Page 5 of Bae

Three months later…

Romeo

Kicking ass. Taking names.

Just another day in football. And in my normal, everyday life.

I was beginning my third season as a professional football player with the Maryland Knights, and it still felt like it was my first. Except, you know, I wasn’t nursing an arm injury and I was the starter.

Oh yeah, and I had a Super Bowl ring.

I guess what I meant was I still felt the same rush when I put on the uniform. The same excitement pumped through me when I jogged out onto a freshly mowed and prepped field for the first snap of the game.

I knew my teammates now. I wasn’t green to the NFL or as a football player. But my love for the game was still as pigmented as a fresh-off-the-printer dollar bill.

I hoped I always stayed that way. Passionate. Motivated. Hungry.

When I left for training camp over the summer, I had serious doubts. I wasn’t feeling it. I still loved the game, but my motivation was lacking. Sometimes passion was diluted by life; other situations took precedence. I found myself packing my shit for camp and wondering if I would mentally be there this season. It worried me. It was the kind of worry I hadn’t felt since my broken arm. As unenthusiastic as I was to play, the thought ofnotplaying was equally disquieting.

Turns out playing ball, even just the preseason training and games, was just what I needed.

It was an outlet, a place to channel all the shit that caused me to feel so diluted. Being on the field reminded me of the things I loved most about this sport. When I was on the field, I could let go of everything else. The single-minded focus I always played with was a welcome reprieve.

So maybe I didn’t “let go” of everything else.

That’s where the kicking ass and taking names came into play. I brought it out on the green with me. I used it. I channeled it all into the game, into my arm, my throws, and the momentum with which I launched myself down the field.

I was really good at throwing a touchdown. I didn’t often run the ball. I was bulkier than most quarterbacks; my muscle mass sometimes slowed me down.

Not this season.

This season, I was already making a name for myself as not only a QB who threw missiles into the end zone, but as one who bulldozed his way down the field with the ball tucked in close.

Good times.

There was a new aggression in the way I played. A fierceness that maybe wasn’t there before. The coach said I was coming into my own. Experience was starting to show in the way I played. I didn’t argue.

But he was wrong.

There was more to our kicking ass. More to the antagonistic way I performed.

I’d been simmering. Holding off a rolling boil until I finally let it rise.

The morning Rim stepped into my line of vision with her perfect, round belly on display and nothing but despair in her warm, brown eyes, my life was irrevocably altered.

Sometimes, the imagery was still all too vivid. I wondered if it would ever become less so. But here I was three months later, surrounded by the sounds of slamming locker doors, loud teammates, and the scent of sweaty balls permeating the space.

Secret confession of the locker room: Yes, sweaty balls had an odor. It wasn’t a good one.

I still felt the high of our win tonight. Sweat still slicked my skin, and turf lingered beneath my fingernails.

It didn’t matter.

The memories still seemed to haunt me at a moment’s notice.

Rimmel with blood trailing down her inner thighs. The way her arms wrapped around her middle like a shield. How pain clouded her eyes and how fragile she felt cradled in my arms as I rushed her out of the house and into the car.

She told me once those first few hours were hazy, as if she’d been experiencing them through a veil. I never said it out loud, but sometimes I envied that.

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