Game Changer (The Field Party)

My phone dropped from my hand into my lap, and I felt numb. I couldn’t get up and do anything. I wanted to be alone with my suffering. The phone rang, and I glanced down to see Nash’s number. He’d been gone this morning when I’d woken up. They’d been working out at the field house. It was what they did most mornings. I didn’t want to be asked to join them to do anything.

I ignored the call and dropped my head down into my hands. The tears came then, and I let them flow freely. There was no one to witness me breaking down. My tough exterior cracked, and the emotion I had been holding back burst out of me. Silent tears became sobs. It didn’t ease the ache inside. Nothing but seeing my mother and knowing she was okay would lift the heaviness.

I heard my phone ring again, and I checked it in case the nurse was calling back. Nash again. I let it ring. I continued to grieve for the lost boy who needed his mother and wasn’t ready to be a man. I was tired of pretending it didn’t hurt.

I didn’t know how much time had passed. My tears had slowed, then dried up. I continued to sit in the silence, when the door opened and Nash came inside. I turned to look at him, and an immediate concerned frown appeared on his face. Could I even talk about this? Would I cry if I did? Fuck.

“You okay?” he asked, closing the door behind him.

All I could do was shake my head no.

“What happened?” he asked, coming over to me. I didn’t look at him. I didn’t want to see his face when I said it. Holding myself together was going to be hard. Seeing sympathy didn’t help.

“Mom’s in the hospital on a fucking ventilator.” I choked out the words, staring out the window.

I heard him mutter a curse. I continued to watch the cars drive by outside. The world was still going. People were contracting Covid and dying, but the world hadn’t stopped for long. I hadn’t stopped either, had I? My momma was being rushed to the hospital because she was obviously struggling to breathe, and I was taking a girl’s virginity in the back of my truck.

My priorities sucked.

“How did you find out?” he asked.

“My father called. He sounded fine.” The bitterness in my tone was clear.

“Can you call the hospital and get any information?” he asked.

“Already have,” I said, annoyed that he would think I hadn’t thought of that. It was my mother. Of course I’d called the damn hospital.

He didn’t ask anything more. We sat in silence. He let me grieve the only way I knew how, but he didn’t leave me. He stayed there for hours. Once placing a drink in front of me but nothing more, and I watched out the window as life went on.

JULY 18, 2020 Who Are You?

CHAPTER 34

EZMITA

Music blared in my ears as I ran. The more days that went by and I heard nothing from Asa, the more I ran. It was all that kept me from sitting in my room and crying. I was stupid. I had slept with a boy thinking it was special and nope. Cliché, cliché, Ezmita. That was me. Lesson learned the hard way.

The idea of going to the same city as him for college made me feel sick. I’d planned my college around him even before I’d thrown my legs open for him. What kind of girl did that? He made me act pathetic and I hated that me. I was stronger than the way I acted around him. Asa did not make me a better person. Around him, I became a girl I didn’t want to be.

Brett had called earlier, and I’d let it go to voice mail. Turning to him when I got ignored by Asa wasn’t the answer either. That made me dislike myself even more. I didn’t require a guy to survive. Why had I started acting as if I did?

Again, more things I didn’t like about myself right now. The list was multiplying. I didn’t want to go to Mississippi, but if I didn’t, my only choice was taking off a semester or going to community college for a semester. Both options kept me here in Lawton. My freedom suspended for four more months.

The internal debate in my head about this consumed my thoughts as I ran. Letting go of a scholarship I’d worked hard for made it worse. I could have gone so many places. I could be going to California! Or not… because they didn’t look to be going back to classes anytime soon there. Point was, I could have been somewhere away from Lawton. Somewhere I wanted to be that had nothing to do with a guy.