There was a moment at the start of every season when you're standing on the sidelines before the whistle blows and the football was kicked from the flimsy plastic stand. Before it went end over end in the air, and the crowd roared, phones glowing in the stands as they captured another game, another snap, another beginning to their favorite sixteen weeks of the year.
That moment was usually hope and anticipation. It was unruly energy that finally had an outlet after months of practice and preparation. It was what we trained for, suffered for, risked injury for.
And for the first time, I felt nothing at that moment.
For the weeks of preseason that led up to it, I felt nothing. I showed up and played a few snaps, then found the bench for the rest of the game while the rookies and the second string got time on the field.
I felt nothing when I sat at the table with the mics in my face and talked about whatever game we were going to play next.
I felt nothing when we won the first game of the regular season, and I ended it with three QB sacks.
No visceral satisfaction when we won the second game as well, this time with two sacks added to my tally.
No chest-thumping celebration when we pulled out a one-point win during the third, thanks to a forty-nine yard field goal straight through the uprights as the clock ran out.
Oh, I managed to fake it well enough. I pounded helmets and smacked the pads of my teammates who performed well. Nodded my thanks when they got in my face, and roared their appreciation when I took down the opposing quarterback and ripped the ball from his hands.
Only three people watched me with a bit more interest as the weeks passed. Logan, Rick, and Marty. I saw it in the way their gaze lingered on me after a big play. When I kept to myself in the locker room and during team meetings and workouts. When I went to bed even earlier than usual, which meant the camera crews had to get the hell out of my beautiful home with its beautiful view that I hardly took the time to notice.
Each day that passed, I found less and less satisfaction in the knowledge that while I was achieving everything I wanted on the field, it dissolved like ash in my mouth. Not simply unsatisfying, or impossible to sustain me, but it left a bitter aftertaste that I hadn't expected.
Instead of ripping the lid off why, I buried myself in work. My body was in better shape than it had ever been in my entire career. My performance in game five was one for the record books.
And I couldn’t bring myself to care.
The cycle I'd found myself in, with apathy at the wheel, started manifesting in strange ways. The longer I felt nothing about this job that I'd worshiped like a deity my entire life, the more it irritated me.
If irritation was the only feeling I could manage, then I'd channel every ounce of it during the minutes I found myself on the field. And when the clock ran out on our fifth game of the season, just before our bye week, not only did we have another win under our belt but my teammates also buffeted me with violent congratulations.
Kareem laughed at me when he saw the confusion on my face.
"What are they freaking out about?" I asked.
"You seriously weren't keeping track?"
I shook my head as players milled around us on the field. I didn't even have to look to feel Marty zoom his effing camera in on my face.
"Man," he said, slapping a hand against my chest, "you just broke the single game sack record. Seven and a half sacks, Griffin."
For the first time all season, I felt a tiny kindling of excitement flicker behind my chest. "I had no idea."
He grinned. "Whatever you're doing, man, keep doing it." He tipped his head back and bellowed over the post-game noise, "Beast mode, y'all!"
His words had the same effect as tossing a bucket of ice water on that small flame. Did I want to keep doing what I was doing? Not like this.
I found my eyes wandering through the crowds of people allowed on the field after the game as I absently greeted the team we'd just beaten with nods and halfhearted handshakes and fist bumps.
A skinny young player from the other team approached with a nerve-filled smile. "Hey Griffin, amazing game, man."
I nodded. "Thanks. You too."
I had no clue who he was, but my answer inflated his chest all the same. "You're, uh, you're kind of my idol. Have been since you played at U Dub. I told my wife if I got the chance, I'd …" He inhaled sharply. "I'd see if you'd be willing to swap jerseys."
As Marty moved around us to film, I propped my hands on my hips and really studied the kid for the first time.
He looked like a teenager, and he was talking to me about my college days and about his wife. And the conversation immediately had two incredibly strange, incredibly humbling effects on me.
The apathy tumbled headlong into emptiness. Everything about this game felt empty.
The win.
The record.
And the fact that I invested my entire life into seeking both of those things above anything else.
Without answering, I started tugging my jersey off, and his face broke into a relieved smile. It was all I could do to meet his grateful gaze.
He lost the game, he didn't break any records, hell, he probably didn't stand on that turf for a single second of the game, and here he stood, happier than I'd felt since ... since South Dakota.
The thought slipped into my head, slithering easily underneath the iron brackets I'd kept around my heart since the day I talked to her on the phone.
That should have been my warning, that I couldn't even think her name without feeling like everything around me would tumble down, unprotected and vulnerable to every vivid second with her. Every kiss. Every touch. Every moan I'd unleashed in her. Every quiet moment when all I did was hold her in my arms as she slept.
He said something, and I blinked back to the present in time to take his jersey as he handed it to me. It was pristine—no sweat, no dirt, no grass stains—unlike mine.
"Remind me of your name again," I said slowly, tucking the jersey carefully under my arm so that I didn't drop it.
"Michaelson," he said hurriedly. "Eric Michaelson."
I held out my hand. "It's an honor to have your jersey, Eric."
"The honor is all mine. I can't wait to tell my wife about this." The returning pump of my hand was so vigorous, so enthusiastic, that I found myself smiling for the first time in weeks.
"Did she come to the game today?"
He shook his head, still beaming. "No, she stayed home. We had our first baby a few weeks ago." In the next breath, he pulled out his phone and showed me a picture of a wrinkled, red-faced baby. "Her name is Molly."
A steel beam to my temple would have had less of an impact. It knocked the breath clean out of my lungs for a second. I patted him on the back and managed a polite smile. "She's beautiful. Congratulations to both of you."
He left, and I managed to get off the field and into the locker room uninhibited while Marty trailed me quietly.
Filming had been that way every week.
Quiet. Uneventful.
Boring as all hell, if I tried to imagine it from his perspective.
Before I showered, I spoke to a few people from the press in the locker room about the record, answers I gave by rote about the honor it was, the work I'd put in, and the solid play by our competitors. By the time Rick approached me when I was dressed and clean and packing my bag, I couldn't even remember a single word I'd said.
"Great game, as usual." His smile was subdued.
"Thanks." I shoved my cleats into my duffel. "Can I do something for you?"
"Do you have a few minutes to talk?"
I sighed. "What is it, Rick? I'd like to get home."
"Why? Need to work out more? Watch film? Stare blankly at the wall?" My jaw clenched, and I straightened to my full height. He smiled, completely unintimidated. "I have something I'd like to discuss with you before I bring it to Beatrice for her approval. We have …" He paused, clearing his throat slightly before continuing, "I have an idea for the documentary. A new angle I'd like to explore."
I studied him. "Will I have to be there when you meet with Beatrice?"
"I think you should be, yes. Just giving you the opportunity to talk about it beforehand."