Page 41 of A Game as Old as Time

“Coach, sorry to interrupt, but---” He held up the flyers and put one on his desk. “I wanted to drop these off.”

Coach Bianchi picked it up and read it.

“So,” he said, lowering the flyer to his desk, “when did this change?”

Gunner peered around the room, examining the changes to his father’s office.

“Last night.” He forced his attention back to the desk. “The Boosters, well, they just felt like this is what my father would have wanted.”

Coach Bianchi nodded and stood up.

“The Boosters, huh?” He turned to the bulletin board behind him.

“Yeah.” Gunner’s voice was low as he continued to dart his eyes across the office.

This is weird.

It felt different. His father’s posters and pictures were gone, and the walls were bare. Coach Bianchi kept the office simple. The room was barely decorated, and for the first time, Gunner realized how much he had hated the clutter that had always covered his father’s desk.

“Something on your mind, son?”

Son?

Gunner froze as Coach Bianchi turned back to him.

“I…” He struggled to explain himself. His focus shifted to the only item on the wall: a framed jersey with “Bruins” on the sleeves and “Bianchi” on the back. It was the largest item in the room. “I guess…” Gunner caught his reflection in the glass. “Coach…”

He took a seat in front of the neatly ordered desk that his father had once peered across. A bone-deep exhaustion that had been hidden by adrenaline suddenly hit him like a ton of bricks.

“Coach, I wanted to apologize for how I have been acting.”

Good start.

“I, I have no idea who that was on the sideline last week, and really, Coach…” His voice cracked. “I have no idea who I am right now.”

There it is.

The words hung in the air.

“I look in the mirror, and I just…” Gunner stood up. His mind had started to wander, and his legs began to move him about the room.

Just stop talking.

He came to apologize, but as he stood in his father’s old office, he wanted to do more. He wanted to scream. He wanted to cry. He wanted to curl up in a ball and just go to sleep.

“I look in the mirror, and I can’t recognize the face looking back at me.”

He slid over to the jersey, staring at himself in the reflection again.

Who am I?

“Gunner.” His coach inhaled before continuing. “You want to know why I took this job?” He stood up and stepped out from behind the desk. “People said I was crazy. Crazy that I thought I could fill the hole that your father had left.”

Gunner inhaled, feeling his chest getting tight.

“And they are right.”

What!?

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