After the Game

“I wanted to wait until closer to graduation to talk about this. You still have almost two months of school left. No reason to deal with the future just yet.”

But it was obviously bothering her. My being gone to Alabama all week had reminded her that things would change soon. Until I had spent a week away from her and Bryony, I hadn’t thought it through. Being apart from them had made me think. She must have gone through the same thing.

“I think we should talk about it now. We need to plan, and I have an idea. I spoke with my representative there, and they have family housing. You being my girlfriend and Bryony being my child, we qualify for a place in family housing. I don’t have to stay in a dorm room. Y’all can come with me.” Saying it took a weight off my shoulders I’d been carrying for months when I thought of leaving her.

Riley pulled her hand out of mine and put some space between us. I didn’t like that response. It wasn’t what I had expected. My stomach knotted up as I studied her face.

“What would we do? I have no family there to help me with Bryony. I wouldn’t be able to hold a job and pay for day care and go to school without help. I can’t just stay at the family housing and wait on you to have time for us. This is your future, Brady. All you’ve fought for. All you’ve planned on. And you need to live in a dorm and go out to bars and enjoy being in college. You don’t have a child. The fact that you’re willing to sacrifice all that for us doesn’t mean I will let you. I have plans. Plans that work for us. For me and Bryony.”

What plans? We hadn’t talked beyond my going to college and them visiting.

“I want you with me,” I told her.

A sad smile came and left. “But we can’t be. It isn’t what’s best for any of us.”

I started to argue, and she held up her hand to stop me. “I’m getting a job in Nashville. Bryony is going to day care here, and my parents are paying half of it. Nashville State Community College has online courses so I don’t have to go to all my classes on campus. For the next two years I’m going to school there, then when Bryony is ready for kindergarten we will make a move. I’ll get my teaching degree and find us a house of our own.”

I stood there as she built this future without me in it. One where she and Bryony were moving on and leaving me behind. I couldn’t find words. It was like being blindsided. I’d thought she wanted to be with me as much as I wanted to be with her. She’d said she loved me. Did love not mean the same thing to her?

“It’s what’s best for all of us,” she said.

“No! It’s what’s best for you, maybe. But not me. I love you too much to plan a life without you in it. Obviously you don’t feel the same way.”

She shook her head, her eyes filling with tears, but I was angry, hurt, and my chest felt like it was about to explode. “If you didn’t want me, why did you let me love you? I don’t fucking trust love. Does it not mean the same to anyone else? Is that it? I’m the idiot?”

“Brady, no!” she said, taking a step toward me. I backed up. It was my time to put distance between us. I couldn’t imagine planning my future and leaving her and Bryony out of it. But she had done that easily enough.

“Don’t, Riley. Don’t. You want me out of your future, fine. I never wanted you out of mine. All damn week I missed you and thought about how I couldn’t do life there without you. You are where I get my happy. You. And while I was there trying to figure out how to take you with me, you were here planning me out of your life.”

“I was here trying to prepare for what was to come. I can’t take Bryony off to a college campus, Brady. Surely you see that. She’s secure here. That’s not a place for a baby.”

Other guys did it all the time. “They have family housing for a reason, Riley! It’s obviously done all the damn time.” She was using it as an excuse.

The fact was that Riley didn’t love me the way I loved her. She’d have destroyed me in the end. If she loved me enough, she’d make it happen. But this was her excuse. Her way out.

What the hell would I do without her?

He Thinks He Wasn’t Enough for You

CHAPTER 55

RILEY

I wiped the tears from my face and took a deep breath before going back inside Brady’s house to get Bryony. He had turned his back on me and told me to leave. Our conversation was over. We were over.

Coralee frowned when she saw my face, then turned to look outside where we had been for her son.

“Thank you for dinner, but we need to be going,” I said, my voice cracking.

“What happened?” she asked me.

I picked up Bryony and put her diaper bag over my arm. “We don’t agree on next year. He sees it differently than I do,” I explained. My eyes filled with tears again. “I need to go,” I said, then hurried for the front door with Bryony on my hip.

I got her buckled into her car seat and headed for home. The tears streamed freely down my face now, and Bryony was unusually quiet. She knew something was wrong, and she wasn’t sure what to do. I didn’t like to scare her, so I tried to stop, but another sob broke free.

When we pulled into the drive, I dried my face before getting out and knew that my parents would know I had been crying. They’d want answers, and I wasn’t ready to give them that yet.

I never imagined it ending like this. But then I’d never imagined the ending. It had hurt too much to think about.

Bryony patted my face with her little hands as if to console me. I squeezed her tightly against my chest and told her I was fine.

When I walked inside, my mom looked up from the crossword puzzle she was doing on the sofa and an immediate frown crossed her face.

“What happened?”

“Mommy sad,” Bryony said by way of answering for me.

I refused to cry again in front of her. She didn’t need to be upset and confused. “Mommy is okay. Let’s get you a bath. Go pick out your pajamas and bath toys, and I’ll be right there,” I told her.

She nodded and ran down the hallway.

“We talked about next year. We don’t see it the same way. It ended badly,” I told her. “But let me get her in bed. If I talk about it, I’ll cry some more, and she doesn’t need to see that.”

Mom nodded. “Okay. Go take care of her. I’ll be here.”

She would always be there. She was my safety net. I wanted to cry thinking about how important she was to me and how making tough decisions for Bryony wasn’t just my job but what I wanted to do. Because one day I wanted her to know I was her safety net. I was always there.

Brady would look back on tonight and thank me. Maybe not to my face, but he would think it. That I saved him from throwing away his youth on a girl and a kid that wasn’t his. He deserved to live his life at college like he had always planned. Taking us with him was impossible not just for us but for him, too. He had practices and games and classes. We didn’t fit into that.

Knowing my decision was right didn’t make it any easier. Telling myself that one day it wouldn’t hurt like this didn’t help me. Not in this moment. In this moment I loved Brady Higgens, and life without him broke my heart into a million pieces.

The fear that I’d always love him was there. That this pain wouldn’t go away and that moving on would never really happen. Because my heart would go with Brady. He’d have it even when he no longer wanted it.