had my ass in a seatbelt and carried on with the partying when we made it to Cannon Beach. I’m sorry.” I scrub my face with my hands. I feel the knot in my stomach. “I fucked everything up, man.”
I can’t hold the tears back anymore. And I don’t even try to stop them at this point. I cry for I don’t know how long…until my throat is killing me and my eyes are burning.
“I’m sorry for not looking out for Alexa. You’d probably be trying to beat my ass up for not looking after her better, but to be honest I can’t even look after myself.” I take a deep breath. “If it weren’t for Macy hanging on to me I would have self-destructed by now and somebody would be visiting me out here as well. She’s the glue holding me together right now.”
I look around and see an older gentleman laying flowers down on a newly covered grave.
“I’m going to be better if not for myself, then for you. For Macy.” I roll my neck and some of the tension releases. It feels good to get this all out. “She might be pregnant, man.” I shake my head in disbelief. “Shitty timing but isn’t everything in life anymore?”
“Macy’s that perfect ball that lands right in my hands leading me to score a touchdown. She’s my touchdown. I’ve spent so much time treating her like a defensive lineman trying to side step her and run my play.” It’s so easy comparing Macy to football for Steven, he’d understand exactly what I was saying. “She’s been trying to tackle me every day. Trying to slow me down or change my course but I know her moves even before she does. I beat her every time.” I shrug knowing that’s a lie. More like beat myself.
I reach for a leaf on the ground and hold it up in the air and let the wind take it away. “I should be treating her like she’s the game ball that Coach gives me after the game. I was so caught up in myself that I barely paid her any attention. And she still wants me, like nothing has ever changed when everything has.”
I pick up another leaf and let the wind take it away again. “She told me she thinks she is pregnant and you want to know what I said?” I shake my head. “I asked if it was mine. I was a fucking tool and I didn’t care. I lost my ride to school, to football, Macy told me she might be pregnant and you want to know what I was worried about? When was I going to get high again?” I laugh bitterly at myself. “What an asshole I am.”
The freezing winter winds pick up and the clouds are turning grey. I stand and brush my jeans off. I take the jersey that I brought for Steven and lay it over his headstone. It’s a Ducks jersey with Steven’s last name Griffin and his number, now mine, on it. “This is yours, man. Not a day goes by when I’m on that field that I’m not playing for you.”
I stand there just staring at it before walking away. I don’t feel like going back to my parents’ house so I wander around town and end up where I always do.
Canby High School’s football field.
Going over to the bleachers I find Cash sitting there staring at the field. I should turn around and leave but I don’t. I need to do this too. It’s another step in the right direction.
I climb the stairs and sit a few rows behind Cash. I wait for him to tell me to leave and if he did, I’d leave. It gets darker outside and a few snowflakes start to fall.
“I’m sorry.” There, I’ve said it. I don’t feel any better about it but it’s out there hanging in the air between us. The hardest two fucking words to say and it’s taken three years to utter the simplest phrase that means so much.
Cash doesn’t respond or even acknowledge that he heard me. Okay, I deserve this. He turns his body and looks up at me. “I want you to tell me why? Why did you fuck my girl when you had your own?”
I hang my head, “I didn’t fuck her.”
“Did you want to?” he raises an eyebrow. “Don’t bullshit me either. Tell me the fucking truth.”
“Honestly…at that moment, yes. I did.” He asked for the