Page 156 of Faking the Pass
“I am,” I said.
But honestly? I was having a hard time getting excited aboutanythingthese days.
I’d tried to go back to my old life after Rosie had left, and things with the team had certainly gone according to plan. You couldn’t argue with the results of training your focus solely on football.
When we’d made the playoffs, I’d tried to enjoy it, knowing that it was never a guarantee, especially considering the way things had started off this season.
When we won the division, I was happy for the team owner and Coach Maddox and of course the guys, and I was proud of myself for doing my job well, but that was about the extent of it.
Today, of course, had gone the way we’d all wanted it to. I couldn’t complain.
But the record didn’t seem as important as it once had, and the goals I’d set for myself this season all seemed hollow now that I’d achieved them.
Now that she was gone.
On every occasion when I should have been celebrating, the strongest thing I felt was the absence of the person I wanted to celebrate with most.
My wife.
At times when I thought of her, I was absolutely fucking pissed.
Most often though, I just missed her. I hadn’t heard from her, and I hadn’t reached out.
What was I going to do? Beg her to come back when she’d made it extremely clear that a life with me wasn’t what she wanted?
Looking over at my brother, who’d been through some hard shit himself, to say the least, I decided to be honest.
“It’s just… nothing really feels like it matters, you know?”
He nodded. “I get it. Your priorities change when you fall in love.”
“Well we never really said, ‘I love you,’” I told him. “Not when we were lucid andnotin the middle of sex.”
Would it have made a difference if I’d said it more? It was too late to know, though now I wished I’d at least tried it.
“Doesn’t change a damn thing, does it?” Wilder asked. “I spent over a decade not telling Jessica I loved her, and look how that turned out.”
“Yeah well, not everybody gets the fairytale ending. And whether Rosie and I loved each other or not, it doesn’t really matter now, does it?” I said. “I’m kind of sorry I ever met her.”
“She loved you, too,” Wilder assured me, sounding so certain I almost believed him. “Even if it really is over with her, I’d like to see you having more of a life. Records won't love you back. There are more fulfilling things than a job or money or the NFL.”
Didn’t I know it.
I’dhadfulfillment. I’d had the love of my life, and I’d let her walk right out of it.
I’d even paid for the fucking plane ticket.
I was sorry now that I’d signed those divorce papers so rashly.
Maybe if I’d stayed in control of my emotions, talked Rosie into getting in the car and coming back to our house, I could have persuaded her somehow not to leave.
Maybe not. But I regretted throwing in the towel the way I did. Now it was too late.
She was gone, and we were divorced.
“That’s easy for you to say,” I told my brother. “Youhaveyour wife.”
“There was nothing easy about it,” Wilder said with a rueful laugh. “Opening myself up to Jess and letting myself love her and finally be with her was the hardest thing I’ve ever done—and the best.”
