Page 1 of Play Fake
1
BECK
So you see…there’s this girl.
Or really, I should say therewasthis girl.
From the first time I saw her in third grade, I knew she’d be my future.
I just didn’t know at the time that she’d shred my heart and stomp all over the pieces in said future.
Walking into my then girlfriend’s place to grab my phone charger when she was supposed to be out of town on a “girls’ trip,” only to see her fucking some other guy, was not on my bingo card for my life. You’d think after eleven years together, she’d at least have the decency to break up with me first.
It’s been almost a year, yet I still can’t get that image out of my brain.
It’s the official kick off party for the upcoming football season tonight, and it just feels…off.
Don’t get me wrong—the place is packed. Red Solo cups line the kitchen counter like a makeshift trophy display. Somebody’s already spilled beer on the rug, and whoever’s on aux duty is deep in their 2010s pop punk era, which means the linemen are singing “Mr. Brightside” like it’s the national anthem.
But something is missing.
Or maybe that’s just me.
“Dude.” My teammate, Logan Brooks, claps me on the shoulder, plastic cup in hand. He looks like he’s having agreattime. “You’re making that sad puppy face again, my man. You good?”
I arch a brow at him. “That is just my face.”
“Nah.” He grins. “Your face is the one you make when you’re trying to get a girl to ask you if you’re okay so you can scare them off with your tragic backstory.”
“Remind me to never confide in you again.”
“Too late. You already told me you cried duringMarley & Me.”
“You’d have to be soullessnotto cry in that movie.”
“Whatever you say, man,” Logan says, before getting distracted by someone calling his name from the kitchen and heading that way.
I lean back against the wall, my own drink in hand, watching the room move around me.
It’s weird being one of the old guys now. Not old-old, but senior-year old. The kind that’s got scouts watching, people surrounding you with huge expectations, and the future looming just past the end zone. I should be soaking this in—one last fall with the team, one last shot at another championship title, just a few months left before the NFL Draft.
Instead, I’m wondering when I’ll be sure about what I want for my future and if I’ll ever start to feel like me again.
Maybe it’s the breakup. Or it’s that every time I start to let loose, I see that image burned into my brain—her skin tangled up with someone else’s. The girl I loved turning into a stranger in the span of one breathless second.
That’ll kill a vibe real quick.
“Harrison!” someone yells my name, and I glance up just in time to catch a half-inflated beach ball someone’s launched across the room.
“Still got those hands,” one of the freshmen shouts.
I toss the ball back and give him a lazy salute, chuckling as he tries to showboat and nearly takes out a lamp.
Then I feel it. That pull.
Like something shifts in the atmosphere.
I turn my head toward the front door—and there she is.
