As I say goodbye to the fan who works at the gym’s front desk, telling him that, yes, I will do my very best to kick ass this Sunday, I do a double take when I see a familiar face.

“Hey, Garrett. I didn’t know you worked out here,” I say.

Garrett flashes me a smile, his gleaming white teeth shining. “I don’t just work out here. I work here.”

The strangest sense of déjà vu crashes into me, and I’m knocked off-kilter into a sort of twilight zone. “You do?”

“Just got the job.” He holds up a hand to high-five. I smack back, but I’m not entirely sure why we’re high-fiving a job at the gym. There’s nothing wrong with honest work, but Garrett is a left tackle. He’s supposed to be working on the gridiron.

“You just started here? What do you do?” I ask, since maybe I heard wrong. Maybe he means he landed a job on a team and he’s working out here.

“I’m a personal trainer.”

And I’m wrong. Way wrong. “That’s great,” I say woodenly. This has to be a way station. This has to be temporary. I cling to that notion. “Before you go back to the field?”

He laughs. “Wouldn’t that be nice? I’ve been putting out feelers about a job in broadcasting, or coaching, maybe even at the high school level, but until something comes through, I’m here, and I can’t complain.”

My feet feel unsteady, and it’s the oddest sensation, as if I’m not quite sure how to stand anymore. There’s only one reason why he’d be working as a personal trainer, or putting out feelers. Because he doesn’t have a job playing football, and he’ll never be able to have a job playing football.

I shove past the strange dryness in my throat that almost makes me not want to ask the next question. But morbid curiosity pushes me forward. “What happened with your knee?”

He shrugs. “It’s not going to get better.”

“It’s not?”

He shakes his head. “Tough break, but that’s how it goes.”

I grab hold of the counter, and it feels like someone yanked the carpet out from under me. Garrett’s life is my worst nightmare. I’ve played against guys who’ve had their careers curtailed by injury, but I don’t usually bump into them at my gym. Maybe I misunderstood him. “That’s it? You can’t play again? You can’t rehab?”

He chuckles deeply, sounding as warm as Santa Claus and just as wise. “Let me tell you something, brother. I did nothing but try to rehab my knee for the last two years. I did everything I could. I went and I tried out for Baltimore, made it through training camp this summer, and then in the first preseason game, my knee gave out again. God was trying to tell me something.”

I blink. “God was involved in this?” I ask, trying to make sense of the unthinkable.

“I suspect the big guy was telling me it was time to focus on something else. It’s not happening for me in football.”

Words that don’t compute. Words that make no sense. Words I never want to have to say.

“I nabbed the first job I could find. Because of this.” Garrett smiles, a big, authentic grin. Reaching into his shorts pocket, he grabs his phone, clicks to his camera roll, and shows me a picture: a tiny baby with bright eyes and a mess of dark hair.

“This is my baby daughter, Gabriela. My wife gave birth three months ago.”

“Congratulations. That’s fantastic. I’m so happy for you,” I say. The words sound genuine coming out of my mouth, and they are. But I’m not happy. Not at all. I’m more sad for his knee than happy for his kid. “Sorry about your knee, though.”

“Me, too. But what can you do? It happens. You do your best. You move on. You do something else.”

But there is nothing else, my brain screams.

“What about the money you lost?” I ask, bracing myself for the onslaught of more bad news from him.

“I’ll be okay. I was smart enough to sock at least some of it away, so I’m not going to be hurting. We’ll get by. That’s really all that matters, right? To be okay.”

Is he convincing himself, or is he telling me? I’m not entirely sure. “Do you want to get something to eat? Breakfast, maybe?”

“I wish. I have a client coming in ten minutes. Let’s do it another time?”

“Definitely.”

I leave, but I can’t shake this cloudy feeling from my head for the rest of the day. Like it’s full of static and confusion. I try to train my thoughts back on Jillian, try to think about calling Liam and Ford. But as I head to the practice field, running routes and reviewing plays, all I can think about is Garrett Snow. Everything that’s in front of me is gone from his life. Every single thing.

I know what the déjà vu sensation is. It’s déjà fear.

What happened to him could happen to me.