CHAPTER 28
Graham
I was as healthy as a stallion in his prime.
At least, that’s the way I preferred to view the results of my Wildcats physical. It was a hell of a lot better than the doctor who examined me put it when he’d proclaimed me to be “as healthy as a horse.”
Ty and I had spent the morning getting our paperwork in for our check-ups, and the last several days had been spent trying to iron out my contract.
We had a few months until training camp, but there was a hell of a lot of things to do to get ready for intensive training. And it all had to be done before every day was taken up by working my ass off physically, trying to live up to the millions of dollars given to me in my contract.
Truthfully, I still wasn’t used to having money. Ty and I still ate the way we did in college. But I tried to keep my options healthy, even if my wide receiver loved mom-and-pop, greasy spoon restaurants.
“Best burger in Denver,” Ty said after he’d chewed through more than half of a triple burger at one of our local meeting places.
I smirked at him as I plowed through a huge omelet with veggies and steak. No way was I wasting calories on a burger with processed cheese and crappy buns. I ate plenty of healthy carbs and protein, and I was going to have to ramp up my calorie intake in preparation for more intense off-season workouts, but no way in hell was I going to eat as poorly as I did in college. Even if the restaurant we were in reminded me of the cheap places I’d haunted in college.
“I wouldn’t know,” I rumbled as I devoured the rest of the veggies and eggs on my plate.
“Dude, you have to live a little,” Ty said, and then proceeded to consume every fry on his plate.
“I live just fine,” I informed him as I dropped my fork on my empty plate.
Ty and I had developed a relationship I appreciated. Not only was he an amazing football player, he was a pretty decent guy.
Every time we met up for off-season practice, I felt more and more comfortable with him, and surprisingly, I no longer thought about my words when we were talking. He’d told me enough about his own failures and mistakes that I didn’t mind revealing my own.
“I know you like food,” he mused. “So it isn’t that you don’t like to eat.”
I leaned back against the worn leather of our booth. “I’m a professional athlete. Most of the time, I prefer to eat healthy.”
“You eat every few hours,” he observed.
“It keeps me from having energy spikes,” I explained.
“Does it help?” he asked curiously.
I had to remind myself that Ty was a rookie, and was just out of college ball. Most college guys weren’t as picky about their diet. I knew I hadn’t been. “It helps. It’s not that I don’t want to eat stuff that isn’t exactly part of my diet, but I’m saving it for restaurants with better food.”
I was hoping that Lauren would go try out some of the best restaurants in the city with me, but we hadn’t gotten the time to do it yet.
She’d been gone to DC for seven days, three hours, and a handful of minutes. And I felt every damn moment of her absence since the day I’d dropped her off at the airport.
“Now that you’re making the big bucks?” Ty joked.
“I got a good contract,” I confirmed. “And yours is a hell of a lot better than I got in my rookie year.”
“I need to get this right,” Ty confessed. “I’m out to prove myself. Show the Cats that they didn’t make a mistake.”
He was nervous. I already knew he was sweating the start of the season as much as I was. “I’m with you,” I said. “I have a lot to prove for the money they gave me, and I want to earn my bonuses.”
“It’s not just the Cats,” he admitted. “Some of it is personal.”
I wanted to ask him why, but I sensed from his expression that he didn’t want to talk about it, so I didn’t pry. “Just go out there and do what you do in practice, and you’ll be fine. You’re the best receiver I’ve ever had.”
Ty was lightning fast, and he could pull a ball in even if the throw wasn’t completely accurate. He adjusted instinctively, and that wasn’t a talent a guy could really learn. A receiver had it or they didn’t.
“Yeah. You toss a decent ball, so you’ll make me look good,” he said with a laugh.
Funny thing about Ty…he might be cocky at times, but he still lacked confidence in himself.
“Lauren is going to help me with my accuracy,” I shared. “I dislocated my shoulder at the end of last season, and my aim is slightly off now.”
Ty looked confused. “She knows football?”
I shook my head. “She knows as much as a regular fan, but it’s her brain power that’s going to help me get even better. She’s gifted in physics. After watching some of my tapes of last year’s games, she thinks she can help me adjust my throws to accommodate the differences since my shoulder injury.”
Ty hesitated before he asked, “Do you think she can help me? I’m up for all the help I can get, and I could use your dietary advice. I want every edge I can get.”
I appreciated the fact that Ty was willing to take help. I’d been an asshole in my rookie year, positive I knew everything there was to know. And I’d been so damn wrong.
I shrugged. “I know she’d try.”
“I’ve been in touch with some of the other guys on offense, and most of them would like to come out and toss some balls.”
I hesitated. Although I wanted to do some unofficial practice with the other critical members of the offense, a few of them weren’t exactly friends. I’d met some of them during my college years, and I hadn’t exactly made a good impression.
“Most of them don’t like me,” I warned Ty.
He shook his head. “They don’t know you, dude. Not really.”
“I did what I had to do to bust their balls during college and last year in New England.”
“You want this offense to be the best in the league?” Ty asked, staring at me as though he already knew the answer.
“You know I do,” I snapped back.
“Then it’s time to be a team player, dude. You don’t have to kiss their ass. You just have to be able to judge their strengths and weaknesses.”
I clenched my fists to my sides. “You don’t understand,” I said roughly. “I actually ran right over some of them to get to the Cats.”
I wasn’t proud of my history, but I knew some of my offensive members would just as soon bury me as play with me.
Ty leaned back and crossed his beefy arms across his chest. “Then explain it to me. Most of them are willing to come out and practice.”
“I’m fucked up in the head,” I said hoarsely. “Or at least I was before I got treatment.”
Ty frowned. “Depression?”
I shook my head slowly. “Bipolar.”
“Fuck, dude. I just learned to respect you even more than I already do.”
I scowled at him. “Why? I just told you that I’m messed up.”
“You had a hell of a lot more obstacles than I did,” he said thoughtfully. “It’s a tough disorder to get under control.”
Ty wasn’t looking at me like I was mental. In fact, his expression didn’t change much at all. “It got out of control soon after I got into college ball. My roommates eventually had to take me into the hospital. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. It took until my senior year to get me stable.”
“Do you miss it?” he asked carefully.
“What?”
“The manic phases. Do you miss them?”
I knew what he was asking. I was stabilized on medication, but I knew for some bipolar patients, the temptation of stopping their medications was nearly impossible to ignore. During a manic episode, I had felt like I could do anything. The high I’d had was addicting. I was king of the world, and there was nothing I couldn’t do when I was manic. However, I wasn’t in control of my actions most of the time. I was somebody else. Not to mention the fact that the mania had been closely followed by crippling bouts of bipolar depression.
“A little,” I confessed. “Every once in a while, I wish I could feel like I did when I was manic, but I wasn’t in control, and that was worse than the temptation to feel invincible again. My doctors tell me that since I caught it early, I wasn’t as likely to go off meds. But I think it’s the loss of control that really keeps me grounded. I don’t want to go there again.”
Some bipolar patients hated stability. They felt flat emotionally, so they opted for going through the highs and lows, even if they were out of their mind.
“Honestly, I never would have known if you hadn’t told me,” Ty observed. “Do you still have symptoms?”
For a moment, I’d forgotten that Ty was into mental illnesses. It had been his major in college, so he was obviously curious. Strangely, I didn’t mind talking to him about it because there was no judgment in his questions.
I shrugged. “I have small highs and lows, but nothing major. They feel more like part of life.”
“We all get that shit,” Ty said calmly. “Yours might be a little different because of the disorder. But your focus is incredible.”
“I’ve been working on it.”
“It shows,” Ty answered.
“But that doesn’t mean that something can’t happen. Something bad.”
My illness was like walking on a very thin tightrope. At any time, I could topple off the line and shatter when I hit the ground.
“You can’t focus on that, Graham,” Ty insisted. “You’ve been doing good for a couple of years. Yeah, you have a tough disorder, but you should be pretty damn happy with how far you’ve come. I have a cousin who is bipolar, and she goes off her meds at least once a month. She craves those highs. She’s never been stable for long.”
“I want to be successful,” I confessed. “I want that more than I want to be high.”
“You chose your course and you stuck to it until you were able to function.”
“It was like being in hell,” I said hoarsely. I’d never been able to forget those years of being out of control, unable to play good football consistently.
“But you fought your way back to Earth. Never forget that. If, at any time, you need my help, I’m there,” Ty offered.
I had to swallow the lump that formed in my throat. Nobody had ever offered to help me. Maybe because I’d never wanted to risk telling anybody. “Thanks,” I said in a husky tone. “I have good doctors right now, and I’m in counseling. But I’ll take you up on that offer if I ever slip.”
It felt so damn good to know I had support if I needed it. It was something I’d never really experienced before.
Ty nodded. “Good,” he answered. “How’s the counseling?”
I scowled. “Like being raked over a hot bed of coals. I hate having shit dragged out of me that I’d prefer not to remember.”
Ty chuckled. “It’s good for you. And hey…you have Lauren to support you, right? She knows?”
I nodded sharply. “She knows. But I fucked up with her so much that she doesn’t trust me. Not that I blame her.”
Ty had been a good listener, and he knew where I was right now with Lauren. “What do you want from her?” Ty questioned.
The tension in my body eased, and my fists relaxed beneath the table. I slumped back on the bench seat, feeling defeated. “I don’t know.”
“Bullshit. I think you know,” Ty countered.
“Lauren is part of my soul,” I said, knowing what I told Ty was the truth. “She’s been there for me for so long that I can’t lose her.”
“I think you’re in love with her,” Ty challenged.
“I can’t have that,” I said angrily. “I can’t. Not with her. She deserves a guy who can treat her like the fucking amazing woman she is. She doesn’t need to be sitting on a bomb that could explode at any time. She should be with somebody who doesn’t run the risk of having bipolar kids someday. And I’ve done some pretty shitty things to her.”
“Maybe,” Ty analyzed. “But no relationship is perfect. And are you willing to give her up knowing that she could end up with somebody far worse than you? You’ve done some pretty nice things for her, too. And yeah, you screwed up, but everything you’ve ever done was out of fear, not because you’re an asshole.”
“I am an asshole,” I argued.
“We all are at times,” Ty told me. He hesitated before he asked, “So are you up to meeting some of our teammates?”
“I have to go pick up Lauren.” Thank fuck her plane was coming in later today. “Go ahead and set it up.”
Ty grinned. “You won’t be sorry. The more off-season practice we get, the better.”
I slid out of the booth and stood. “I hope you’re right,” I grumbled as I grabbed my jacket.
“I’m pretty much always right,” he said cockily. “But I wouldn’t mind if you worked with me on my diet, and I’ll take whatever advice I can get from Lauren.”
“She’s off-limits for anything except advice,” I warned him as I put on my leather jacket.
He shot me a knowing smirk, but he didn’t comment. I could see the satisfied look on my wide receiver’s face as I grabbed my car keys and went out the door to go get Lauren.