Page 37 of Third Time's the Charm

His eyebrows jumped up. “Yeah. You were catatonic. Someone had to make sure you ate and you refused to let me call your mom.”

“That’s it.”

“That’s what?” He got up and came over to sit on my desk. I’m pretty sure he was about to put his hand on my forehead and take my temperature, but I slapped it away first.

“When she left me I couldn’t believe it. I refused to. I just put that whole idea in a box, closed it up, and pretended it wasn’t true. This?” I rubbed my chest. “This fuckinghurts.” Like a black endless pit had opened up and my soul was free-falling to its doom.

“What happened?”

“I let her go.” I stared forward, but I saw nothing. I was empty and hollow inside and I had absolutely no idea where to go from here.

“Shit. What can I do?”

“Nothing.” I blinked and forced my brain to start working again. “There’s nothing anyone can do. I just need to...accept reality.”

He stood up and slapped my back. “Come on. Let’s go get some beers and you can cry right into the mug while I take pictures to blackmail you with one day.”

I let him push me around. I had no sense of direction or purpose. If he asked me where I wanted to go or what I wanted to eat I would have had no answer. Luckily we’d been best friends for so long he already knew all the answers anyway.

I found myself in a brown padded booth with an enormous amber ale in front of me, plus every kind of delicious fried bar food in existence. So even though I didn’t care about food anymore, I found myself randomly picking up onion rings and jalapeño poppers because my mouth wasn’t in mourning.

I filled Riley in on the last three days. Everything from kissing Berlin to Zoe telling me I was doing it wrong.

“So you’re hoping she ditches Ryker and comes running back?” He pushed chicken wings my way.

“No. I can’t think that. I have to believe we’re done. I hope she ditches Ryker because I really don’t think she’ll be happy with him. But I can’t hope for anything else.” It might kill me to hope and have it destroyed.

“You need a distraction.”

I wanted to wallow. “Like what?”

He wiggled his eyebrows. “Like strategizing a new offense with yours truly.”

I would love to bury myself in work but that was exactly what cost me everything. “I think I need to sit in this, actually. I need to feel this shit.”

We ate wings for a while, drank our beer and got more. “How about this? You feel your shit and let me handle the team. All you have to do is put on your suit and show up.”

“That’s not fair to you.”

He rolled his eyes. “I’m fine. I wouldn’t have offered if I wasn’t. What we need is for you to get through this. So you can either try to feel your shit and run the team, and maybe have this drag on for a while, or you can just go feel your shit and move on.”

He had a point. “I accept your offer.”

I was a little drunk when Riley dropped me at my condo. It wasn’t out of the way since he lived three floors below me. I didn’t sleep much but I did learn every shadow in my bedroom by the time the night was over. After a terrible cup of coffee and a badly soft boiled egg, I decided to go see Ma.

She volunteered as an educator at the Shark Valley Visitor Center in the Everglades once a month and she was there today. I loved visiting her, taking her tours, listening to her lessons. I had a lot of good memories growing up of going on airboat rides and slough slogging. One time Berlin and I did an overnight to hear the panthers scream.

That was a wild night. Wading through waist high water, surrounded by towering cypress trees, a full moon. It was Berlin’s idea but once we were out there she freaked out a little. Were there water moccasins nearby? Giant gators?

We never saw any, but we did hear the panthers. One even came close enough that we got a good look at its beautiful face through the binoculars. Going into Big Cypress or the Everglades is like stepping into a different world. No buildings except for the occasional chickee. If you didn’t know better you’d think you were in a South American rainforest or on an African savannah.

The Shark Valley observation tower is built over a capped oil well. It has a sweeping twist of a walkway up to the top and is one of my favorite places to stand and stare. So it was the perfect place to go today. The place was fairly busy with families off for the holiday. I found a spot at the top and looked out at the brown sea of sawgrass. Bikers and hikers were setting out on the paved trail. Ma’s tram was probably down there somewhere. She loved teaching people about the ecosystem.

But my favorite part wasn’t the sawgrass or the people watching. It was the alligators and turtles. All around the observation tower there were hundreds of them sunning in the early afternoon heat. Turtles just sitting there, inches away from the jaws of an alligator. I always thought of myself as the patient, giant gator, but right now I felt a lot more like a turtle. Sitting there innocently enjoying the sun, but knowing that at any moment, Berlin Anderson could snap me out of existence.

Was it too much power to put on a single person? Yep. But there was no reasoning with my misery.

“Well hello, baby boy. Long time, no see.”

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