The Wall of Winnipeg and Me - Mariana Zapata Page 0,210
you to.”
I smiled. “Sheesh. I just wanted to make sure. I want to go. I want to be where you are.” Before I thought twice about it, I told him what I would realize later was the most significant absolute truth in my life. “Home is where you are. I would go anywhere for you if you wanted me to be there.”
One of Aiden’s palms slid down the length of my spine, ending at the small of my back. He seemed to talk into my hair. “I don’t know anything about relationships, Van, but I know I love you. I know I’ve waited my entire life to love you, and I’ll do whatever I have to, to make this work.”
Maybe that was the thing about love I never understood before Aiden. Like football and art, like anything that anyone in the world has ever wanted, love was a dream. And just like a dream, there were no assurances behind it. It didn’t grow on its own. It didn’t blossom without food to feed it.
It was the greatest in its subtleties.
It was the strongest in its selflessness.
And it could be forever with someone who wasn’t afraid to never give up on the possibilities it presents.
Epilogue
“IT’S OVER. THE SAN DIEGO GUARDS HAVE MADE THE COMEBACK OF A LIFETIME. THEY’RE GOING TO THE SUPER—”
I smiled, and bounced the two butts on each of my thighs as the television anchors went over the game that had finished an hour ago. Most of the game hadn’t gone the way anyone in the box wanted it to. Hell, I thought at least 70 percent of the audience hadn’t wanted things to go the way they had.
Because the Guards had been losing by fifteen up until the last quarter. The disappointment in the team’s family box had been tangible. Heavy and sedated, I thought we were all some degree of numb up through the beginning of the fourth quarter.
We all wanted them to win, but for me, I probably wanted it at a little more than everyone else in the room besides the worried mothers.
This was Aiden’s last season, and I’d known how badly he wanted to win. How much he wanted to go to the biggest game of them all. For once.
He was arguably the best defensive end in the league and had been his entire career. He’d won player of the year three more times since we’d gotten married, been to every All Star Bowl, and won achievements on television award shows… But he still hadn’t gotten a ring. The Ring. He had made it to the playoffs but the teams he was on had never made it to the championship before the big game until now.
And in this last season, the team had been doing so well, everyone had assumed this would finally be it. Then, it had all started to go terribly wrong, and the dream began to slip away. One of the linebackers had dislocated his shoulder. A cornerback had limped off the field after a play. The team’s defense had been in shambles. But in some sort of miracle, the Guards’ offense staged the comeback of the century, the defense got it together, and they won.
Seeing it with my own eyes didn’t help make it more believable.
They had won. They’d fucking won. I felt like I’d won. As if I’d be the one going to the big game in two weeks.
“You want me to take one of them?” one of the wide receiver’s girlfriends asked from her spot in the seat next to me as we hung out in the room that had been assigned for team members’ families.
I gave her an appreciative smile and shook my head. “I got it, thanks. I’m sure they’ll be out in a minute.”
The younger woman nodded, wringing her hands as she smiled wide. “Yeah. I can’t wait.” She bit her lip and looked around, her knees bobbing under the table. The energy coming off of her was infectious.
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Yeah, yeah.” She smiled. An early-twenties brunette, I knew she hadn’t been with her boyfriend for long. Last season, there had been a different woman who showed up to the family room for number eighty. “I want to scream. I can’t believe they did it.” Her voice had started to rise in volume before her eyes strayed to the two little monsters on my knees. “Matt said Aiden was planning on retiring after this season.”