Falling Away Read online

  Contents

  TITLE

  COPYRIGHT

  ONE: Drifting

  TWO: Now What?

  THREE: 2:36 AM

  FOUR: "Whiskey Lullaby"

  FIVE: Ease the Ache

  SIX: How It Happened

  SEVEN: Chemistry

  EIGHT: Bare Truth and Bare Skin

  NINE: In the Bubble

  TEN: Ben-Shaped Hole

  ELEVEN: Going Home

  TWELVE: Alone With My Whiskey and My Regret

  THIRTEEN: OD

  FOURTEEN: No Man Is An Island

  FIFTEEN: Giving In

  SIXTEEN: Newborn Love: River of Passion

  SEVENTEEN: Falling Away

  EPILOGUE

  POSTSCRIPT

  PLAYLIST

  ALSO BY

  Falling Away

  By

  Jasinda Wilder

  Copyright (c) 2014 by Jasinda Wilder

  FALLING AWAY

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Cover art by Sarah Hansen of Okay Creations. Cover art copyright (c) 2014 Sarah Hansen.

  ONE: Drifting

  Ben

  I have no idea where the hell I am. And, honestly, I don't even care. I'm still headed west on the I-80 as I have been for like...shit, like a month. I mean, yeah, I know you can make it from coast to coast in like three days nonstop, but I'm not in a rush. I'm not going anywhere. I'm just...going. So I drive until I get sick of driving, and then I find a cheap motel to crash in, and I'll just stay there for a while. A day, sometimes more if I like the place. A few times I've swung off the 80 on a detour, just to meander and go wherever I feel like going.

  I've always known I was a very, very lucky guy to have the parents I do. I mean, I've never wanted for anything. Not a damned thing. But they still made me work for things, one way or another. I had to keep my grades up and help out around the house and shit, but that's to be expected anyway. But to have the financial freedom to do what I'm doing, to just drive and not worry about money? It's incredibly freeing. I've got money of my own I've been saving. Once I turned sixteen I started working part-time at the coffee shop near school, just to have my own savings. I worked there for five years, staying on when I started college. I never really spent much of what I made, so I've got some cash banked up. Plus, if I ever need more, I could just call Dad...but I won't.

  So...I drift.

  And I try not to think about Kylie.

  Which, not having much to do but drive and listen to music is...nearly impossible.

  So I make a game out of it. If I can make it ten miles without missing her, or wondering what she's doing, or thinking about calling her, I get to wallow in my own misery for five whole minutes. It's a bargain with the devil, and it's fucking pathetic, and I hate myself for it.

  But it gets the job done.

  Ten miles. Hey, look at the cow. How many cows are there in that field? God, it's only been a mile, shit. Change the radio station to the Liquid Metal station on the XM, crank it, and see if I can decipher all the lyrics to three songs in a row. Hey, it's been ten miles.

  Fuck, I miss her. I miss her strawberry blonde hair and her blue eyes and her laugh. I miss the easy way we could spend an entire day hanging out and doing homework and watching TV and driving around and exchange maybe a hundred words the entire time, because we just got each other. And then I'll indulge in memories until my heart aches and my eyes burn and I want to drive off the fucking road. I try to force my thoughts away.

  After a month of traveling this way I make it to Iowa. By then I'm bored of my own company and the inside of my truck, and sick of my own thoughts, so I rent a room on a month-by-month basis and get a job at a bar, bussing tables. It's a tiny dirty place just off the freeway and I work for cash under the table, giving the owner only my first name. It feels exciting, in a way, like I'm on the lam or something. I make friends with the line cook, Dion, and we get wasted after the bar closes, playing poker for quarters. I mess around with the waitress, a woman seven years older than me named Abby, who has lived in the same shitty little nowhere town her whole life. She's the daughter of a cocktail waitress who had drifted into town years ago, got herself knocked up and never left. Then Abby had gotten knocked up at nineteen and the pattern continued.

  It's sad.

  But Abby is kind and doesn't ask any questions about who I am, or where I came from, or where I'm going. She's content to drink cheap whisky with me in my hotel room, watch reruns of M*A*S*H and Cheers and make out, play wandering hands. That is, until she pushes me to go further and I can't...she doesn't get that. Apparently "I just can't" isn't explanation enough when I--ahem--very clearly and obviously and physically seem to want to go further with her.

  So I pack my clothes in my duffel bag, toss the bag in my truck, and I take off right then, at 4:19 in the morning.

  I drive north, up into South Dakota, and end up in another one-stoplight town a few miles off the freeway. I land a job splitting logs, which then turns into digging postholes for a fence that ends up running around a thousand-acre ranch. I stay there doing that for two and a half months, chopping firewood and digging holes and planting posts and running fence. It's hard physical work, and it keeps my mind occupied.

  Eventually, though, the work is done and I'm back in the truck. West again, through Montana, where I discover that herding cattle is a lot more boring than I thought it would be. After that I head south through the corner of Idaho, and do a three-month stint in a restaurant as a line cook.

  By this time it's winter, so I point my truck west and aim for the coast. In a little industrial town on the coast of Oregon I unload pallets of I-have-no-clue-what off a boat and load them onto a semi. I do this for a while and then head south along PCH, following the Pacific, finding work where I can in bars and restaurants, doing temporary unskilled labor for cash.

  In time, it gets easier to pass entire days without thinking about Kylie. And then days turn into weeks, and then I only think about her late at night, right before I fall asleep.

  Eventually, I stop thinking about her almost entirely.

  Almost.

  I faithfully call my parents once a week, 'cause I'm a momma's boy, deep down.

  I follow Dad's games on TV, watch him lead the league in TDs and take the Titans to the Superbowl, which is exciting, even though they ended up losing to the fucking Patriots again.

  Eventually, after spending most of the winter in San Diego working on the docks, I head eastward once again through the Southwest, this time driving through the desert with my windows open, stopping to flip burgers or pour beer or wash dishes for a week or two here and there.

  I'm restless.

  Not unhappy, just...sick of traveling. Sick of driving.

  Sick of myself.

  So when I hit the Texas border, I discover I have an affinity for the wide open spaces and the huge sky. I make my way through Texas, meandering and exploring, not in a hurry, not headed anywhere in particular. After a month or two of drifting around Texas, I end up in San Antonio. I like the city, and decide to stick around for a while. I apply for an actual job in a bar downtown, with a W-2 and everything. A month later, I'm leaning against a wall in Starbucks, waiting for my mocha, when I see the ad:

  Football players wanted for an experimental minor league team. Serious, experienced players
over eighteen. Open tryouts, May 9th at noon, Alamodome.

  Boom.

  After three seasons starting as a wide receiver for Vanderbilt, making university records for rushing and TD receptions...I make the team easy.

  God, it's good to be playing ball again. I'm fucking hungry for it. I play harder than I've ever played in my life--run faster, jump higher, make catches I didn't think were possible. It doesn't pay much, so I keep my day job at the bar working from nine to four, then practice, then home. It becomes a routine. I make friends with the guys on the team, drink with 'em, hang with 'em, go to keggers after games, big bonfire parties in the country outside the city with dozens of people getting wasted and having a great time. I get in drunken brawls, make out with wasted girls in the shadows...

  But making out never goes anywhere.

  I can't.

  I just can't.

  I don't think about Kylie much anymore and I sure don't ask Mom or Dad how she's doing. I don't want to know. I mean, I do, but I don't. If things start to get hot and heavy with a girl I can only see Kylie, and I think about how long I waited for her, how I saved my first kiss for her, saved it until I was seventeen, at which point I got drunk and wasted it by accident on Allie Mercer.

  My brain has gone haywire. I want to move on, but I can't. I freeze up. And I can't even explain it--I can't get the words out.

  Eventually, I stop bothering with girls. It never goes anywhere, and it's not fair to them to lead them on, make them think it's going somewhere it's not.

  My self-loathing is a great motivator. I turn the gut-churning hatred of my own failings into insane rushing and reception stats, which get me noticed by scouts. I mean, that's the entire point of the experimental league, after all--to get a place, other than at a university, which grooms raw talent and discovers untapped potential.

  Halfway through the season, we're in a game, in the third quarter, playing Los Angeles.

  We're up by fourteen, both TDs mine. We're on our own forty, second down. Timo Jeffries, the QB, calls the play, feints a hand-off, which gives me time to cut through the lines and sprint downfield. I slice left...BAM, the ball hits me dead center and I'm gone, blasting toward their end zone.

  Only, I'm not alone. Their defense has been double teaming me the last three drives, and it's fucking effective, goddamn them. So there are two defenders on me, and though they couldn't stop me from making the catch, they're fucking fast and they're on me like white on rice. I try a fake right, one of them buys it and I lunge left, but the other has me around the waist, dragging me down. I lean into the tackle and push forward, straining for one more yard or two.

  More defenders are rushing up the field, catching up. I'm seconds from letting myself hit the turf when I see it happen in slow motion.

  A big-ass dude with dreads hanging around his shoulders, a fierce grin on his face, is coming straight for me. I put a hand out and start to go down, but he flies at me anyway, and he hits me on an angle.

  I feel it; it's like a fucking Mack truck smashing into me. But he missed his tackle. Instead of nailing my midsection, he misjudges and his shoulder drives into my right knee.

  I hear the crack of bone snapping; feel an explosion of raw agony. I'm down, and no one knows what just happened except me and the guy who hit me. A body drives me into the dirt, and another hits my knee, and I hear someone screaming.

  It's me.

  I don't hear the whistle; don't feel anything but the pain in my knee.

  "Shit, man, you okay?" It's the guy who hit me, his helmet off, dreads dangling around his worried face. "I didn't mean it, man, I'm sorry, you okay?"

  I can't breathe from the pain.

  Someone is kneeling beside me, and I feel hands on my knee, and then I'm being lifted onto a stretcher. They set me down too hard and I feel dizziness wash over me, darkness rushes up and I'm out cold.

  TWO: Now What?

  I'm in a hospital bed. My knee is wrapped and elevated, and I'm alone.

  I just woke up from surgery. I remember agreeing to whatever they had to do. I remember saying I'd call my family afterward. I remember the mask and the anesthesia floating through me.

  And now I'm alone, and my knee hurts, and I don't know what's next.

  Fuck. This isn't good. Not good. I don't know how bad my knee is, but I'll probably miss the rest of the season, at least.

  A nurse comes in. "Oh, you're awake. How do you feel, Mr. Dorsey?"

  I shrug. "Okay, I guess. It aches." That's an understatement. It fucking kills.

  "Need something for the pain?" she asks. The nurse is a pretty middle-aged woman with brown hair and brown eyes.

  I nod. "Sure."

  I want to ask, but I don't.

  So I wait until she returns thirty minutes later with a paper cup containing two pills and a half-can of ginger ale. I take the pills and settle back, then finally get the courage. The nurse's name tag identifies her as Pam.

  "Pam?" I touch the bandage around my knee. "How bad is it? When can I play again?"

  Her expression goes carefully blank and she doesn't answer right away. "Um, I think maybe you should talk to Dr. Lane, Mr. Dorsey."

  "Shit." I lean back and squeeze my eyes shut. "That's not good."

  She tries to smile, but it doesn't reach her eyes. "You'll be all right, sweetie. I'll page Dr. Lane for you."

  Two hours later, a tall, thin, balding man in a lab coat sweeps into the room and pulls up a seat beside the bed. "Ben, how are you, son?"

  I shrug. "Depends on what you're about to tell me, Doc."

  He's quiet for a minute, and then he leans back in the red plastic visitor's chair, letting out a long sigh. "Well, then...I'm not gonna bullshit you, son. You messed up your knee pretty bad."

  "How bad?"

  His eyes meet mine, and I see pity in them. Fucking pity. "Pretty bad. The hit you took...that was a career-ender, Ben. I'm sorry."

  "Career--" I have to clear my throat and blink hard several times. "Career-ender. You're kidding. Tell me you're--you've got to be fucking kidding me."

  Dr. Lane shakes his head. "I'm sorry, Ben. You'll need intensive physical therapy just to be able to walk on it again. With months of work, you may be able to jog short distances. But competitive football? That's over for you, son."

  How many times is this guy going to call me son in one conversation?

  I nod and stare at my knee rather than at him. He's just the bearer of bad news; it's not his fault. Smashing his nose in would be bad form, I'm guessing.

  "Can I have...a minute, please?" I ask.

  He stands up, but doesn't leave right away. "You got family to call?"

  I nod. "Yeah."

  But even after he's gone and I have my phone, I don't call home. I'm not sure why.

  That's a lie, though. They'll make me come home, and I'll have to see Kylie and Oz. Mom let it slip a few weeks ago that they got married recently. So now she's Kylie Hyde. She married him. I got wasted when I found out. Missed work the next day, and skipped practice.

  I can't go back.

  Dad bought me my own health insurance policy before I left, so this'll be covered by the deductible, and what's not I can take care of on my own. I don't need them to visit me. I don't want them to.

  They'll be sad and tell me it'll be fine.

  It's not fine.

  I'll never play football again.

  I nearly cry, sitting there alone in the hospital bed. But I don't.

  *

  A taxi takes me home. Timo swings by and gets my keys and then brings my truck back for me. I thank him, and he leaves, even though he clearly wants to stay and hang out. But he's a football buddy, and I can't handle that right now.

  I flip through the folder of instructions I got when I checked out of the hospital. Primarily, I look through the list of outpatient physical therapists in the area. I settle on the closest one. It's a mile and half away, so I can take a taxi there until I figure out a better way to get from place to place. Drivin
g is out of the question for the immediate future.

  At home, there'd be Mom and Dad to drive me to therapy. Or even Colt and Nell. Here? It's just me. But I'm determined to do this on my own. It's fucking stupid, even I know that. I should call Dad and tell him what happened, let him come get me and bring me home. But what then? Back to Vanderbilt? Where everyone will know me, where the pity over my ruined football career will be the talk of the whole college. It was bad enough when I dropped out at the end of my junior year and vanished, but if I were to show up a year and half later, in a fucking wheelchair? Fuck no.

  Next morning, woozy from pain, I hobble with the help of crutches into the kitchen of my rented apartment and make coffee. It's easier to drink it standing up than to lower myself onto a chair only to have to stand back up again. I call a cab and give the driver the address of the physical therapist.

  It's a storefront in a strip mall, sandwiched between a Supercuts and a dry-cleaner. Leveaux Physical Therapy and Fitness Training. I pay the small fare, grip my crutches in both hands, lean on them and lever myself to my feet. I find my balance, and then adjust my crutches and make my way to the appointment. It's hot as hell outside, and I'm sweating by the time I reach the door.

  Alan Jackson is playing from the overhead speakers, and it's blessedly cool inside, the way Texans like it. It's a fairly small space, filled to the max with weight machines of all kinds, free weights, treadmills, stair-steppers, and a space cleared around the perimeter of the room for a small walking track. I scan the gym: there's an older man working a leg-lift machine, an overweight woman sweating buckets and puffing and gamely limping along on a Stairmaster. A woman with blonde, braided hair stands beside a young black guy with an athletic prosthetic from the knee down, encouraging him as he squats, lifts a free-weight bar, and stands up with it, lifts it over his head, and then bends, squats, and sets it down again.

  A bell dings as I walk in, and the blonde woman pats the young man on the back. "Keep going, Nick. You're doing great. Six more reps, okay? I'll be right back."

  She approaches me, a bright, warm smile on her face. She's gorgeous. Not real tall, maybe five-six or so, but she's clearly fit as hell. She extends her hand to me, and I take it and shake, squeezing gently.