Going Long (Waiting on the Sidelines) Read online

“I know,” I sighed. “I just…I can’t get my head there yet. Maybe, maybe in a week or two?” Why the hell did I throw that out there? Crap, I just gave myself a deadline.

  Reed smiled a bit at my words, which solidified what I already knew, that it was right for us to talk about it, and I needed to come around. I just hoped that these next few weeks dragged more slowly than any before.

  “Deal. We can talk about it during my bye week. Maybe we can get away for a bit, spend a little time together, alone?” he smirked.

  “But we are alone,” I said coyly.

  “Yes, but…and no offense…your dorm bed is shit small. And this place always smells like burnt popcorn,” he scrunched his nose a little.

  I had to agree. And the thought of the two of us getting away did make the impending conversation a little more tolerable. I stood up on my tiptoes and kissed his cheek, holding his face in my hands and looking him in the eyes. “OKAY, two weeks then,” I smiled, pulling out a damn fine poker face if I’d ever seen one.

  It was amazing how much reading I had this early in the semester. Specializing in reading and writing disabilities was more challenging than I had anticipated, but every time I worked with a student in our resource center or at one of the local schools, I knew it was worth it. Seeing someone put together words, and read aloud, made my heart pump with pride.

  I had been working on the poem project for a little more than a semester now. I had a dozen or so students that I met with on a regular basis, writing poetry. It was going to be part of my final portfolio, showing how teaching language through poetry helped with written and verbal communication skills. We were going to have a reading at the end of the semester at a local coffee shop where I spent most of my mornings and afternoons studying. Reed knew a little about the project, but I was keeping the reading a surprise. I wanted to invite him for a special evening.

  Finally done with my homework for the night, I flipped out the light and kicked my feet into the giant comforter on my bed, breathing it in since it still smelled of Reed. My mind raced, “Two weeks. Two weeks until I gave him my blessing to enter the draft.”

  I knew I had to support Reed; I was being selfish. What I wasn’t sure about was if I truly wanted to transfer. It wasn’t so much that I minded moving to a different school, but I did worry about how I would pay for it. Reed always told me not to worry about the finances, but I didn’t think I could let him help pay for my schooling. As ashamed as I was to even admit it to myself, I think part of my worry was that he’d end up breaking up with me and leave me stuck completely.

  I also wasn’t sure we could survive a full year being that far apart. I wasn’t even sure what life after graduation meant for us. Reed always talked about me in his future, but he’d never really talked about kids or marriage. I think his own broken childhood colored his outlook on things like forever a little. Sure, we talked about living somewhere because of football. Buying a house thanks to football. Paying my tuition anywhere…with the help of football. But we were always careful not to cross that line into what that meant beyond football. Neither of us.

  I wrestled with these thoughts for an hour, never coming up with answers and debating how our conversation about the draft would go. Sleep wasn’t coming easy, and I blame that partly for the thought-stopping epiphany that hit my nerve endings with the jolt of a lightning bolt.

  Sprinting from my bed, I flung my desk lamp on and flipped frantically through the pages of my day planner. I wrote everything down in that planner. Most people liked to keep their calendars on their phones or iPads, but I always had to have mine in writing. Writing it down always helped me remember, or so I thought. I flipped to the current week and rubbed my eyes, hoping they weren’t focusing. When a second and third look confirmed what I saw, I sunk to the floor, my heart beating at the speed of a hummingbird’s wing.

  I was four days late.

  Nolan

  The Internet is a scary thing at 3 a.m. Like a fortuneteller, it tells you what you think you want to hear. Or, in my case, what I desperately wanted to prove wrong. I sat there for hours with my iPad, flipping through site after site about the signs of pregnancy, and how long before you could tell. I was pretty sure I could pee on a stick at this point and know for sure. But I also liked living in the 50/50. Peeing on the stick could mean 100-percent certainty. And I only wanted that if it meant I wasn’t pregnant.

  It’s funny how your body and mind can operate on autopilot. I didn’t move from that spot on the floor until the sun rose. I didn’t sleep, and I was sliding my feet to the resource center in the middle of campus for a few morning sessions with some of my students. I didn’t register a single word my students read during our sessions. I heard muffled sounds that resembled words, I smiled, I nodded and I encouraged. I was getting good at poker faces.

  Autopilot took me to Sarah’s apartment next. When I didn’t see Calley’s car in the parking lot, I pushed forward up the steps, knowing she’d likely gone to work, leaving my friend at home alone. By the time she answered the door, I must have lost my ability to bluff, because the tears started to come, and words evaded me.

  “Jesus, Nolan. What’s wrong?” Sarah asked, pulling me inside and slamming the door behind me. She grabbed my hand and led me to the couch, pushing me down and kneeling in front of me with a truly confused look on her face.

  I just shook my head back and forth, trying to form words with my lips but not even knowing where to begin.

  “Okay, you’re going to have to speak. Is it Reed? Did that asshole cheat on you?” she was grabbing my shoulders now, clearly going from her zero-to-sixty, friend-ready-to-defend-you mode.

  I just shook my head no, fighting to slow my breathing down. After a few seconds, I slumped my shoulders, defeated, and looked up at her.

  “I’m late,” I said, twisting the side of my mouth to show her how helpless I felt.

  She just blinked at me in return, taking her time to register what I’d said. Her eyes grew wider when it settled in. “You mean, like…late, late?” She kept a firm grip on my shoulders while she questioned me.

  I nodded yes slowly, never blinking, and staring her in the eyes without really looking at anything.

  “Oh…shit,” Sarah said, not able to hide her emotions. I suppose that’s why I came to her. I needed someone to freak out for me, to think quickly on her feet. Sienna was the practical one. But Sarah, she would go bat-shit crazy with me. And this revelation? Well, it called for bat-shit crazy.

  “We need to go to the drug store, Noles. Like now. You have to know for sure,” she said, pushing her feet into her shoes and rummaging around her kitchen counter for her purse and keys. I didn’t move until she was standing right in front of me, my own feet dug deeply into the carpet and my legs unwilling to move.

  “I…don’t know if I want to know,” I looked at her, my eyes pleading. Just then, my phone buzzed. Autopilot again, I pulled it from my purse and saw a text from Reed.

  Miss you, baby. Have a late dinner tonight with family friend to talk about that thing we’re going to talk about. Someone in the business. Call you after, K? Love you.

  His message was short and sweet, but I took my time reading it, almost as if it was a full five-page essay. I didn’t budge until I felt the weight of Sarah plop down next to me and felt her shove my arms down to get my phone screen out of my face.

  “Noles, snap out of it. You HAVE to find out. You can’t live in between,” she said, standing and pulling at my armpit to lift me from the couch. She was right, but that didn’t stop me from craving the blissful ignorance of right now.

  The drugstore was only a block or two from Sarah’s apartment. And unfortunately, our walk to get there didn’t take us nearly as long as I would have liked. The rows were filled with appealing colors. I tried to drag us down the nail polish aisle, thinking maybe a new color on my toes would be nice. Yank. Sarah tugged my arm. I tried again for the candy aisle, thinking maybe a big bag of M&Ms would soothe me, but YANK. No such
luck.

  We stood there in front of the selection of various pregnancy tests in a section vividly labeled Family Planning. The entire thing was surreal. I heard words escape from Sarah’s lips, but I wasn’t listening. Everything sounded muted, and slow. She was throwing box after box in our small basket and soon was grabbing my hand to pull us to the register.

  The judgmental look from the checkout lady was something I will never forget. If I hadn’t been stunned and frozen with the constant stab of shock, I might have said something to her. I was getting better at sticking up for myself. But with this, being in this situation, I just let her judge. Who was I?

  We walked back to Sarah’s apartment with $60 in pregnancy tests. Sarah pulled them all out on the counter and went to work reading the directions immediately, first handing me a plastic wand and telling me to try to only pee a little so we could knock out a few tests. I just stood there holding the stick, staring at the small circle on the end that would give me my fate.

  “Nolan, come on. You have to pee on it. Go!” She was chastising me. She left the bathroom for a few minutes to give me some privacy. I stood staring at the dry filter strip, considering briefly running it through the faucet and pretending I had taken the test. But fooling Sarah wouldn’t do me any good in the long run.

  I turned her sink faucet on to help me have to go and sat waiting—finally taking a deep breath and going a little on the tip of the test strip. Sarah was reading directions from the other side of the door, telling me that I needed to let the test sit on the counter for two minutes. But that wasn’t necessary.

  The colors were changing almost instantly, and when I saw the small plus sign start to appear, I wasn’t surprised. But I was terrified.

  “Are you done? I’ve got another one, tell me when you’re ready,” Sarah was leaning on the other side of the door.

  “I don’t need it,” I said, faintly.

  “What? Why?” she cracked open the door as I was pulling my shorts back into place, the stick dangling from my hand. “Nolan, you have to set it down and wait for two minutes. Didn’t you listen to anything I said?”

  I held it up in front of me, showing her the positive result. Sarah just looked at it with tightly closed lips, considering the best reaction.

  “You don’t know for sure, Nolan. Those things aren’t always accurate. Come on, try one more,” she was already pulling a new stick from the box and handing it to me.

  “It’s going to be the same,” I said, shaking my head slowly. “I just know.”

  “No, you don’t!” she said forcefully, putting the new test in my hand and pushing me back while she closed the door.

  I humored Sarah and went through five of the tests—all positive—before she finally relented and slid down against the bathroom door to sit on the floor across from me. We didn’t talk for about 20 minutes, just looking up at the row of tests every now and then and sighing, considering.

  What was I going to do? How could this have happened? Well, that’s a stupid question; I know exactly how it happened. But we were always so very careful. This was going to ruin everything. I wouldn’t be able to finish my degree, Reed might not be able to enter the draft, or worse, he might not want anything to do with me—or a baby.

  Almost as if she was hearing my inner dialogue, Sarah interrupted my stream of thoughts. “You have to tell Reed,” she said, abruptly.

  “No,” I shot back quickly. “I mean, not yet. I have to think this through. I should make sure, you know, with a doctor first.”

  I took another deep breath and pulled my knees up to my stomach, hugging them for comfort. My brain was searching for answers. I didn’t know how I was going to deal with this. Suddenly, Sarah got to her feet and walked into her bedroom to grab her cell phone. She started dialing and I grabbed her hand.

  “No, please. Don’t call him,” I tried to stop her.

  She just stared at me and then kept dialing, finally speaking. “I’m not calling Reed, Nolan. That’s your conversation to have. I’m calling the student health center to get you an appointment.”

  I watched as Sarah pretended to be me on the phone, answering the personal questions and looking to me for help with some, such as when was the last time I had intercourse. Things that I considered to be so private were instantly too public, and I wanted to bury myself and hide.

  “Okay, Tuesday, in two weeks. Got it, thank you,” Sarah said, hanging up and writing down a note on a scrap of paper for me. “Okay, you have an 8 a.m. appointment in two weeks. They said you need to be farther along before they can know anything for sure.”

  I just grabbed the paper from her hand and stuffed it in my front pocket. “Thanks,” I said, attempting an appreciative smile that just curled my lip slightly to one side. I looked down at my lap, thinking about how my belly would grow soon. I knew what this all meant, but it also didn’t seem real. It didn’t feel like I had a baby, Reed’s baby, growing inside me. But science, I suppose, begged to differ.

  “What do you want to do?” Sarah said, instantly regretting it and trying to fix it. “I mean, right now. Not, about…that. Sorry…” she just grimaced.

  “It’s okay, I know what you meant,” I said, pulling myself to my feet and smoothing out my shorts. “I guess I’ll go home. I have a ton of studying to do, and I have to get a huge paper out of the way before we head to Tucson tomorrow.” In my mind, I conceded, that I might be in denial.

  “Are you sure? You can stay here if you want, Calley doesn’t mind,” she was acting fragile toward me.

  I shrugged a bit and let out a heavy breath. “No, it’s okay. I promise,” I lied. I was not okay.

  Sarah walked me to the bottom of her steps, her face heavy with wanting to talk, but not knowing what to say. I could tell, and I loved her for it. But truthfully, there really weren’t any words I wanted to hear right now. I wasn’t used to this new starting line that life had thrown me, and I needed to get used to the new game board, figure it out and know what my rules were.

  By the time I printed my final paper and proofed it, it was a little after 10 p.m. Reed would be home from his dinner soon, and I knew he’d be calling me. My mind was still pushing the new information to the back—the proof of that in the paper I had just finished writing, which was likely my best work to date.

  I brought my phone into the bathroom and set it on the towel rack in case Reed called while I was showering. My body ached, and I just needed a little steam on my face to help me reset things, to think.

  The hot water was like an eraser for my anxiety, my shoulders suddenly relaxing and my face almost smiling at the splash against my cheeks. I pumped a handful of body wash into my hand and smoothed it over my neck and shoulders, rubbing the smooth peach-scented wash over my chest and then stomach, my hands instantly stopping and holding protectively the spot around my belly button, instantly bringing me back to reality.

  Looking down, I thought hard about what was inside me. For the briefest moment, I thought to myself how I wished it never happened. I didn’t want this. I. Did. Not. Want. This. Baby. Then I slid down to sit on the shower floor and cried harder than I ever had, ashamed of what I’d just thought and wanting to delete the words from existence.

  I left the shower stall when the water turned cool. My skin was wrinkled from the soaking, and my hair hadn’t really been washed, but I was too weak to finish the job. Wrapping my hair in a towel, I wrapped another around my body and picked up my phone, flopping myself on my bed to wait for Reed’s call.

  When the phone rang near 11 p.m., I forced myself to answer it. Somewhere between the time of my shower and now, I had decided I was going to pretend—at least for a little while.

  “Hey you,” I forced myself to be chipper.

  “Ah that’s a sound for…sore eyes? No, wait. That’s not how that goes. Aw hell, you know what I mean,” he chuckled. “Sorry I’m so late.”

  He sounded so good. Everything about his voice was everything I needed. Frozen a little with the f
ear of losing it all, I sat up strong and pushed everything deeper. “It’s okay; I just finished my paper and took a shower. How was your dinner?”

  “Hmmmm, well…” he was thinking.

  “Was it bad?” I couldn’t tell from his hedging.

  “No, it’s just…well. Are you sure you want to talk about this? It’s sort of that topic that we took off the table until our weekend,” he said carefully. I loved him for how much he respected me and my stupid worries. But suddenly, his entering the draft was the least of my worries. Never mind the fact that the news I was holding onto could ruin everything. For tonight, I wanted to pretend. And so I did.

  “Yeah, it’s okay. I want to know, talk to me. I like to hear your voice, and you seem excited,” I said. His voice was animated, and I could tell that his mind was made up, if only I would get on board.

  “Okay, if you’re sure,” he waited for a few seconds. “Well, I met with Brent Nichols. He’s huge, Noles. He’s repped so many amazing athletes. And of course, well, he’s on the board for the children’s foundation, the same one that my mom sits on. She sort of set this up, drove down here for dinner and everything.”

  I winced a little knowing Millie was involved and was instantly grateful Reed couldn’t see my face. “Wow, that’s amazing she has that connection. So, what’d he have to say?” I feigned enthusiasm, my acting skills surprisingly strong tonight.

  Reed just sighed at first. Finally, when he spoke, he seemed careful. “Well, he thinks I need to really go this year. The options opening up are huge, and there’s a great chance that I’ll be picked up early and go somewhere really good. There’s a huge quarterback need and the class coming out is only two or three guys deep.”

  I knew all of this, of course. The pundits had been talking Reed up a lot over the summer. He wouldn’t be number one. There was a running back at the University of Texas who had that locked up, provided he stayed healthy. But Reed was in the mix for the top 10 for sure. Forcing myself to be supportive, I offered up my best. “Well, this gives you some good stuff to think about then, huh?”