FOURTEEN

I wipe the sweat from my brow, my body exhausted from another grueling practice. People may think that athletes have it easy—we get paid millions to play a sport for a living—but there’s nothing easy about the intensive diet and workout regimen or punishing practices we go through. I’m looking forward to relaxing tonight before our big game tomorrow.

I head over to the sidelines where I see Max Donnelly, my best friend and assistant. My agent thought it wouldn’t hurt to have an assistant—someone I trusted—to field all the crazy requests I get for interviews, parties, etc. As soon as he made the suggestion, Max popped into my head.

Max and I were roommates our freshman year of college. We bonded immediately, and in the years since he’s become more like my brother. He’s seen me during some of the darkest moments of my life. The times where memories of a future I threw away would plague me until I was convinced I’d feel less pain if someone just ripped my heart straight from my body.

He’s always had my back, and now I pay him a pretty penny to basically deal with all the shit I don’t want to. He doesn’t seem to mind, and it means we get to hang out daily. It’s a pretty sweet setup. Plus, there weren’t too many people I trusted to take the position—one that required knowing a lot about my personal life.

I learned early on in my career to keep my life private. I’ll do the standard postgame press conferences, but I never let them touch my personal life. I have Kallie to thank for that. My college girlfriend became jealous of my dedication to football and decided to cheat on me during the biggest championship weekend of my college career—with my teammate of all people. Pictures of them got out, and suddenly the press barely cared that we’d won the Lemon Cup. All they could talk about was the star quarterback getting cheated on. It took months for the scandal to die down, and by the time it did, I was more determined than ever that the media would never get anything personal out of me again.

Max approaches me with a smug grin on his face. “Another reporter came snooping around for you. She was hot.”

I laugh loudly. “Another woman? Man, these papers are desperate to get an interview out of me. What’s that, the third one this week? As if I’d change all my beliefs because they send a woman instead of a man. Get outta here with that noise. Why can’t they just let it go? I’m a private guy. Why can’t they respect that I want to keep it that way? There are plenty of other guys in the league they could focus on.”

I may have started out laughing, but my frustration is pretty clear by the end of my rant. It’s been a sticking point with me for a long time—journalists are fucking vultures. Growing up with a high-profile lawyer for a dad, he made sure I understood the value of maintaining my privacy. The scandal with Kallie in college only reinforced that idea. But for some fucked-up reason, me saying “No” seems to imply to the media that they simply aren’t trying hard enough. All these journalists think that my refusal really just means I haven’t been offered the right price. The truth is, there is no right price.

My agent, Dan, has told me time and time again that this is the price I pay for being in the public eye, for being the NFL’s golden boy and star quarterback. Dan thinks I should just play along and they’ll all settle down. He doesn’t understand my hesitation, no matter how many times I’ve tried to explain it to him these past five years.

My private life, while boring these days, is the only thing that’s mine. I love football more than anything else in my life. It’s been that way since I was seventeen, when I threw all my focus into it after shattering my own heart. Loneliness and grief can be powerful motivators. Football was the only thing that helped me bury my feelings.

All that being said, football has become something I do for other people as much as I do it for myself, but it’s not solely mine. My private life is. Nobody is in charge of it except for me.

I can understand why people struggle to grasp where I’m coming from—most think I’m hiding something, which I’m not. The reality is it’s hard to explain unless you’re in my shoes.

Max pulls me out of my head. “Don’t worry, man. I sent her away. I got your back, brother. You know that.”

I just shake my head, murmur a quick “thank you,” and then head to the showers. Max knows better than anyone how much my privacy means to me. He’s the kid of a famous rock star, and his whole childhood was splashed across the media. He was also around for the Kallie mess. He gets it. I’m never more thankful for him than I am in moments like this.

After a quick shower and change, I get in my car and head home but am almost immediately stopped by bumper-to-bumper traffic. The traffic in LA is the goddamn worst. It has become the bane of my existence since I moved here, but normally I just shrug it off and deal with it. Lately, I’ve been feeling antsy and easily irritable. I think the pressure I’ve put on myself, and that others have put on me, is starting to get to me.

I need a distraction, something to get me out of this headspace I seem to find myself in more and more frequently these days. I consider calling one of the many women in my phone who I know would be up for a quick fuck. That usually helps release some of the tension, albeit temporarily. I pull my phone out of my pocket—since traffic is at a complete standstill—prepared to dial the first name that I come across in my contacts. I take a moment to glance out my dark-tinted windows—looking out at the world from this safe space—and notice a brunette a few cars over, her hair falling in soft waves around her shoulders, her eyes hidden by sunglasses, and her lips moving as if she’s singing to her radio. My whole body tenses, my chest aches, and the loneliness I work so hard to keep buried bubbles up immediately. I can’t see the woman’s face, but she looks so much like Paige from this angle, I almost believe it’s her.

I fight against the emotions trying to claw their way through my body as memories of Paige slam into me piece by piece until I feel nearly breathless from how much I still miss her. I ruined my chances with Paige a long time ago. Still, I’m rattled enough that the idea of being with another woman right now makes me feel sick. I put my phone back in my pocket and lose myself in my memories.

Paige was my first and only love. Every woman since her has paled in comparison to the radiant ray of light that Paige brought into my life. I’ve always regretted breaking up with her, and in the past few years, I’ve accepted that she was the one that got away, or more like the one I drove away by breaking her heart like what we had meant nothing. I should’ve fought for her, but I was young, and the long distance felt like never-ending torture.

I’ve checked up on her on social media during moments of weakness—many, many moments, if I’m being honest with myself—almost always after I’ve had a few drinks and I’m sitting at home late at night.

The longest I’ve been able to go without checking her social media accounts was six months, and that was only after I saw her post a picture with another guy. I was so filled with jealousy that I ended up drinking an entire fifth of whiskey that night, trying to bury the feelings I had no right to have. I’d given her up. She deserved to find happiness. But I couldn’t stay away long and eventually caved and checked her profile again. The guy was no longer in the picture by that time.

I know I have no right to be jealous of her dating. I’ve dated plenty of other women, but they were always just my attempts to replace Paige. Hell, even Kallie knew she was just a placeholder.

It took me six years before I finally accepted that Paige was irreplaceable. She was one of a kind, and I’d been the asshole who let her go. But as much as I miss the hell out of her, I was always so ashamed about how I ended things that I haven’t had the guts to contact her. I figured if she had forgiven me, then she’d have reached out to me. Now I can’t help but wonder if I’ve once again taken the coward’s way out with her. Maybe she’s been waiting for me to contact her. Would she even talk to me? I doubt it.

I’ve spent the last three years working hard to accept that our time has passed, and I need to find a way to move on—really move on. I figure once my stubborn heart can accept that, then it’ll finally let me love someone else.

I really thought I’d be further in my life. I mean, I have a great job, make a shitload of money, have a huge house, and can have any woman I want—except for the one woman I really want. But I thought that by now that huge house would be filled with a family—my family. I thought I’d have a wife and maybe even a kid.

I know I’m only twenty-six, but with my thirtieth birthday looming closer every day—and the reality that I’m still hung up on a woman I let go of nine years ago—I’ve been thinking a lot about my future and reassessing what I want. I only have maybe five to ten good years left in football, providing I don’t get injured. But what will I have after football?

My deep-seated desire for privacy has made me feel more isolated than ever, and I can’t help but wonder if football has been worth the sacrifice. At the end of the day, what’s the point of life if you have no one to share it with? If you don’t have anyone who really knows you?

After sitting in traffic for two hours and being stuck with my thoughts, I finally make it home to my huge, empty house. I take a deep breath and head straight for the kitchen, where I pour myself a glass of whiskey. I can’t get drunk since I have a game tomorrow, but I can try to ease this ever-present ache in my chest. I lose myself in some game tape in order to prep myself for tomorrow. By eleven, I shuffle off to bed and fall into a fitful night’s sleep, thinking that maybe, just maybe, tomorrow will be better.