And past that? Jordan was right about me.
I was a coward.
He’d held up on his end of our deal, and I’d failed on mine. The first time he asked me to be there for him, I bailed. I was ashamed, but I wouldn’t hide from that truth, either.
I couldn’t be the woman he deserved.
I had a child, and an ex-husband I was still tied to. It went so much deeper than my reputation on the team and in our small town.
In the most fundamental ways, we were wrong for each other.
And that was a fact I couldn’t ignore.
The State Championship game had snuck up on me like a snake in long-leaved grass, but it was a distraction I welcomed. It was easy to lose myself in the excitement of the players, to focus on getting them ready to play and keeping them iced and bandaged and warm throughout the game. Even in the locker room at halftime, I’d been able to stay distracted, working on the players and tuning out the sound of Jordan’s voice as he motivated them to go out there and get us the win in the second half.
But when the last seconds of the game ticked down, when their team had one last Hail Mary throw chance to come back and score a touchdown and take away our three-point lead, when they missed that chance and the crowd roared and our team exploded off the benches and flooded the field to celebrate our win, everything in me stopped.
And all I could do was find Jordan.
The level of noise that stadium erupted into was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. It was dizzying, the roaring cheers and the sea of people crashing onto the field and swallowing it up. In a matter of seconds, it went from where you could see every yard of green on the field to where you couldn’t see a single square patch of it.
It was absolutely surreal.
We weren’t in our little hometown. No, we were on a college team’s field, in a stadium twenty-times the size of our small one back home, and we had the entire state watching.
Watching us win.
We won.
It sank in more and more as adrenaline coursed through me, and I searched the crowd frantically, trying to find Jordan. There were already swarms of players and reporters and fans on the field, but I looked toward the middle of it, knowing he would have jogged over to shake hands with the opposing coach before anything else.
There were too many people, and the more that flooded the field, the more my chest tightened. I wanted to find him, but why? What would I do? What would I say? Congrats on the win, Coach? Nothing was right, nothing was enough, and yet I couldn’t stop myself from seeking him out. It was as if I didn’t have a choice at all.
I was still searching for the right words to say once I did find him when there was a little clearing in the field, and there Jordan was, jogging back toward our sideline as reporters chased after him.
He kept his head down, speaking from the corner of his mouth to a few of them but focusing on getting back to where his team was. I imagined he was telling them he’d talk to them at the press conference, or that he just wanted a moment with his players. But they were relentless, all wanting a piece, and when he looked up and saw me staring at him from ten yards away, he slowed to a walk, and then to a complete stop.
It was only a few seconds, if even that.
It was just a small, microscopic moment.
He looked at me. And I looked at him. And all the noise, the chaos, the thrill of the win faded, along with the crowd around us. Time was like an elastic band between us, and I knew he felt it, too — like those few seconds were hours, instead. He just watched me, and I watched him, and we somehow said everything, but nothing at all.
The corner of my mouth lifted, and his did the same.
You did it, I told him with my eyes.
We did it, he told me with his.
I swallowed.
His jaw clenched.
Tears flooded my eyes.
His brows drew together.
Then, as fast as the moment had come, it was gone.
I saw it — the moment Jordan decided not to run to me. His right knee jerked forward automatically, his body leaning into the motion, but he stopped himself, and pulled back, and in his eyes I saw the truth I’d reminded myself of all week reflected back at me.
This was it for us.
We were over.
All of that happened in a matter of seconds, though it felt like an entire lifetime to me, and then all at once, the universe snapped back into action, and Jordan was enveloped first by a few of the players giving him a Gatorade bath from our bright orange water cooler, and then by the sea of reporters.