draft picks were extremely valuable, especially high ones. Football teams couldn’t afford to miss on them, and draft a player who wouldn’t perform, or who wouldn’t even be able to play. Drake Rollins looked like one of the latter.
Even if he didn’t get drafted high in the first round, he could probably find a team desperate enough to take a chance on him in the later rounds. At least, he might be able to find such a team five years ago. Or maybe even three years ago. But with all the increased scrutiny and condemnation the league had gone through over player issues off the field in the last couple years, with this latest move, uninviting Drake from the draft, no team would draft him, even if they were able to.
I didn’t know what he was going to do with himself without football in his life, but Drake needed to understand that being a professional football player probably wasn’t in the cards for him any more. At best, it seemed right now, that he would end up as a cautionary tale, a story to tell kids in high school and college what not to do with their off the field time if they had such a huge talent and potential.
On each side of the corridors were various theater gizmos and props, things from past shows in past performances, gear that hadn’t been stowed away yet because it was used too frequently. I didn’t recognize any of it, but then again I didn’t spend much time behind theatre stages, or in theaters in New York at all.
As we moved down the hall, the sounds in front of us got louder and louder, until I could make out a voice yelling. It was Drake. He was yelling, he would get quiet, and then he would start yelling again.
I wondered who he was yelling at.
When we got close, I held my hand and tapped Steve on the shoulder, slowing him down. He instantly understood, and we crept toward the corner where Drake stood, looking at the wall.
He was talking to himself, softly, out loud. I looked around, trying to see past all the props and theater gear covering the walls, but couldn’t find anyone else around. And no one else had come down the corridor in our direction, so Drake must’ve been yelling at nobody in particular.
Steve and I stayed silent, and watched Drake as he mumbled to himself. My heart went out to him, as it would to anyone in this situation, even if it was someone that I didn’t have even the slightest bit of history with.
Drake, though, was different. We had gone to the same school, we had studied together, and I had the biggest crush on him then. Despite how much of an asshole he was.
And you know what? I still did. Even though Drake was muttering in a hallway while the draft went on behind us and Drake didn’t get drafted, the culmination of all his dreams and hard work since before he was ten years old, I still carried a huge burning torch for him.
I wanted to rush toward him right then and there, and tell him things would be OK, that he’d figure it out and do the right thing from now on.
He looked like he was getting ready to punch something. I could see his hands coming together into fists, and I knew he was about to do something rash.
I had do something before he hurt himself. “You don’t want to do that!” I practically shouted, unable to keep it in.
“Drake?” I asked, tentatively. It came out a little less sure than I wanted it to. By now Steve had stepped back, still recording, fading into the background like a good cameraman should. People acted differently when they knew they were on camera, and our goal was to capture the raw emotion and expression from the people we interviewed.
If they forgot that they were on camera, that was even better.
Drake whirled around when I said his name, and his eyes blazed with a mixture of theory and sadness, so powerful that I have never seen anything like it before.
I couldn’t even tell if he recognized me, as it had been months since we had seen each other and I looked really different now. This close, I could see that he looked even more beautiful than he had the last time I had seen him. At the same time, though, it broke my heart to see him in such obvious pain.
I wanted to reach out and hug him, and maybe do even naughtier things, but while we were in the business of capturing emotion and expression, we weren’t looking for those things from our reporters. I had a job to do.
“Drake Rollins - Lily Pearson, Boston Globe. Anything you’d like to say to us?”
CHAPTER 04 - DRAKE
I couldn’t take it anymore and I had to get out of there. Fuck this shit. They weren’t letting Drake Fucking Rollins into the draft?
Why even have a draft at all?
So I got in some tough situations off the field, who the fuck cares? I could catch touchdowns, nothing else mattered. Just get me back to a field and I could show all these fuckers who was boss, who knew what the score was.
Instead they wanted to keep any team from taking me. Getting in the way of me making my money? Fuck that shit.