Bishop
They say in order to get over someone, you have to get under someone.
In my case, it’s true.
Only I didn’t think that this was what people were referring to when they said that.
Indiana State’s Number Thirteen was a corn-fed, beef-bred giant that being under his weight was enough to make my whole body ache for about a week.
I didn’t see him coming. It was a skill that would be impressive.
If it wasn’t against my team, and I wasn’t the one face planted on the grass right now.
“You okay, buddy?” Ian’s voice was filled with concern as he helped me up.
It was never fun to be tackled and ran over with a freight train, but it was the name of the game.
I’d probably be put on concussion protocol after this game, but we still had five minutes to play and as I regained my balance, I knew that I had it in me.
But I didn’t have enough fuel to get through another two minutes before feeling like my ribs would give out if I took another breath.
Mackoy, the medical personnel during the game, talked to me on the sideline as a medical timeout was called. “Does it hurt when you take a breath?”
I nodded. I wanted to say no, but lying didn’t do anyone good.
Coach needed us to be in tiptop shape and if I couldn’t do my best, I knew I needed to sit on the sidelines.
Mackoy listened to my lungs and talked to Coach Masterson as I tried to sit up, but my chest hurt.
Coach Masterson squatted in front of me and said, “Glee will drive you to the ER and we’ll be there as soon as we can.”
I agreed because there was nothing else I could do.
I’d had injuries before. From broken bones and fractures to rib injuries.
Hopefully, this was only a rib stress fracture and nothing worse.
We had three minutes left in the game and we were up by four.
Coach talked to my teammates and I raised a hand at them while Glee, one of the assistant coaches, walked towards me so we could go to the ER.
Glee, short for Glemers, was a hard ass in practice but he was also like a father figure to all of us.
He talked about his wife and kids on our way to the ER, an obvious tactic to take my mind off the game that I wasn’t a part of anymore.
By the time we stepped foot in the closest emergency room, our team had won, as I received a notification on my phone.
There was still pain from the right side of my ribs, but I felt more relief knowing that our scores had held up against ISU.
“How you doing?” It was a text from Rikko.
I answered with a, “Stress fracture, it will be okay. Need a week’s rest.”
He must have seen the game on the web.
The advantages of rugby becoming a popular sport was that most of our games were either streamed live or televised by major networks now.
Which meant that before I could text Rikko that I couldn’t really do squat around the house for a week, he already knew it.
As senior officers, we could get away with not doing chores, but I liked to set a good example for my housemates, so I still took out the garbage and cleaned the fridge once in a while.
Garbage duty was out for a week since I had to rest, meaning no heavy lifting. And the garbage that we accumulated in a day was equivalent to a week in a normal two-person household.
“Okay, I’ll be your bitch if you need one.” He was offering, but I knew that either Ian or Jose would have me covered.
He was really a good person.
He hadn’t said much about his sister breaking up with me. He just said that he was staying out of it.
In a way, I couldn’t ask for more. He’d been there for me when Kara and I were together and as much as I wanted his support, I knew that he was also there for Scott.
It grated my nerves to no end that she was back with him.
It took all of my willpower to not straight out punch him for doing whatever he did to get her back.
I wanted to shake Kara and put a hole through Scott’s door, but in the end, anger would get me nowhere.
I loved her, and even when she looked me in the eye to tell me that she loved him and wanted to be with him instead of me, my love for her didn’t just fade away.
Every time she was around, I willed myself to walk away.
But I couldn’t.
Instead I stood there, or sat there, like a motherfucking bitch.
I wanted to reach out to her and hold her and tell her to choose me.
I wanted her to explain why she was going back to him.
I wanted her to tell me that this wasn’t real.
That what we had was real.
But I couldn’t.
And I didn’t.
Because I knew that even when she was denying me, I felt the looks that she gave me in class.
When I sat behind her, I felt her pull and I also felt the waves of sadness that claimed her.
And the two times Scott had walked her to class, I’d happened to watch the way she stood next to him, as if she couldn’t wait to get away from him. As if she’d rather be anywhere else than in his arms.
And those were the silver linings that I grabbed onto.
I’d never forget the day she told me that she didn’t love me.
That day would be forever stamped in my skull.
I was livid and I’d stomped away from her and crushed a punching bag in the gym thirty minutes after that.
But when the fog of rage cleared in my head and gave way to objective thinking, I thought about the way she kept her hands clutched onto her dress.
I remember the way her lips trembled when she’d said the words that buried us.
And I knew.
Then.
That she was hiding something from me.
And it was only a matter of time until I found out.
And because of that, I didn’t give up on her and I.
Sure, I could have any other girl underneath me and maybe that would help me get over her.
Or maybe it wouldn’t.
I’d seen the way guys used women, a lot of them, and sleep with them to forget about the woman they loved.
I found it to be worthless, time-consuming, and so much work.
Every person was different.
Every woman was unique.
So how can you expect to find comfort and the excuse of sex to look for something that you already knew that only one woman can provide?
I told Kara I’d fight for her.
And I would.
But she didn’t have to know how.
I’d never been the one to accept defeat and I wasn’t going to start learning now.
My life on the outside looked easy.
People might think I was privileged to be the son of NHL’s most profitable player and NYC’s top-billed socialite.
But what the public didn’t know was that I was good at defeating the adversities that I’d faced.
When my father’s grueling hockey training had made my young knees bruised and battered, I made myself stand up again and again to prove that no matter how much he put me down, I wouldn’t bow down to him.
When my parents had isolated my sister from the world because they were embarrassed of how different she was, instead of making me cower in their shadows, I prayed that I would be stronger everyday so that one day, I could get her into the school that she deserved so her talents could be showcased instead of hidden.
I’d learned from a young age, “Defeat is a state of mind; no one is ever defeated until defeat has been accepted as a reality.”
I was versed in Confucius and I filled myself with the theories of Einstein and Hawking.
But even I couldn’t deny the plausible wise words of the martial artist who took the world by storm and to this date, had been one of the resounding voices in my head.
The one whose words taught me to never accept defeat.
And that only I could accept defeat.
Bruce Lee.
And as my polyglot sister would say, Xie Xie.