him and let you—. I should not have gotten all up in your shit about it. I didn’t give Oz a chance.”

Kylie’s eyes water. “Ben, of course…of course! I was hurt, yeah. I mean, you were so angry and I didn’t get it, not until you told me—” She breaks off, glances down. “Until you explained how you feel.”