Page 18 of Imperfection is Beauty

My wife, myself, and my lawyer.

Two years after I got drafted, I had just come off the field after we won our third game that year when I saw five missed calls from my father.

Apparently, my mother missed her annual check-up… four times.

And after she was feeling poorly, my father made her go get checked out. She had a lump on her right breast. And that lump had metastasized to her lymph nodes.

I had flown home immediately following that game and sat with her before she went back to have a double mastectomy.

“Please, Marcus. Do this for me,” my momma pleaded with me in her hospital bed.

I shook my head at her, “Momma, I can’t stand the woman.”

“Just make it work, for me. Please.” And I’ll never forget how the usually bright woman looked so dreary and drab, her thin body being swallowed up by the hospital bed.

And if it had been anyone other than my momma asking me to do this, I would have told them they could go fuck themselves.

She wanted to see me happy. She told me she knew of this amazing girl, and if she couldn’t beat the cancer, she at least wanted to go with the knowledge that I would be taken care of.

So, for my mother, I married the woman, and with that marriage came a prenup and a contract of sorts.

She could do whatever she wanted, as long as it never hit the media. And if she did that after five years, she would get two million dollars.

It was five years because the doctors hadn’t expected my mother to make it.

However, they never expected my mother to be a fighter.

Two more years. Two more fucking years.

I shook my head from those thoughts because unless a miracle occurred there wasn’t shit, I could do about it.

With that, I headed to do my workout.

Once I was finished, I took another shower and then caught up on a few shows I liked.

Hours later, I checked the time because knowing my mother, who was now in remission, was hosting the monthly dinner.

After dressing in jeans, boots, and a fitted red wine-colored button-up, I brushed my teeth, rubbed on some deodorant, sprayed on some cologne, and pulled on a black ball cap.

Once I was ready, I tagged my keys and then headed out the door.

As soon as I climbed into my SUV, I knew I shouldn’t do it, but fuck, I couldn’t help myself.

I sighed, pulled the visor down, and then looked at the picture I had up there.

The picture no one knew about except for me.

See, what I was talking about earlier, about how I should have done an about-face and kissed that woman in the bathroom all those years ago. Because of what happened that caused me to walk away… it never would’ve fucking happened.

I had just gotten drafted and was home packing up my stuff to move to California.

I was walking to my SUV from meeting up with Braydon when I saw her.

Her long auburn hair was in wild curls, and thankfully, I was close enough to see the smattering of freckles across her nose. She was walking arm in arm with a woman who had a blonde bob.

The two of them were laughing, and I couldn’t tell you why I had taken a picture of her. But I did.

And just as I was about to rectify not kissing her, I heard someone call out the name Scarlett. Since my eyes were on her when she let out a squeal, released her friend's arm, ran toward someone’s arms, and jumped into them, I felt my heart drop.

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