PRESENT

Friday nights in a small town carry with them the heft of the only thing that seems to matter—winning. Score a touchdown? Winning. Score an interception? Winning. Tackle the opponent’s quarterback? Winning.

Always winning. It’s what this town does, even if it’s only on Friday nights. Half of the crowd goes wild—the half that engulfs me on the chilly steel blenchers in the home section. A sea of familiar faces are lost in the conformity of purple and white as the shadows of the dying sun brush against each and every one of us.

Screaming. Chanting. Winning. I pretend as if I’m invested in the game and cheer along, but inside I’m screaming because I don’t remember what it feels like to win. I can’t begin to pinpoint the exact moment when it all began, but it seems as if I’m always losing.

I’m stuck in place, with the precarious addendum that I’m able to move my feet. I should run. I want to run, and perhaps never look back. But I can’t. There’s a pool of emotional quicksand at my feet.

My eyes scan out to the field where the coach has his best players huddled into a circle. They’re planning their next play, and I remember when I used to look down on that damn field with admiration and adoration in my eyes. I don’t remember the exact moment those feelings vanished either.

The players and the coach break from their huddle and the crowd goes wild. For what? Don’t know. Don’t particularly care.

I look to the scoreboard, not knowing how long I’ve been standing out here in the chilly autumn weather, but hoping the night will be over soon. I let out a loud yawn and my eyes shift to the concession stand on the other side of the field. I take one last glance at the scoreboard before standing to my feet.

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I reach the end of the line of the concession stand that’s about fourteen people deep and stand in place with my arms folded against each other, trying to warm my body. I should go grab my jacket from the truck, but I know if I leave the field, I’ll fall asleep in the cab.

Mr. Coach wouldn’t be happy about that. What would it look like if his prized wife should disappear in the middle of a game? Everyone would talk. That’s what people do in small town, USA—Ridgefield, Ohio, to be exact. They talk and talk until they can talk no more, but the damage is always already done.

Gossip is dangerous. It’s deadly when slipping from the lips of people who haven’t a clue what they’re talking about. I remember the whispers after the wreck. If it weren’t for my celebrity husband, I would have been dragged out into the town center and stoned to death, while a crow of rednecks stoned me, screaming whore. But he stood beside me, like good husbands do.

That was a public façade. Behind closed doors, everything has fallen apart. And why wouldn’t it? A healthy marriage isn’t built on lies and malice, which is exactly what the foundation of our once ironclad love has become. Cracks in the floor beneath us, holes in the walls around us, and a crumbling roof above us. We stand in a house of broken hearts, but it beats being out in the cold.

That’s what I used to believe. I’m not so certain anymore, about that or anything else.

I am certain however that the two soccer moms standing behind me should learn to mind their own business. They think I can’t see them. They think I can’t hear them.

I can.

I see them turn to each other, and hear them whisper. “That’s her,” the brunette says.

The blonde-haired one shushes her friend, and then without skipping a beat, their eyes are narrowed in on me, burning holes of judgment through my back. Somehow, I’m to blame for what happened that night last fall. Facts don’t matter much in the court of public opinion, which is the reason I remain tight-lipped about what really happened that night.

“Next,” a grating voice calls out and I groan to myself, but slap a stupid-wide smile on my face. “One creamer and one sugar?” she questions as she reaches for a foam cup.

“That’s just the remedy.”

“Isn’t it always?” She fills the cup and pushes it across the counter.

I dig into my back pocket and retrieve a twenty. Before I can even slap the bill on the counter, she’s nodding her head. “That’s not necessary.”

I’m not a fan of receiving preferential treatment, but when it comes to someone like Wendy Carr, I’ll take what I can get. To her, I’m the mistrusted wife of the coach who may or may not have been banging one of her students. To me, she’s a status-obsessed mean girl who never left high school. Fitting then, that she spends her weekends slinging coffee and hot dogs made of rubber.

Nobody escapes this town. I did, once. But we’re all pulled back into its abyss at one point or another.

My head begins to throb with short pauses between rhythmic punches. There’s aspirin in the truck, but once again, I know how that story ends—with me slumped over the seat, snoozing until awakened from a peaceful slumber by an enraged husband.

I maneuver around the back of the home bleachers, where an open field of grass is hidden from the revelry of the game. A dark shadow hangs over the field, while the other half is engulfed in the burning light of the game lights above.

I take a short sip of my coffee. Still too hot, it burns my tongue. I overreact, as I sometimes tend to do, and the cup slips out of my hand and onto the damp autumn ground.

I lean down to retrieve the cup, if for no other reason than to toss it into the trash. It’s a pleasant surprise that the cup remains intact, and half full. Crouched down, and hovering above the ground, I swipe the cup into my hand and take notice of someone sitting underneath the bleachers. The soft light from the field beyond the bleachers filters through the spaces in between seats, casting an angelic shadow around a blank silhouette.

For a second, I think about running. The memories a year out are still all too fresh. The pain, as sharp as a needle, threads around the four corners of my heart, but I’m drawn to the shadow. Drawn to the pain. Drawn to someone that’s hiding from the game the same way I am.

I begin a slow march to the figure, with no set game plan once I arrive. A part of me hopes it’s him, the guy that was with Nathan the night before his life was shattered into a million tiny pieces. The wreck destroyed me and it destroyed Nathan. I wonder how it affected the other him.

I duck under the first row of steel bars, and the shadow’s features become more prominent. Young male with dark hair, wearing nothing but a dark black cut-off and jeans. Basically, the probability that he’s trouble is astronomically greater than the odds that he’s who I’m looking for.

Still, I continue my slow approach from behind until I see him raise his hand to his mouth and take a sip from a can. That makes sense. Back in high school, the bleachers were where all the action was.

A loud horn sounds. Someone has scored a touchdown. From the feet stampeding against the steel above me, and the fibers of dust billowing through the thin strips of light passing through the bleachers, I believe it is The Chiefs—our team—who’s scored. The all-too-familiar voice over the busted speakers confirms it.

“Bravo,” the stranger in front of me claps one hand against a can in the other.

“You’re not supposed to be drinking on school property,” I yell from behind him.

“Oh, shit.” He throws himself to his feet and tosses the can to the ground. He twists to face me, with a shit-eating grin. “You caught me.”