Page 3 of Unloved

I expect him to move. To scream. To shout. But there’s nothing.

One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississippi.

“Sam, buddy. Try and breathe, okay? You got this.”

It’s the first time my brain has registered anything other than the scene in front of me.

The voice returns.

“Try it,” it soothes. “Breathe in and out.”

As if my head has been underwater and finally broken through the surface, my senses slowly return to me.

“That’s right. Just like that,” someone instructs. “In and out.”

My head turns to find Jennings, one of our teammates, right behind me. His body is firmly pressed against mine, his arms wrapped around my broad shoulders, his voice right in my ear.

“Now, one more time,” he coaxes. “You’ve got this. In and out.”

It’s in this moment, as his words hit me with clarity, that I realize my chest is finally rising and falling. Breaths moving in and out, in perfect sync with his words.

I don’t know how I found myself being held back by him, but my gaze darts back to where I was obviously trying to run to.

I need to get to him.

I need to see what’s wrong.

I need to wake him up.

I need totouchhim.

God, I’m desperate to touch him. I always have been. An image of him at halftime, tipping his head up to the sky as he downed a whole bottle of water before winking at me and running back onto the field, freezes in my mind.

I wanted my fingertips to follow the beads of sweat down his cheeks, and the pad of my thumb to collect the few drops of water that sat there, waiting for me, on his pillowy bottom lip.

I should’ve touched him.

Not just today, buteveryday.

I should’ve told him how I feel.

I should’ve.

I should’ve.

I should’ve.

Before I know it, my body attempts to leap forward, and Jennings’s arms coil around me like a snake, but my limbs whip into a frenzy, trying to get to Lennox.

“Lennox!” His name roars out of me, the word finally clawing its way out of my windpipe. “Lennox!” I scream again, this time thrashing my whole body, determined to rid myself of Jennings

“Samuel, buddy, you got to hold still and wait for the team doctors to work their magic and get him off the field.”

“Let me go,” I cry out. “Get your fucking hands off me.”

If everyone wasn’t already staring at us, they are now. Now that I can breathe and the shock has subsided, my hysteria is uncontainable.

My head can’t reason with the reality that injuries on the football field happen all the time. I can’t reason with the fact that everybody running toward him knows what they’re doing and how to fix him.

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