Page 8 of Second-Rate Superstar

“You’re being careful, right?” I blurted.

“Yes, Mom,” Bristol said, annoyance coloring her words.

“I just . . .” I let out a heavy exhale. “I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”

Bristol’s blue eyes softened. “I know. But I’m a big girl. I can handle it.”

I wasn’t so sure but let it drop.

“Anyway . . . I think you should come. I’m spending the night, so you can bring your own car and leave whenever you want.”

She had a good point, as much as I hated to admit it. I wasn’t going to get anywhere with this book if I didn’t figure out what made these guys tick. And if that meant parking my butt in the middle of one of their house parties, then so be it. But just this once.

“I’ll think about it,” I replied.

Throwing her arms around me, Bristol squealed in my ear, and I winced. “Yes! It’ll be great, you’ll see!”

Her definition of great and mine werenotthe same.

Bouncing out of the room, she called over her shoulder, “I’ve gotta go get ready, but I’ll text you the address!”

Hearing her bedroom door slam down the hall, I sagged in my desk chair.

I loved Bristol and only wanted to wrap her in bubble wrap, to protect her from the train coming down the tracks on a collision course with her heart. It was only a matter of time.

I’d seen firsthand how a life could be ruined by falling in love with an athlete.

My mom, like Bristol, had been sucked into the orbit of a handsome athlete. But instead of hockey, his sport was football.

Hank Danielson, star edge rusher, met my mom while playing college ball at Austin University in Texas. She was one of his many conquests but the only one he managed to get pregnant.

Hank was my dad.

Down south, he hadn’t much choice but to marry her. Not only that, with all eyes on him as one of the top defensive recruits in the draft that year, he couldn’t afford the bad press affecting his pick placement and how much he would make on a professional contract.

It had seemingly done the trick because the Hartford Hawks picked Hank number three overall, and that’s how we came to live in Connecticut.

Of course, I didn’t know much about any of that until later on in life. Not until he left, blowing up our lives.

Mom was the completely ignorant, blissfully happy football wife. Not to mention, trusting. That one had come back to bite her in the ass.

She’d believed everything my dad told her. Whether it was long training stints in other states or not wanting us to sit in the family box at games because of the “toxic” culture, she never once questioned him.

The reality was that he had a whole second family. That’s who was sitting in the family box on game days. That’s who he was with when he said he was “training.”

One day, when I was ten, he came home and told my mom he couldn’t do it anymore. He came clean about everything—his mistress, their threekids, and the life they’d been living behind Mom’s back. He placed signed divorce papers on the kitchen island and left, never once looking back. He didn’t even bother to say goodbye to me.

That’s how much we meant to him. We weren’t his “real” family, just the one he’d gotten stuck with.

The divorce had changed our lives. Hank gave us the house in the settlement, but that was it. No child support, no alimony. We were entirely on our own from that day forward.

My mom had dropped out of college when they got married, electing to become a stay-at-home mom. She had no marketable skills and was left with no choice but to wait tables while I was at school. Since the lunch crowd didn’t bring in much money, there were many times when I put myself to bed so she could work a double and cash in on tips during the dinner rush.

Even after all that, she wouldn’t hear a negative word about my father. She was still in love with him, convinced he would come to his senses and return home.

She held onto that hope until the day she died.

I would never forget the day halfway through my freshman year when I received a call from the diner where she worked. Her manager told me Mom had collapsed in the middle of her shift and been taken by ambulance to the hospital.

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