Page 88 of Fair Catch
What was most interesting was that I wasn’t even mad.
I was relieved.
For some sadistic reason I couldn’t explain, it felt good to lie down, to roll over and concede to the fact that everyone was right about me.
I’m not smart. I’m not a good friend. I’m not good at anything.
Except football.
And that I’m damn good at.
So, I threw myself into practice, into the only thing I could control.
And that’s when I realized that maybe… maybe… I was putting myself through more misery than I needed to.
My pulse climbed up a notch as I glanced at Gavin, cracking my neck and taking my gaze back to the screen before I got up the nerve to say what I wanted to.
“I think I’m going to enter the draft.”
Gavin’s thumbs paused over the controller for a long second, snapping into action again just to finish the play before he hit pause, his eyes losing focus on the screen.
“I know you’ll want to talk me out of this, Gavin, but… I’ve given it a lot of thought. And I think it’s the right thing for me.”
“To quit college as a freshman? Forgive me if I disagree.”
I steadied a breath. “I hate school. And I’m a terrible student. You’ve known this about me for years.”
“You’re not a terrible student. You have a learning disorder,” Gavin argued. “There’s a difference.”
“Doesn’t matter. You had to carry my ass through every class in high school, and look at me now,” I said, throwing a hand out as if Riley were right there, as if Gavin would understand what I was referencing without having to say it.
I couldn’t say it.
“This isn’t for me,” I said, though my voice cracked with the words. “Football. That’s my job.”
Gavin shook his head. “It’s too soon. You’ll be lucky to even get picked at all, let alone in the first few rounds.”
“I don’t care if I get picked last,” I said. “I’ll do the Combine. They’ll see me then.”
“And if they don’t?”
I shrugged. “Then I’ll find another way. Dad already said he has an agent dying to work with me. I could get invites to summer camps.”
“What if you don’t though?”
“I will.”
Gavin threw the controller on a curse, turning in his chair to face me. “This is cowardly talk, Zeke. It’s bullshit and you know it.”
“What do you expect me to do?” I asked calmly.
“Stay!” He laid his hand out like he was handing me the answer on a gold platter. “Change your major if you want to. Get a tutor, have the guys on the team help you. Shit, let me help you. But don’t quit. You’re not a quitter.”
“I’m not quitting.”
“Now you’re lying to yourself, too?”
I bit back a sigh, tossing my own remote control on the ground. “I have changed my major — to something I’m not even remotely interested in purely because the team advisor thinks it’ll be the easiest for my caveman brain. She assigned me a tutor, too, and guess what? This shit still doesn’t make sense. It still takes me three times as long, if not more, to even understand what I’m studying, let alone apply it.”
Gavin opened his mouth to interrupt me, but I didn’t let him.
“I’m out of options, alright? Better to get in early and ride the bench a couple years, learn from the best, than to ruin my football career because I can’t keep up scholastically.”
There was another silver lining to this plan, one I couldn’t admit out loud — certainly not to Gavin.
Riley.
I could leave her alone like she desperately wanted me to, could give her the space to be the star athlete I knew she could be — without me being a distraction or annoyance. I saw it every time we ran into each other in the locker room or were assigned to the same drill on the field. She hated me even more than before, and this time, it was affecting her game.
It killed her, having to play nice with me, and if that hadn’t been clear just from practice, watching her on the sidelines of the last game had been proof enough.
She was on the sidelines because of me.
One lethal look at me told me she’d never forget or forgive that.
And to prove her point even further, the selfish part of me longed for the day when I wouldn’t have to suffer being so close to her and yet unable to touch her, hold her, or even so much as look at her without her bolting.
“Why are you doing this?” Gavin asked, his voice quiet as he shook his head. “This isn’t what you want. I know, deep down, you want a degree. You want to prove your parents wrong, hell, to prove everyone wrong. You have more to offer and you know it.”
“I thought I did,” I corrected him. “But my actions of late have proved otherwise.”
