Page 76 of The Keeper
His body turns towards me, but his eyes remain locked on his hands encasing mine. The crease in his brow is prominent, and I want to take my hand and touch it, knead it away with his worries and fears. Because I know he is about to talk to me about the accident, and Cherise, and everything that came after.
He’s afraid to tell me.
And I don’t want him to be.
“On the night of the accident… I’d found out earlier that day that Amy had been getting abused by her boyfriend. He would just… he beat the shit out of her, and he was a friend of mine. He was myfriend.And I didn’t know anything was happening!”
His voice raises pitch just slightly, his eyes finally finding mine.
“How did I not know?” he asks. But before I can respond he dives in again.
“And when they were having a rough time, myfriendtold me all these horrible things about her and I believed him. I blamed Amy for it, and told her to figure out her shit, and she stuck it out longer, trying to change herself to be better when he was the one who was fucked up. My mom called and told me they’d broken up and I started spouting off until she told me what had really been going on. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. How could I have treated her so poorly and not realized what was happening?”
He stands quickly, his words flying out. It’s like a dam has been opened and he has to purge everything.
“I got completely obliterated and then got in that car. I don’t even remember the accident, that’s how gone I was. I remember getting in the car and then waking up in the hospital. I couldn’t move. I was so fucking scared and when my mom told me about Cherise, I was just sick. It was like my body was set to this continuous state of nausea. The accident fucked up her spine and she’d never walk again. I got to walk away and she would never. Walk. Again.”
He just shakes his head, his hands resting on his hips. Still so angry at himself, even though I know Cherise isn’t. The love that woman has for Mack is unconditional. But he doesn’t feel that way about himself. At least not right now, as he relives his past.
“It took months of physical therapy to get my leg back to rights. The Fire had the best trainers in there helping me get better.”
“Wait.” I interrupt. “They had trainers helping you? I thought you were released after the accident.”
He finally stops his pacing at my interruption and takes a seat next to me again, but he doesn’t take back my hand.
“When I was finally better, I started up with the guys again. Darren had been charged with reckless endangerment and got off with a million community service hours and a revoked license, and everyone just kind of played it off, like it didn’t matter. And that started to eat at me. I knew it mattered. I knew Cherise’s life had been changed forever and it wasourfault. So… I tried to forget. I tried to lose myself in the things that made it feel better.”
I shift slightly in my seat, lifting my legs and wrapping my arms around my knees. It’s a defensive move. I know that. I’m pretty sure Mack knows it, too. But I can’t help it, and Mack leans back against the couch, away from me, respecting that choice.
“When Jeremy said I was banging everything in sight…,” he pauses, staring at the coffee table. “Well, he was saying that from the perspective of someone who didn’t even really know half of what I was doing.”
My stomach drops, and the blood in my body feels like it has all rushed to the space around my neck and ears. Can he be serious? Is this really…
“I had unsafe, risky sex with who knows how many women for like, six months because getting lost in someone else made me feel like my own shit didn’t exist. Jeremy’s story about the strip club… I’m sure it’s true and there are probably a few other stories just like it. But to be entirely honest, I couldn’t even ballpark for you how many women there were or talk to you about some of the crazier things. Because mixed in with that was enough liquor to black out a good portion of that stuff, and at the end, there was some drug stuff too. Nothing serious, but pain pills and anxiety meds that weren’t mine.”
I know all about anxiety meds and what they can do to the body. For a split second I get wrapped up in that one piece of information. As if I can ignore everything else he has said and just focus on that one statement that links us.
But he keeps talking. His breath sounds different.
Labored.
He’s struggling.
“One night I was at home alone. I was alone for the first time in a long time and it just felt like… like too much. I felt like I was going out of my mind and was desperate for some semblance of normality. I was losing control of everything. I’d been confronted at the Fire for my behavior and slow recovery because I wasn’t putting in the work. Amy and my parents were barely speaking to me because I was such an asshole. I didn’t have any real friends or people who cared about me in my life. I had treated Amy like shit when she was getting abused and then nearly killed someone in a car accident. I just felt fuckinglostandworthless.And I just wanted it all tostop.”
In the same moment that I realize what he’s telling me, I see him pull off the black band around his wrist. There, against his tan skin, is a mark a few shades darker, running about two inches on the length of his arm. My eyes widen slightly, unable to actually believe that the confident, amazing man in front of me ever felt as lost as I did. That we lived parallel existences even if our experiences were different.
“I was lucky,” he says in a humorless laugh. “That’s what the doctors said when I woke up strapped to a hospital bed. One of my coaches had come by my house on a whim to chat about me seeing a therapist, and apparently I’d left my front door cracked open. He came in and found me on the kitchen floor. And I happened to live five minutes from a hospital. They said I cut with intent, and most people who slice their wrists up and down bleed out too fast and don’t make it. So, like I said. Lucky.”
He breathes out again, this time slowly. He’s tired of this story. He wants to wrap it up and move on. This is what he was talking about outside of my apartment when he drove me home, when he told me it’s more painful to talk about his past than it was to experience it.
“My parents came up to Chicago and drove me out to a rehab facility in New York. I was dealing with my shit like some celebrity. It felt incredibly self-indulgent, but I knew I needed it. My guilt about Amy and the accident and Cherise. It was choking me and I couldn’t breathe. I talked with them about the drinking and the meds and the women. While I was there I talked to the Fire and asked them to break my contract. I still wanted to play, but the Fire wasn’t a good fit for the new lifestyle I wanted. And then when I was done at Oakhurst, I moved back in with my parents in Indiana and just kind of… existed.”
He leans back against the sofa and crosses one leg over the other in that very masculine way. Ankle resting on knee, legs spread wide.
“I was at home for about six months when I finally got the courage to reach out to Cherise. And she was just,” he blows out a breath. “She was amazing. And kind, and warm, and forgiving. And I spent about a year and a half overly involved in her kids’ lives, driving up to Chicago all the time. She ended up moving to LA to be close to her mom, and I started to feel lost again. I was working at a fucking gym and I just felt like I wasn’t doing anything with my life when Cherise was stuck in that damn chair. When Jeremy talked to me about the coaching job, it all lined up perfectly. I could move to LA and still help Cherise. Amy and her husband were already here and my parents always talk about retiring in Santa Barbara because they want to be involved grandparents. I thought there might be a chance I could finally turn all my shit around and get back to doing something I love in a way that wasn’t destructive.”
I don’t realize how close we are to each other until I feel his hand reach out and tangle in mine again. He looks at our hands for a moment, then tugs it up and kisses my palm.
