Page 117 of Play the Last Card

Remember me, remember your dad, but don’t forget to live.

My heart constricts and my nose stings as I remember. I’d read his words over and over, hearing them in his voice and then again in my dad’s.

He is right. Of course, he is.

Pops also told me about the box of football things in the back of his cupboard. He’d been saving them until I got over my resentment which in his letter he hoped would be any day now, now that I was in love with a quarterback. It was full of game tapes, and play diaries, and notebooks, upon notebooks that my dad kept. I’ve been obsessively pouring over them the last few nights. He was good, really good. The Broncos jersey was neatly folded inside, along with a few others. All with my dad’s number and name stitched into it. Pops mentioned in his letter that it was the one they gave him after Mom and Dad died. The same one they had been planning to give him when they got him in the draft that coming April.

I left the box sitting open on my bedroom floor after pulling out the jersey and deciding to wear it.

I fiddle with the hem, glancing down at the large number eighteen on the front.

Scott’s hand pulses on my leg and I look up. He’s staring at me, his other hand resting on his own thigh. I furrow my brow and turn to look out the window. The brownstone looms over us, bathed in afternoon light painted in pretty patterns from the shadow of the trees.

“Want to go inside?” he asks gently. He doesn’t move, waiting for me to decide.

“Sure.” My voice sounds like gravel. I haven’t been talking much lately. No crying, and no talking. Two things I normally excel at are the two things I haven’t really felt like partaking in.

Scott waits for a beat and then makes his move. He’s out of the driver’s seat and at my door before I can even unbuckle my seat belt. He opens the car door and extends a hand. I take it and step out of the car, he keeps his fingers threaded through mine. As we get to the front door, he uses the key I gave him at Christmas to open the door.

Fair enough. I never asked for it back.

Although, I don’t think he would’ve given it to me anyway. According to him, we never broke up. And I guess we didn’t.

I was being a fucking idiot.

I strip off my coat and sit down on the small bench by the door so I can peel off my boots. Before I can reach for the zipper, Scott bends down onto one knee and reaches for my calf. He pulls the boot toward himself and gently takes the tiny zipper between his large fingers, tugging it down. He slips one boot off my foot and then repeats the action with the other.

I can only stare at him as he carefully puts them to the side and stands again, holding out his hand. I let him lead me down the corridor, into the living room and over to the couch. He sits down, pushing back into my usual spot of the couch so he’s nestled right into the corner cushions. Then, he pulls me down onto his lap.

I mold myself to his chest and he covers us with a blanket.

With every breath, every intoxicating inhale of him, I feel as if a tiny surgeon sits in my chest with a tiny needle and thread, stitching the cracks in my heart together one tiny stitch at a time.

An hour passes. Or a minute. I’m not sure. We just sit in silence. His hand runs a soothing path up and down my back and my cheek presses deeper and deeper into his chest.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, finally breaking apart.

He doesn’t stop or change or move. He simply replies, “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“I do. I was a stubborn idiot.” I close my eyes, my stomach churning a little with anxiety. “I should never have pushed you away for something as silly as you playing football. You just weren’t—”

“Part of your plan?” he finishes for me.

I’m not exactly sure how to describe the feeling that washes over me at this moment. It’s something new.

Scott, for all that I have put him through the last few weeks, continues to work, and to fight, and to want me. The feeling settles me. Like roots are starting to anchor me down but those roots are intertwined with his, twirling and twisting around one another’s until they’re tied together with no hope of ever coming apart.

And I’m not scared.

Not like I was.

When Scott looks at me, he sees all of me. Every flaw, every imperfection, every delusional grudge I keep. He sees through the happy mask I have on and into the anxiety, and the fears, and the vulnerability I try so hard to keep inside. He looks at me with acceptance and understanding.

And love.

“No. You weren’t part of my plan,” I murmur back.

“I know, baby.” His hand continues to stroke my back, the soothing circles lulling my exhausted body to relax against him. “Plans don’t always go the way we want them too. I know that scares you. But I’m here. To help. I’m not going anywhere. If you let me.”