What Is This? A Reward?

11:08 PM

-1. United States, Athens, Georgia

-2. University of Georgia

-3. Vandiver Hall

After the game ended, we celebrated like champions. And like champions, we came back to Georgia. The area around the bus stop was absolutely packed with the people of Athens, and we soaked up the victory a while longer there too — which was why we got home a little late.

Before heading into the dorm, I made a call.

"Hello?"

"Hey. It's me."

"Why didn't you text me back?"

"We need to talk."

After the storm of emotion had settled somewhat, I'd sat down in the Jacksonville locker room, turned on my phone, and gone through the DMs that had poured in. Then the flood of social media posts. And as I read through them all, I made up my mind.

"I think we should break up."

"What?! What are you talking about?!"

"I can't become the man you want me to be. Football comes first for me, and I don't think you help with that. I'm sorry, but if we can't root for each other's futures, there doesn't seem to be much reason to keep dating."

To this sudden breakup notice, Alexi reacted in every way imaginable. She raged. She cried. She clung on. Raged again. And cried once more. Through it all she said all sorts of things, but none of it reached me. My mind was already made up.

"I'm sorry. I'm going to block you now."

"W-wait, just—!"

Click.

A relationship of barely a month. It was fate that it ended like this from the very start. One thing I'd learned long ago: no matter how old you get, no matter how much experience you rack up, wounds and pain feel pretty much the same every time.

"Hoo—"

Having severed everything connected to Alexi, blocked her number and her socials, I rose from my seat.

"James."

"Oh, Moi! You were absolutely incredible today!!"

"Haha. Thank you."

"You must be exhausted — go on up and get some rest."

After thanking James for not holding me up with small talk, I pressed the elevator button and waited.

Ding—

I'd received an absurd number of calls today. And a ridiculous number of new followers. After the game, I'd been fielding questions at the interview area for over twenty minutes. Was that why? I felt a little tired.

Ding—

I got off on the sixth floor and walked down the corridor toward the inner rooms. Turn the corner up ahead, and the dorm rooms would be straight ahead. And then—

"?!"

The moment I rounded the left corner and looked ahead, I found a woman leaning against a door. It was—

"Madison?"

"Hey."

Madison Beer. The woman who'd come all the way to Jacksonville to cheer me on. How on earth was she here?

"I waited out front, then paid someone off."

"What?"

"About two hundred bucks. Turns out just anyone can't walk in here. So I asked a guy who lives here whether he actually lived here, then gave him two hundred dollars to let me in."

Who on earth took money and let her through? It wasn't because it was Madison — it's just a flat-out dangerous thing to do. But I didn't think I needed to worry about that right now.

"Can I come in?"

"…"

Dammit.

I wasn't fond of this kind of decadence. We'd only just broken up, and this was basically cheating, wasn't it? Just because I'd been a bit like this in my past life didn't mean I wanted to be now. And yet—

"Yeah."

The answer slipped out of me before I could stop it. Why? Because I'd just broken up? Or because I was simply a bad guy? If neither of those, then—

The moment we stepped inside, we were kissing like our lives depended on it. A face like Megan Fox, and a body that was even better. Everything was firing me up. The sweet scent coming off her skin, the impossibly soft feel of it. Where Alexi, being a high schooler, had radiated a kind of innocence, every tiny movement Madison made set my imagination alight.

Madison pushed me down onto the sofa.

"Show me."

"Show you what?"

"You got hurt today, didn't you?"

"…"

Without a word, I moved my hands and pulled my shirt off, and Madison climbed on top of me. Then she ran her fingers over the bruises scattered across my body, tenderly, as if handling something precious.

"Does it hurt a lot?"

"No."

At my answer, her head dipped lower, and her lips began soothing my wounds. And soon Madison pulled her own shirt off too. From that point on, I stopped thinking entirely. My phone, fallen to the floor, buzzed like mad.

Bzzzt—

Bzzzt—

November 8, 2018

-1. United States, Athens, Georgia

-2. University of Georgia

-3. Vandiver Hall, Room 607

When I woke up alone in bed, for a moment I wondered ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠if it had all been a dream. But the note lying beside me made it very clear that yesterday had, in fact, happened.

Beneath a phrase that filled a man with pride and satisfaction all at once sat the imprint of Madison's lipstick. And I laid my head back down on the pillow, staring quietly at the ceiling. Then, suddenly—

"Wait!"

Something occurred to me and I shot upright, scrambling for my phone. Not there? Ah. Right, of course. Remembering that I'd come straight from the sofa to the bed last night, I walked out to the living room and picked up the phone lying on the floor. The battery was dead — the screen wouldn't come on. Charging first, then.

It was only 7:41 in the morning, so the dead phone didn't seem like much of a problem. If anything had happened, someone would have knocked on the dorm door. I plugged it in and walked over to the refrigerator.

Planning to whip up a simple omelet, I pulled out the eggs and a container of pre-chopped vegetables. They hadn't gone bad, had they? "Sniff— sniff—" Mm, they're fine. I melted butter in the pan, cracked the eggs in, gave them a quick stir, tossed in a generous heap of the chopped vegetables, and shaped the omelet. A handful of shredded cheese on top to finish. I figured I'd have it with milk and guacamole.

Bzzzt—

Just as the food was done, the phone rang, and I walked to the table and picked it up. Hundreds of waiting messages. And roughly as many DMs. And then, at the very bottom—

That, most likely, was the culprit behind my phone dying. One of the missed calls was from Aunt Mel. The rest were all from Alexi. For now, I deleted every single one of the messages that had arrived. I had no intention of reading them. I felt no need to. For me, a breakup means one thing: a goodbye forever.

Anyway. Why had I been reaching for my phone?

"Ah—"

Right. Last night, Madison had struggled a little to take me in. Meaning she'd passed out first. We'd managed to finish somehow, but she'd seemed a little wistful about it. When I asked what she had to be wistful about, she—

Back in 2016, Madison had told one romance magazine in an interview: "I'm not a lesbian, but I do like women." People understood it as her coming out as bisexual, and while Madison never attached any comment to that interpretation, that's how the public came to see her. But here was the mystery: every partner Madison had ever dated was a man.

And then, last night, the mystery was solved.

It was a conversation from right on the edge of sleep, so it was a little hazy — but it had clearly not been a joke. Madison likes it when there's more than one. Another woman besides herself. And me.

What is this? A reward?

Having concluded that a woman far more open-minded than I'd expected had landed at my side, I polished off the omelet and headed into the bathroom.

Shhh—

A Sunday morning that begins with warm water cascading over your body. Some long, lingering afterglow was still hanging in the air. In more ways than one.

3:08 PM

-1. United States, Athens, Georgia

-2. University of Georgia

Sunday afternoon. As expected, Alexi called again. She wanted to meet. I said fine.

Thud.

The moment I climbed into her car, parked in a corner of the campus lot, a cautious greeting drifted over from the driver's seat.

"...Hey."

"Hey."

My noticeably changed attitude had thrown Alexi off balance. She tried everything she could to hold onto me, but I made my refusal even more definite. When she said she understood how important football was to me, I asked her to explain how exactly she could possibly know that.

"Well, obviously—"

"See. You don't."

Eighteen is still a young age. Just not naive-young. Whether it stemmed from her own insecurity or something in her personality, she kept sniping that something must be going on between me and other women, for no reason, and tried to provoke my jealousy at every turn. Normally that was faintly cute. Lately, though, she'd crossed the line far too many times. The most decisive moment was when she went off on a trip knowing full well it was game day. I could have tolerated her treating me as an accessory, a way to pad her social media following — I wasn't serious about her anyway. I just liked being around a pretty girl. Alexi might not have known it, but I had never loved her seriously or imagined a future with her, so as long as her using me didn't interfere with football, I'd intended to keep seeing her for a while.

"But still, you and all these girls keep—"

"You. Are you any better?"

"I conduct myself properly?"

"And I don't?"

"That's..."

Long before she ever met me, Alexi had been famous because of her sister. The women of the Rose-Merzle family were minor celebrities in the state of Georgia, so every time she uploaded to TikTok or Instagram, the comments filled up with ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠men.

"I'm sorry. Nothing's changing."

"Really?"

"Yeah. So... goodbye."

Leaving Alexi sniffling behind me, I stepped out of the passenger seat and turned away without a moment's hesitation. Still, her state did worry me a little, so I sent Kateryna a DM: your sister's crying, come pick her up. The message was read. No reply came. That was enough for me.

"Hoo—"

Stepping back a distance, I stretched my arms toward the sky. The taste in my mouth was a little bitter. And yet, in a way, refreshing. Madison isn't the type to pull this sort of thing. And we're not even dating. We spent one night together — so what.

With so much of the behind-the-scenes fallout from the Florida game spilling out into the open right now, my love life had hit its own turning point too.

7:47 PM

-1. Vandiver Hall, Room 607

Having completely closed out my relationship with Alexi, I went to the Butts-Mehre building for treatment. Madison had mostly been on top in bed the night before, so I wasn't badly strained, but my hip felt a little off-kilter and it nagged at me. Thankfully, the tests came back showing nothing serious. I got a full-body checkup and came back to the dorm — then called my friends over.

"Damn— that bitches' bath. Is this real life?"

"Haha. At least it makes things easier for me."

"She POSTED a video of that?! Seriously?!"

Thirty minutes ago, Alexi had uploaded a video to Instagram announcing the breakup. What she said through her streaming tears was: "I will sincerely wish for his happiness." Maybe it was sincere. But on Instagram? The girl was a clout-chaser to the bone. And thanks to that, the aftermath of the breakup got a whole lot easier.

"Can't wait for her to come here next year."

"Looking forward to what, exactly?"

"You know exactly what kind of trouble this sneaky little minx is going to cause, don't you?"

"Let her. I couldn't care less."

"Goddamn, look at Mr. Cool over here."

We'd ordered a mountain of pizza, hamburgers, and even KFC chicken, and were deep into gaming with the guys. Counting the ones who'd brought their own laptops, six of us were in full swing.

"By the way."

"?"

"You're actually a star now."

"...Am I?"

"Everything today has been about you. TV. The internet. Even social media. People are already out here talking about tanking in 2023. So yeah — you're a star, all right."

"Pipe down and shoot, Gun."

"Oh."

Well. It was true that things had gotten a bit busier. Even earlier at Butts-Mehre, I'd done four video interviews. Tomorrow there'd be even more, they said. But that was the extent of it. The guys here felt it too, I'm sure — the NCAA Division 1 life we'd dreamed about as kids or in high school offers, at best, better-than-average opportunities. Slightly more parties. Slightly more gatherings. Slightly more girls. To actually live out the movie-and-drama episodes people imagine, you'd have to pour nearly every hour you had into balancing football and academics.

If I hadn't known anything, the fantasy would have shattered within a week, and within a month I'd have been asking myself: should I even keep playing football? Isn't my life only good until I'm sixty-five? Shouldn't I seize the opportunities at a good school — the great academic systems? In my past life, that's exactly what I did. Before social media took over, it was easy to hide and do shady things; these days it's much harder, and everyone's gotten savvy enough to behave once they go pro, because nobody wants to hand ammunition to their future employers. The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠higher you climb, the more this holds true. The real problems happen at the bottom.

"The Florida game's behind us. From tomorrow, we look ahead."

"Cold-blooded bastard."

"This body is a quarterback, you know."

"Fuck. With talent like that, you should just ascend to heaven already."

"Don't exaggerate. I'm not at that level yet."

"'Yet'? Excuse me?"

"Keep ripening. And shoot the damn gun."

It had been a day full of everything. Which was exactly why a plain, ordinary ending like this felt so welcome.