Page 3 of The Wrong Quarterback

My heart twisted, and I lurched up, my arm yanking at the IV and sending sharp pain shooting down my arm as the IV stand clattered against the floor and blood ran down my arm, staining the white sheets I was laying on.

A beeping sound that was more of a wail filled the air as the machines all seemed to go off at once.

“Mama…where’s Ben?” I asked, my voice shaky, slurred with confusion. “Is he…is he okay?”

Her sobs got louder, her whole body trembling. She looked at me, her lip quivering, and the silence that stretched between us felt like a million lifetimes. My throat tightened as dread curled in my stomach.

She couldn’t say it.

But she didn’t have to.

The words came out broken, barely a whisper. “He’s gone, Casey. Ben’s gone.”

The world shattered.

And I knew I’d never be the same again.

The back door screeched as it swung shut behind me, the metal grinding in that familiar, sharp way that made me wince when it went too long without some oil. It didn’t usually sound like that. Ben had been the one to oil the hinges after Daddy died, making sure the house didn’t fall apart on us girls. But now…it had been a week since we’d put Ben in the ground, and it was already screeching.

I stepped out onto the porch, the warm southern night wrapping around me like a heavy blanket, thick with humidity. The air smelled of magnolia and honeysuckle, the same way it always did this time of year, but it felt different now. Everything did.

Crickets chirped, a soft hum rising and falling in the stillness. A light breeze stirred the trees, rustling the leaves, but even that felt wrong. The night was too alive, too full of sound. How could life continue on when Ben wasn’t here? The world hadn’t stopped like mine had. It just kept moving, indifferent to the gaping hole his absence had left.

I sat down on the porch steps, my fingers trailing across the weathered wood. I could still see him, clear as day, sitting here with me. Laughing. Telling me I worried too much, making me feel better after some kid made fun of me at school, protecting me when Mama became a little too hard to handle…

The warm air felt stifling, the sound of the crickets suddenly unbearable. It felt like a betrayal—for the world to just keepmoving on. The stars still hung in the sky, the wind still whispered through the trees, the door still screeched on its rusty hinges. It was all the same, but so, so different. And Ben wasn’t here to fix it. He wasn’t here to make it all okay.

Grief is like that, I guess. You think the world should stop, should fall apart with you, but it doesn’t. It keeps going. And you’re left standing in the middle of it, feeling hollow, watching everything move on like the person you loved wasn’t the very center of it all.

The ache of missing him was sharp, and I was sure it was a wound that would never heal. It hit me then what the sound of the screech was—it was the sound of grief. Of losing someone who was supposed to always be there, like a part of the air you breathe, a part of the ground you stand on.

A hitched sob burst from my lips, and I covered my mouth, not wanting Mama to come out and demand I come back inside to talk to the guests she had over for the reception in Ben’s honor.

I jumped from the steps and started across the lawn, running toward the dock that stretched out on the placid, dark lake. The faint sounds of voices drifted from the house behind me, my mother inside, shaking hands, accepting condolences. But I couldn’t be in there anymore. Not with all those people telling me how sorry they were.

Sorry didn’t get me anywhere—it certainly didn’t get Ben back.

Slowing when I got to the weathered wood of the dock, I took my time walking down it until I reached the edge. I sat down with a clunk, my legs dangling over the water, the cool wood rough against my skin. A pebble caught my eye, and I picked it up, turning it over in my hand, the smooth surface somehow grounding me. I tried to throw it, to watch it skip across the water like Ben had shown me a million times, but my handstarted to shake, like it had since I’d woken up in that hospital bed. The pebble slipped from my fingers, falling uselessly into the water with a soft plop.

My chest tightened as I stared out at the dark water, a tear slipping down my face. It felt wrong to think about what else I’d lost that night.

The ability to play the piano.

The doctors weren’t sure that the nerves in my hand would ever get better. It felt stupid to cry about that, though. Even if it was something Ben was so proud of me over. He’d always been convinced that I was going to be a big star some day, and he’d see me perform on the stage in front of a huge crowd. Staring down at my hand and the scar that still marred my skin, I tried to clench it, my nails digging into my palm for just a second before I lost control of my fingers and my hand opened up again.

Ben’s absence already felt like a sharp knife in my mind. Maybe it was fitting that I had a physical reminder to remind me of that night as well.

Footsteps sounded behind me, soft and careful. I didn’t have to turn around to know it was Gray. He sat down beside me without saying a word, the dock creaking under his weight. I side-eyed him, noting how he’d undone his tie and how it was hanging loosely down his shirt. He still had a black eye from the airbag going off in his face, a cut that sliced through his right eyebrow, and his shoulders were slumped, the same despair hovering in the air around him that I was sure was a permanent fixture around me now.

We didn’t talk, not at first. The silence stretched out between us, broken only by the gentle lapping of the lake against the shore and those infernal crickets that never stopped.

Finally, after what felt like forever, Gray sighed, his voice low and quiet. “It’s going to be weird going to school without him.”

I swallowed hard, my throat burning with unshed tears.

He shook his head, staring out at the water. “I don’t even know how to do it. We had it all planned, you know? The dorms, the games…everything.”

It was hard to breathe. I could hear the grief in his voice, the way it pulled him down, the same way it was pulling me. Ben wasn’t just my brother—he was Gray’s best friend. And now, he was gone, leaving this gaping hole in both our lives.

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