Surviving Regret (21 page)

Jackie grabs my hand, “Thank you.”

I nod and take a seat in the chair across from hers.

“When Steven was five, he fell down those stairs,” she nods toward the back steps. “He jumped up and said, ‘That’s awesome!’”

I laugh and it feels good. For the first time in a while it doesn’t feel forced.

“He was so crazy.” I laugh again shaking my head. “First time I ever met him and he asked me if I wanted to join the mafia with him.”

Jackie laughs. “He was obsessed with the mafia after John let him watch
ScarFace
when he was three. Thank God he got into football after that.”

“You know, it’s funny. None of us were into football until you guys all stuck us in peewee and Cash was so fucking good we all had to one-up him. And then Steven goes and wins the most valuable player.”

She smiles too wide but her eyes give her away. She misses him and that ache hasn’t dulled in three years.

“I’ve never said it… and…” I draw in a deep breath and look over at her reaching for her hand. Tears stream down her cheeks and it takes everything in my power not to cry too. “I’m sorry.”

Jackie tries to talk but nothing comes out. She clears her voice a few times. “You don’t have to be sorry, Landon. It happened. Yes, I lost my baby boy, but nothing we can do will bring him back. You guys made a mistake and…” she can’t say it. “You dwelling on it does nothing but make you miserable. Live for him, Landon. Be the guy he grew up playing football with. The boy he talked about constantly as one of the best wide receivers. Be what Steven would want you to be…be the best.”

We both sit there lost in our own thoughts of Steven. The silence starts to get to me so I feel the need to talk. “Steven’s probably shaking his head up there at me. I’m a mess, Jackie. Everything I touch turns to shit but I don’t know what to do or how to fix it.”

“Let me ask you something?” She stares intently into my eyes. “Do you blame yourself for that night?” I nod but she holds a hand up. “Think about it hard before you answer me.”

I sit and ponder it for a second but I don’t need to. “I know it was my fault.”

“Landon, you acting like this isn’t healthy.”

“I know.” And then I feel the need to tell her since I haven’t told anyone yet. “I lost my scholarship and they kicked me off the team.”

“Why?” Her face full of concern.

“Failed a drug test.”

Her eyes close briefly, “Landon, you know going into a Bowl game the NCAA tests you. Why would you risk that? That shit follows you into the draft.”

“I know,” I say in a defeated tone.

Josh and Connor walk in while Jackie and I are talking. Both stop and do a double-take. Josh rubs his eyes like he can’t actually be seeing me.

“Man,” Josh is the first to speak. “I never thought I’d see you again unless it was on the big screen running down the football field.”

Josh looks the most like Steven, even acts like him too. “Nah, man.”

“Nice you see your pretty face around here,” Connor says taking the orange juice out of the fridge and drinking right from the container.

“Thanks.”

Jackie waits until both of them leave the kitchen. “Have you spoken to Cash?”

I look away because I feel like all I’m doing is hurting her even more. “No. We barely talk anymore.”

She sighs loudly. “You need to talk to him. He needs you and you need him, Landon. Steven would be livid if he knew the two of you lost yourselves like this. Be there for each other and let him be there for you. You need it more than you know.”

I stand and take my cup to the sink. “I know,” I answer and stare out the kitchen window. I know where I need to go and I need to do it now.

It’s time.

I hear three sets of footsteps coming from the front of the house. I don’t think anything of it at first. I think it’s Josh, Adam, and Connor but I know it’s not them when I hear Macy’s voice and the voice I’ve been avoiding for three years.

The atmosphere changes. I look back to Jackie and she has a sad smile on her face. I break out into a sweat as they step into the kitchen. No one notices me at first because they are looking at Jackie.

Macy’s first to see me and she comes closer providing a little buffer between me and Alexa. Madison notices me next and she goes to take a seat next to Jackie. Alexa turns and our eyes connect and all I hear is her yelling to save Steven.

My stomach grumbles threatening to throw up the little bit of coffee I had this morning. I lift my hand up to adjust my hat and pull it a little lower. Alexa steps closer to me. She’s standing right in front of me breathing hard.

She reaches up and it catches me off guard at first when she pushes me backwards. My back is up against the kitchen sink. Jackie stands ready to put her mom hat on and break us apart. Macy slides out of the way just a bit and places a hand on her stomach. Alexa then starts beating on my chest with her fist.

“Just because you’re fucked up,” Alexa motions to Madison who moved next to Macy, “or she’s fucked, doesn’t mean we’re not, you selfish bastard. I’m tired of seeing you two like this. It doesn’t mean that Cash and Macy aren’t dying inside either. We’re all fucked up forever.”

The room goes quiet and Alexa’s hands fall away from my chest.

I’m barely holding it in right now. If I thought losing my scholarship was bad this is so much worse. Hearing it come from Alexa cuts deeper than anything anyone could throw at me. She’s right we all are fucked up and I am being selfish and dealing with it in my own ways. My ways are fucked up, I know this, but I can’t find that sliver of hope anymore.

I don’t know what to say to her that will make any of this better. I’ve got to just get out of here. I look up and see Cash and that right there is the icing on the cake.

I leave Jackie’s without a word to anyone. No one deserves another apology before Steven and that’s exactly where I’m going.

When I pull up to the cemetery not far from Jackie’s house I rest my head back against the headrest giving myself a pep talk. “You can do this, Land. He’s your best friend.” I take a deep breath then reach for the door handle and climb out of my truck. It’s freezing and I welcome the bitterness.

I take a few steps then turn around. I forget something that I brought for Steven. I find it on the passenger seat and toss it on my shoulder.

Walking through the maze of headstones, I finally am face to face with Steven’s final resting place.

Steven Daniel Griffin

October 10, 1992 - December 5, 2010

Your memory will always live on within the souls you touched.

I bow my head and will the tears away. I take a seat on the cold, hard ground and rest my back against the headstone. Bringing my knees up to my chest I rest my arms on them and let my head fall forward.

What do I say? I think to myself. I shake my head because now I’m asking and answering my own questions. So, here goes nothing.

“Hey, buddy,” this feels so wrong but so right too. “I’m sorry it’s been three years before I finally came back for a visit. I figure you had enough time to cool off by now.” I laugh to myself.

I pinch the bridge of my nose. “I’m sorry. I never apologized.” I take a shuttering breath, “I’m sorry for causing you to crash. Everyone says it was just an accident and to not blame myself but I don’t see it like that. I shouldn’t have been drinking, smoking, and carrying on in the car. I should have 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 truth.

“What else did you do with her?”

“We made out freshman year while we were studying. We were sober and wanted to see if there were any feelings there. There weren’t.” I wait for him to say something, anything, but he doesn’t. So I ask, because it’s only fair, “Did you sleep with Macy?”

He shakes his head, “No. I never touched Macy like that. Never even thought about it.”

“So you didn’t do anything?”

He smirks, cocky asshole. “I bit her fucking neck once trying to prove to her that there was nothing between us.”

I wait to see if he blinks, it’s his tell. When he blinks he’s lying. It never comes.

Kicking my feet up on the bench in front of me I stretch out. I think we’re done but we’re not, probably not even close.

“You had no right to call Madison a whore.” That wasn’t what I was expecting him to say but now I know he’s talked to Macy and I’m not surprised she told him that.

“You’re right. I’m sorry for that too.” And I am and I’ll apologize to Madison at some point too.

“Why couldn’t you see that it wasn’t just you hurting?”

“I’m sorry that I don’t want to feel. Forgive me for being selfish,” I can’t hold back the bitterness that tinges my words. “What I can’t understand is that people can’t see that I’m not doing this for them. I don’t do it to feel this way. I do it to not feel.”

Cash looks at me, really looks at me for the first since the accident. He sees that things will never be the same for any of us, especially for me. He sees the blame I’m holding on my shoulders. “It’s never gonna be the same, man,” I say, then bring the beer to my lips.

“I know.”

Does he really know? Will he ever? I don’t think he’ll ever see it from my point of view. I have Steven’s death on my hands. “Do you?”

I see Cash’s face getting redder. He’s pissed that I’m challenging him. “You have so much goddamn God-given talent but you waste it! You fucking waste it because you’re depressed. Yeah, I get it, I was there too. But the eighty percent you play at is better than most who give one hundred percent. If you put forth the effort you do into forgetting, you could go pro and probably be a number one draft pick.”

I nod because what he said is the truth.

“Earn it. Being like this is a slap in the fucking face to him. He died. You lived. What good did it do that you were saved and you’re living like this? What do you think he’d say about that?”

Steven would be slapping me upside my head every day for giving into the depression, the guilt. He wouldn’t let me give into it. He’d make me fight; he’d make me see it from his side of it. Cash and I both know this but I want to know what he would do.

“What would you do if it was you?” I want to know if it was him acting crazy what he would be doing right here, right now.

“I would do what I do now. Live my life because dwelling on it doesn’t rewrite history. It happened. We can’t take it back.”