“No, it’s for my other beautiful girlfriend . . .” he teased. “Yeah, it’s for you.” He sat up and pulled her in close. “Laura Lynn Hargrave, will you marry me?”
Her heart, already pounding hard, stopped in her chest, and she started to cry. “Um, you better get your ass down on one knee.” She laughed through the tears. “I’m already gonna have to edit out parts of this proposal when we tell people, so you sure as hell better do some of it the right way.”
“You’re really gonna make me do this, huh?” he said, taking off his purple baseball cap and lowering his two-hundred-pound body into a kneel on the floor of the boat.
Laura nodded, wiping away the tears. She’d fantasized about him proposing to her ever since he gave her a heart-shaped promise ring on her Sweet Sixteen, but the moment still took her by surprise. She’d imagined everything would feel like it was happening in slow motion, but in fact it was the opposite: it was all going way too fast. Her head spun as he placed the ring on her finger.
“Time to celebrate!” Brian had shouted, grabbing his new fiancée’s bare waist with one hand while untying her hot pink string bikini top with the other.
“GET ’ER DONE!” Her father-in-law’s loud chant, resounding in her ear, brought Laura back to reality.
The second half of the game was starting, and Brian and his team went swiftly into action. He swung out to the right on a quarterback sweep, and she watched him react quickly as a line of blockers formed in front of him. He collided with a mammoth defensive lineman, but there was no way for him to prepare for the safety coming in low from his blind side, plowing into his left knee. Brian flailed through the air, landing hard on the ground as the crowd collectively gasped.
“Brian!” Laura screamed, standing up quickly on weak legs. She had seen him get hit plenty of times on the field, but never so violently.
“My baby!” Janet cried out at the same time.
They watched as a trainer rushed to the field and kneeled down next to Brian, who was still lying on the ground, his face twisted in pain. After a few minutes, the trainer waved over another player and they propped Brian up between them, slowly helping him rise to his feet. Even from a distance, it was obvious: Brian couldn’t put any weight on his knee.
Laura watched in horror as her future limped to the sideline, disappearing off into the distance, amid a smattering of shell-shocked applause.
? ? ?
“HOW ARE YOU still so sexy even when you’re lying in a hospital bed?” Laura whispered into Brian’s ear. It wasn’t entirely the truth. After two days in the hospital, he still hadn’t showered, and his blond hair was curly with dried-up sweat and grease. But at this point, she’d say anything to make him smile. She put her hands delicately on his cheeks, feeling the roughness of his stubble. “You feeling okay, baby?”
Brian just sat there, staring intently at the old TV mounted on the wall. Laura resisted the urge to walk over and turn it off. Whenever SportsCenter was on, she might as well be wearing a cloak of invisibility.
“Do you need any more painkillers?” she prompted, feeling as though his pain was hers.
“Dammit, Laura—I don’t need any more painkillers!” Brian snapped, finally taking his eyes off of the screen. “I need my knee to work again.” His eyes lowered for a moment before returning to the TV.
Her stomach twisted at his tone of voice, but she reminded herself that he was upset at the situation, not her. “It will. I’m sure you’ll play again in no time,” she said soothingly, even though she couldn’t get the hushed words the doctors had used in the hallway out of her brain: “He’ll be lucky to walk after this.”
Brian glanced up at the ceiling, looking almost as if he was going to cry. She had never seen him shed a tear, even on their wedding day when she was bawling, the mascara running down her cheeks.
“What did the coach say?” she asked. A few of the coaches and trainers had come by to check on Brian earlier that day, along with some of his teammates.
“Nothing much,” he said in a flat tone. “He says they’ll honor my scholarship, but I don’t know what the point is if I can’t play.”
“It’s so great they’re supporting you,” she said brightly.
He didn’t answer. She could tell he wanted to be alone, and for some reason that made her sadder than the thought of him in pain. “I’m just gonna leave you right here for a minute,” Laura said, forcing a smile and turning toward the door. As soon as she walked out of the room, a flood of tears streamed from her eyes, tears she didn’t want Brian to see. She had to be strong for him. That was something she had learned from her mom—she was her dad’s rock, and Laura always wanted to emulate that in her own marriage.
Making her way into the dimly lit hospital cafeteria, she spotted Rob and Janet tucked into a table in the corner. “Mind if I join y’all?”
Rob was eating a ham and cheese sandwich that looked almost as sad as his mood. Janet was knitting, her go-to stress relief. Sophomore year, when Brian was learning to drive—and showing reckless abandon around stop signs—Janet would sit in the passenger seat, knitting furiously so she didn’t have to look at the road. Needless to say, everyone got scarves that year for Christmas.
“Oh, Laura, this ain’t good. This ain’t good.” Rob cleared his throat. The noise echoed throughout the quiet room.
“It’ll be fine,” Laura said adamantly, leaning back in the uncomfortable metal seat. “He’ll be fine.”
“I know my baby,” Janet said, looking up from the pile of blue yarn in her lap. “You tell him he can’t play football, and all hell’s gonna break loose.” She frowned and then went back to knitting.
“He’ll play again,” Laura said firmly, picking up one of their used napkins and shredding it into tiny pieces. “He will.”
She wasn’t sure who she was trying to convince.
2
madison
THE WOODEN PORCH swing creaked every time it went up and down, and Madison Blanchette found the repetition therapeutic. She puffed on her cigarette, watching the mosquitoes float through the evening air. One landed on her arm. Her first instinct was to squash it; she never thought twice about killing one. But today, for some reason, she couldn’t. Did it really deserve to die? It was just doing what it was supposed to, trying to live. Who was she to take its life? Dammit. She watched as the mosquito positioned its stinger into her pasty skin.
As Madison exhaled, the smoke engulfed her. She could practically feel it seeping into her long, wavy brown hair. She knew it was weird, but she would often smell her hair throughout the day, the scent of smoke calming her. She hadn’t always been a smoker; after learning about the dangers of cigarettes in elementary school, she would hide her parents’ packs to try to make them quit. But they learned to keep them out of her reach, and she learned that smoking made her feel cool, and that was the end of their hide-and-seek game.