Chapter15
“Max, listen, you know we like your skills on the court. But the fact is, we’re very concerned about your reputation for our organization.”
Max had been expecting the call from the big guys to come in and discuss his contract. It was still difficult to wrap his head around how badly he’d screwed everything up. Eli had been right, he’d blown the life he’d had going, the dream career and the most gorgeous girl, and for what? Because he was so scared that he’d screw up, he got drunk and screwed up in the biggest way. He was sure that in his head, he’d been enjoying what he’d been doing in the moment, but it was a few moments of fun that he couldn’t even remember for anything.
“I know I messed up last night. And I know it doesn’t make me look good.” Max wanted to make a point, but he couldn’t think of what point he should be making. What excuse could he even make for himself? He’d been caught red-handed. And the truth was he wasn’t even sure he wanted to make an excuse for himself; he probably didn’t deserve it anyway.
“Messed up really doesn’t help, Max. We know that Eli worked with you, explained that you were on your last chance to turn yourself around. We even know that he had set up a deal with Aaliyah to repair your reputation from a bad playboy to a decent guy and athlete.”
Max’s heart hurt just hearing her name.
“Even with everything on the line, you still couldn’t stay out of trouble. And even worse, you made it worse for yourself. Your reputation looked bad before; it’s atrocious now. A guy who cheats on his hospitalized girlfriend the same night he takes her out to an event? What kind of man is that?”
It had been a week, and Max still hadn’t heard from Aaliyah. He’d tried everything he could think of. Sending countless bouquets of flowers, boxes of chocolates, and stuffed bears hadn’t worked. Calling and texting had resulted in no response at all. He was out of ideas of anything he could do to fix things with her. At this point, he just wanted to talk to her, but she wouldn’t even allow that much.
The media had died down, not hounding him outside of his apartment or at the entrance to practice. But that didn’t mean they still weren’t posting the old pictures all over the place, and the speculation after he’d left his last meeting was making fans buzz. But none of that mattered. What mattered was how much he missed Aaliyah.
Without her in his life, he felt as if he was missing something important. Like an arm, or a leg, or, as cheesy as it sounded even to him, his heart. Night after night, he thought about just driving to her house and banging on the door until she let him in, until she would listen to what he had to say. Maybe if he hadn’t missed her first calls when she’d first found out, or maybe if he’d taken action that day instead of waiting to get his head out of his guilt, she might have answered. But he didn’t think he could take it if she never opened the door for him.
By the end of the week, Max couldn’t take being cooped up any longer. All he’d been doing for the whole week was sitting in his apartment, going to practice for a team that hadn’t even decided if they were going to keep him, and then going back to his apartment where he stayed off of his social media profiles and sulked. But when the paparazzi stopped stalking outside of his apartment to see if there were going to be any other girls coming or going, which there hadn’t been, he decided he needed to get out.
There was no chance he was going to call anyone from the team; those guys were keeping their distance, as if being cut from the team could be contagious. There was only one other place he wanted to be, and that was with his brother. If the cameras hadn’t died down, he would have avoided his mother’s house, needing even more now to protect his brother’s privacy, but with the media slowing, he risked the drive.
“Make sure no one is following behind, please,” he told his driver. He tried to relax in the privacy of the back seat as he watched the busy city disappear through the window and trees and green grass replace the tall buildings. With the openness of the country, Max could feel the knot that had been in his chest since everything had happened loosen a bit so he could finally breathe. Getting close to home, knowing he was going to see his family, always made everything easier for him.
His mother opened the door before he could even turn the knob to open it himself. She wrapped him in a hug, and he could feel the knot loosen even further.
“You should have come sooner,” she scolded him. “We could have been there for you.”
Max nodded; he really wished he had come earlier. “I didn’t want the paparazzi following me out here.”
His mother pulled away from her hug to look at him. “You don’t have to keep being so protective of him. He’s a big boy and can handle the world better than you think he can.”
He knew his mother was right; he didn’t have to keep hiding Sammy just to keep him safe. When Max had become an athlete, he was equally as excited to help Sammy as he was terrified that he would become a spectacle. His brother didn’t have much of an exciting life, even with the help that Max provided, but at least he had his dignity, and that was something Max wanted to protect, not exploit.
“Well, you really screwed it up this time, didn’t you?”
Max barely had the bedroom door even open before his brother was lecturing him.
“Yeah, trust me, I know.”
“So let me get this straight, you had the perfect girl that you love, you had a career people envy, and what… you just wanted more? Hot chick on the side? I mean, don’t get me wrong, she is definitely hot, but she’s not nearly as good looking as Aaliyah is.”
Max sat heavily in the recliner next to Sammy’s bed. “It wasn’t like that.” He scowled.
“Then tell me what it was like. ‘Cause I certainly don’t understand why you would do something so stupid.”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“You know, I may not get out of this bed… ever… but that doesn’t mean that I don’t watch people. That I don’t observe the way they act and the things they do. In the beginning, I always thought your partying was just for fun, just because you were famous, rich, and good looking. But now, I don’t think that. I think there’s something more.”
Sammy paused, and Max held his breath while he waited for him to say what he thought it was. He had tried to hide it all so much, never wanting Sammy to see how he was hurting, because his brother was hurting far more than him.
“I think it’s greed.”
Max shot up out of the recliner. “How the hell could you say that? I’ve always given you everything I have! How could you possibly think that all of this is because of greed?” He couldn’t believe how angry he was at what Sammy had said. Max had always been generous with everything. He had tried to give his brother and his mother the best life he could.
But Sammy stayed calm, not letting Max’s outburst get to him. “So what is it then?”
“It’s you!”
Max startled himself with his own outburst confession, but Sammy’s face stayed passive. He didn’t look hurt or angry by what Max had said; he looked…interested.
“Go on,” he told him.
Now that the words were out in the open instead of just in his head, he couldn’t calm his body down. He shouldn’t be burdening his brother with this—Sammy had enough on his plate just wondering if he was going to wake up in the morning. But he couldn’t keep it inside of him any longer.
“My whole life, I’ve had to watch as my big brother fell apart in front of me. One day you could shoot hoops just as well as me, and then it seemed like the next, you couldn’t get your arms to do it. I’d lie awake at night when you would stay in the hospital and wonder why you were there and it wasn’t me. Why was I the lucky one? So I pushed myself as hard as I could so that I was not only living my life to the fullest, but living for us both.”
His heart was racing as his words tumbled out of him, speeding away like a freight train, and there was no stopping them.
“And in the beginning of it all, yeah, the money and girls and drinking were all for fun. I liked that I could tell you stories and make you laugh, let you keep living through me. But then it became…”
Max ran out of words. What exactly did it all become?
“A distraction.” The word popped out before he thought about it, but the moment he said it, he knew that’s exactly what they had all been.
“A distraction from what?” Sammy asked.
“From life! From needing to be the best, to pack every moment full of something, from feeling guilty for even having these thoughts and complaints about my own life, and from seeing you go downhill with every visit I made. It was all too much, and I needed my head to be on something, anything else. The drinking made me fuzzy and the girls helped me to forget, even for a few minutes.”
“And Aaliyah didn’t help you forget?”
“No,” Max answered. “She made me happy.”
“So, then why did you…”
“Because I wasn’t good enough for her!” Max felt as if his chest might burst with the truth, but there it was, lying like a heavy stone between them.
His mouth opened and shut like a fish as if somehow he could bring the truth back, as if somehow he could take back the last five minutes and continue hiding from the reality of his thoughts. But words, just like actions, are permanent. Once they’re out there, you can’t take them back.
Max sat down on the edge of his brother’s bed in silence for a moment as he digested all he’d just said.
“I knew my past, the way I hid myself behind any distraction I could find. What was worse was so did everyone else, so did she. Fans, family, media, the team… everyone judged me for everything I’d done before. I was so sure I was going to screw it up, so sure I was going to hurt her…”
“That you made sure it happened anyway,” his brother finished.
Max shook his head vehemently. “No, I didn’t want it to. I don’t even remember doing it.”
Sammy did his best to shrug. “Then it looks like your need for a distraction took over your need for her.”
Heavy. That was the only way Max could describe how he felt. His whole body, his soul, felt like it was made of lead. Even turning his head took every ounce he had.
“I didn’t want a distraction, but that’s what I did anyway. I was so scared of being with her, of hurting her, that I distracted myself in the worst way possible.” He took a deep breath. “So, what do I do now?”
“Do you love her?”
Max nodded.
“Then you need to actually tell her that. You need to let her see the darker side of you, the things you’ve kept hidden away, so she can understand why you did what you did. And the thing you have to remember, most of all, was everyone knew your past—family, fans, the team, even her. But if you notice, she was the one person that you left off the list of those who judged you.”