I still saw her every day. She still worked on me, giving me massages, helping me stretch out, making sure I wasn’t re-aggravating the healing injury in my knee. It must have been tough on her to be touching me like that all the time, but it wasn’t easy for me either. The girl I wanted more than anything was so close to me and yet so far away.
I tried to shut it out as best as I could but she crept into my head at the weirdest times, and I would lose focus on the film I was watching, the question I was answering, or the play I was running on the field.
I had to get back to focusing on football. The Patriots were in a rough patch. After the last couple of losses, and due to the way the rest of the division and conference were playing out, we would need to win every single game from here on out in order to make it into the playoffs as a wildcard, which meant an extra game on our way to the championship.
That extra game didn’t matter, because right now we just had to make it there. Only 12 of the league’s 32 teams even got a shot - the other 20 had to watch from their couches, drowning their sorrows in defeat.
I wasn’t going to let the Patriots be one of those 20 teams, not if I could do anything about it.
We had 4 games left and each of them were critically important. I knew that. Oliver Lee knew that. The coaching staff and all the rest of the players knew that.
I knew everyone would buckle down and help make it happen.
Game day came, a Sunday like any other as December began in New England. We’d had a smattering of snow each of the last few days, and the temperature had dropped quite a bit. I loved the cold weather, but most of the other guys complained bitterly, and some of them even made a game of finding the most creative ways to bitch and moan about the biting cold.
We all sat in the locker room before the game, after the coaches had given their final speeches. Normally I’d be totally inside my own head, thinking about the game, the preparation, and everything else I needed to keep track of in order to execute properly on the field.
Two things were different this time. The first was that I wasn’t starting, so the pressures wasn’t on nearly as much as it used to. I hated that. The pressure was what I loved, it was what made me thrive in situations like these. Even though the odds were against us, against a formidable Arizona team, nothing would have made me happier than to be starting right now, instead of fucking Oliver Lee. I cocked an eye at him sitting in his locker and rocking out to whatever music he was listening to.
I was the last guy to begrudge a guy his preparation routine, but he was the only one really making a party out of it. I preferred to be quiet, almost meditative. What was it Charlotte had called me? A ‘football monk’ - that was more right than she thought.
Charlotte.
The way she invaded my thoughts made it impossible for me to relax and get into the flow of the game. In a way, I was glad not to be playing. If I had to deal with both starting the game and thinking about her, I don’t know what I would have done.
Starting clock reached down to 20 minutes before kickoff and we had to take the field for warmups. I went out, giving a few of my brothers fist pounds on the way. Drake, in particular, found me out in the crowd. “Good to have you back with us, man,” he whispered.
“Yeah. It’s good to be back.”
Hud came up next as the defense made its way onto the field. “You’re a sight for sore eyes, buddy,” he looked down at me. “I’ll feel a lot better when you’re starting again.”
“Tell that to Armstrong, yeah?”
Hud’s face darkened. “Make no mistake, Parker, Coach and I have talked about that more than once.”
I remembered how livid Hud had been when Coach Armstrong had left me in the game when we were beating the Steelers, leading to my injury, and I nodded, tapping him on the shoulder just above his pads. “Thanks for the look out, man. Let it go, though. It happened, and if it hadn’t happened during that game, it would have during the next one.”
“You don’t know that.”
I sighed. “Nah, you’re right, I don’t, but I do know the best way to make it all better is for you to man up and lock those assholes down out there tonight, yeah? I don’t want them to make a first down. Not a single fucking first down.” I got louder. “You hear me!?”
“Fuckin’ A, I hear you!” Hud bellowed, and charged out of the tunnel onto the field. A stalwart in New England for over a decade, the crowd knew him by sight even from far away, and cheered him on appreciatively.
I sighed and left the tunnel myself. I looked around and couldn’t tell if there was any change in crowd noise when I came out. How fickle the masses were! It was almost as if I had never existed - Oliver Lee was the new starter and I had to live with it.