The Super Bowl

BROOKE

The game ends up being pretty uneventful. Downey keeps scoring with huge running plays, giving the Panthers the upper hand. We’re already winning by a huge stretch at the start of halftime, and the final score is a landslide victory, 35-11.

After every play, the Panthers’ crowd chanted Downey’s name. I thought he was just the new, shiny distraction, but at this point, it’s looking like Downey is the new crowd favorite.

Every skill that Colin excelled at and was known for, Downey is just as good at—maybe better, though I feel disloyal even thinking that. And since Colin isn’t in the picture at the moment, maybe he does need to worry about being permanently replaced.

I tuck Syd into bed right after the final whistle, since it’s already past her bedtime, and then head back down to watch the post-game interviews.

“Colin! How has your recovery been?” a reporter asks during the press conference after the game.

“Great. I’m feeling good. I have the best of the best working to get me to a full recovery!” Colin answers confidently, and I admit, I pause the TV for a moment to admire his beaming smile.

“You’re not with Natali Summers anymore? Are you dating someone else?” I notice him biting his cheek trying to hide another smile. Then he subtly shakes his head, like he wants to snap himself out of his thoughts.

“I umm, I’d like to keep my private life private, but I can say I’ve never been happier,” he hedges, making me blush from just staring at him through the television.

Then another reporter blurts out a question, getting serious.

“Do you think your contract will be re-signed, given that you’ve been on IR for the entire season?”

Colin clears his throat and glares at the reporter like he means business. “There hasn’t been any talk of my contract, so I can’t comment on that.

“But I’m feeling good in my recovery, and I can’t wait to be back on the field next season leading my team to victory again.”

His voice is strong, just as confident as before—until the same reporter speaks again. “Well, surely you’ve heard the rumors that a trade is in the works for you to go to the Chiefs?”

Colin stares blankly, like he’s shocked at the question and doesn’t have an answer lined up. “Rumors are rumors,” he finally says, and someone who doesn’t know him like I do would probably believe he’s totally calm.

“What do you have to say about those rumors, Coach Gonzales?” the reporter asks, and the cameras and all the press turned their heads toward the coach, a big Latino guy with an impressive mustache.

His poker face is even better than Colin’s. “Nothing has been formally agreed upon,” he intones, “so I can’t answer that question.”

Colin’s head darts in the direction of his coach, and he looks fucking pissed.

Did Colin’s coach just feed into the reporters’ rumors, implying that a trade really is in the works?

On camera?

Is Colin going to be traded?

Did Colin know?

Did he not tell me?

I feel my stomach sink as I continue watching the press conference. The reporters are even more like bloodhounds now, since it seems like the coach has basically confirmed the rumors.

They keep asking the same question in millions of different ways, hoping that Gonzales’s answers will give just a little bit more information.

Colin never looks back up to the cameras. He keeps his head down, staring at the microphone on the table in front of him.

“Again, nothing has been resolved. That’s all the questions we have today. Thank you,” Gonzales says as his final answer, and the team members all stand up and head off-camera as the reporters keep spouting off questions.

Colin and I didn’t get a minute alone before he left for me to tell him how I feel about him—that, and I’m still a chicken about admitting to the big L word. But now, everything feels different.

What will it do to us if he gets traded? My life is here, with Sydney. Colin can’t expect me to move…will he ask me to move? But even if he asks, I’ll have to say no.

My head is racing with questions and thoughts, and I feel sick to my stomach. Is this the end of everything?

Happiness is taken away from me once again, due to football. Colin will make a choice and end up leaving us, just like everyone else has done in the past.

I’ve always known that giving my heart to someone means being prepared for it to be given back to me battered, bruised, and broken. I let myself hope for something else with Colin, but that was incredibly naïve.

My heart has been broken enough that I should’ve learned my lesson. But have I really learned my lesson? No! Apparently not, because it’s happening again, and here I am, still shocked. Still hurt. Still heartbroken.

***

COLIN

I’m so fucking pissed at how horribly and unprofessionally that press conference was handled. The person I looked up to, the person I called Coach for the past five years, just threw me under the bus!

As if I haven’t given him my best playing, as if I haven’t brought the team to victory and won three championships in the years I’ve played, as if everyone and everything I have sacrificed in my personal life to play for the team meant FUCKING NOTHING!

How could he not pull me aside at any time during the game, or before the press conference, or have a private meeting with me to discuss my future with the team?

No, he overlooked the purpose and responsibility of doing the right thing and instead fed me to the fucking dogs, on LIVE fucking television!

I want nothing more than to immediately fly home and tell Brooke I had no idea this was happening. I know she must have seen it on TV. But more importantly, I know she must be upset.

She’ll be worried, and overthinking every aspect of our relationship. And the truth is, so am I.

What if I am traded? How could that work? Obviously, I’d want Brooke to come with me, but I know she has her practice, and I could never dream of taking that away from her.

And Sydney, she’s in school, she has her friends, she can’t just be relocated somewhere new if my team doesn’t want me anymore. All these questions keep flying through my head as I throw my clothes in a duffel bag and storm onto the team jet.

I have the worst headache, and I can feel the painful, thumping heartbeat in my swollen foot since I haven’t had a moment to rest since the press conference. I’m so pissed off I just want to send my fist through the fucking wall!

We arrive back home the next evening and by then, I have multiple missed calls from my family.

I assume they also watched the press conference. They’ll be calling to ask me the same millions of questions I have floating in my own head, but I have no answers to any of them.

The second I make it off the jet, I hop in my car and race to Brooke’s house. I have no idea what I’m going to say, but I have to see her. I have to reassure her that I love her and I’ll do everything in my power for us to be together.

Our first night together, I swore that I had no intention of leaving her, and I meant it.

I dash through Brooke’s front door and find her cleaning the kitchen. Her face is red and puffy, her eyes bloodshot like she’s been crying. It kills me seeing her this hurt and upset, and all I want to do is comfort her. But how?

“Where’s Syd?” I ask first. The house is far too quiet, with no happy greeting at the door. I was hoping Sydney might be enough to change the dreary mood.

“She’s with John. He’s taking her out to dinner,” Brooke says, looking back down at where she’s mopping the floors like she’s trying to keep her mind occupied.

“Did you know?” she asks in a hoarse voice.

“No, I swear, Brooke.”

She just nods in silence, still looking down at the floor. That answered one of her concerns, I think, but it didn’t answer the major question: what happens to us?

I close the distance between us, force her to put the mop down, and swallow her in my arms. She returns the hug, wrapping her arms around me and burying her face in my chest as she starts to cry.

“I’m so sorry,” is all I can think to say. I have no words. I have no answers. We just stand there, wrapped in each other’s embrace in silence, as Brooke’s sniffles fill the room.

“So that’s it, then? You’re leaving?” she mumbles through her tears.

“No…nothing's finalized yet.”

“Then what are we going to do?” she asks. I knew she would ask this. I was dreading the moment when she’d ask this. I have no answers.

“I—I don’t know…” The room goes silent again, and I have no other solution but to ask the one thing I already know isn’t an option.

“Come with me,” I beg.

Her eyes dart to mine like she’s surprised.

“What?! You know I can’t. Syd and I…our lives are here.”

“I know, I know,” I say, shaking my head and running my hands through my hair in stress. “I know it is, and…I wouldn’t want you to leave everything behind for me, I just—”

I lean over, resting my head on my arms at the kitchen island, not knowing what to say. There’s a hole between us. I feel it, and I hate it.

Looking up at Brooke again, I see in her face what I never wanted to see. She looks at me with tears in her eyes, like she’s already made up her mind for the both of us: this is it. What we had is over, and we’re parting ways.

Even though I don’t have any answers, I won’t give up like this. I pull myself up and grab her face out of desperation, frantic to hang on for the littlest bit of hope.

“Don’t! Don’t put your walls up and shut me out again, Brooke. We can figure this out,” I beg, but I have no solution, I have no answers.

“Brooke, I love you, please.”

“Colin... I—” she stops herself from saying whatever she was going to say. I know she’s hurting. I know her walls are building themselves up around her again.

I don’t know what else to say. I can’t beg or plead any harder than I already am.

Then we both hear her phone ring from her purse. She looks up at me with the saddest eyes before she peels her face out of my grasp. She goes to the other side of the room to answer the phone.

“Hello?” she says in a sad tone.

“WHAT?” she shouts next, her voice completely different. It scares the shit out of me. My body darts over to her. It’s obvious something is wrong, but I have no idea what happened or who she’s even talking to.

“I’M ON MY WAY!” she says, practically dropping the phone. As soon as it’s out of her hand, her whole body goes pale and her legs look weak, like they might buckle under her.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, my heart dropping to my stomach in anticipation.

“Syd’s being rushed to the hospital!”