Kyla showed me the picture you sent her yesterday. I can’t believe you made cookies just to spite her, you little shit.
Snorting out a laugh I walk the rest of the way to my room before dropping down on my bed to have this conversation.
Me
If it makes you feel better, I used up all my eggs in the cookies and forgot to get more so I had to order my game day breakfast.
Mom
You deserve a subpar breakfast for antagonizing your sister.
Miss you. I hate that we can’t be there for you today.
I miss you too. But you need to be there for the girls.
My family would usually make the trip for a playoff game, but my older sisters Charlie and Annie are pregnant, and both are due in the next two weeks. They both have other kids so it’s a logistical nightmare, and I insisted that everyone stay put. Kyla is pregnant, too, and due a little later this winter. It’s about to be baby o’clock in the Hansley family.
Mom
I know, but I hate that you won’t have family at the game—win or lose.
I hate it too, especially as I sit in my silent house. With four sisters, my life has never been silent. Even after living here alone for almost nine years, I’ve never been able to get used to it. But I would also hate if one of my sisters had a baby this weekend and my parents weren’t there for it.
Me
Don’t worry about it. And one way or another, I’ll see you all soon.
At the Super Bowl, hopefully. It’s not superstitious to be confident, right? But if not, I take a road trip back to Boulder at the end of every season and spend most of my off-season with my family.
Mom
Okay, we’ll be watching. Call us after. Love you, hon.
Me
Love you too. Kiss the girls for me.
I toss the phone on my bed and pack my bag before going to the bathroom for my least favorite part of my game-day ritual. Opening the bottom drawer of the bathroom vanity, I grab the black zipper pouch. I unzip it and take out the syringe and the vial of liquid. Prepping the syringe, I pull down the waistband of my joggers, swipe an alcohol wipe over my hip, and administer the painkiller injection. It should take effect just in time for warm-ups and last the whole game, leaving me with a pain free throwing shoulder. I hate this, but it’s a necessary evil if I want to play.
It started during the first game of my fourth NFL season, when I took a bad sack and dislocated my shoulder. I rehabbed it, but the pain lagged longer than any of the trainers expected. With physical therapy and cortisone shots, I managed to play the second half of the season and stopped mentioning the pain to anyone associated with the team. As far as anyone knows, I rehabbed more over that offseason and came back stronger than ever. They don’t know that a very quiet evaluation from afamily friend who practices sports medicine led to a diagnosis of post-traumatic arthritis. And they don’t know that, before every game, I inject myself with anti-inflammatory painkillers I buy from a guy I know from my offseason gym. And during this season, sometimes when there isn’t a game.
I stare at myself in the mirror, rolling my shoulder and feeling the familiar dull ache that is as much a part of me as the color of my eyes. I’m not an idiot. I know medicating myself isn’t great, even if the painkiller is the same one the trainers use in the locker room before, during, and after every game. I know my shoulder is getting worse. And I know that throwing a football with an arthritic shoulder that I keep a secret, masking pain with injections no one knows about, could cause long-term, permanent damage. I know all this, and yet I do it because if I didn’t play football, I don’t have any idea what I would do. Or who I would be.
I’m Asher Hansley, NFL quarterback. I’ve always been a quarterback. I’m not the biggest or the most innately talented, but I am the hardest worker on the football field. And since I was eight years old, that field has been my home. Even thinking about hanging up my helmet has dread pooling in my stomach. I’m not ready, and this isn’t the season.
My phone pings again, breaking me out of my reverie.
Lucy
[pic attached] Good luck today, Ash! We miss you!
I grin at the text from my youngest sister, even as my heart gives a tug of longing. In the picture, my entire family is piled in my parents’ living room. All fifteen of them are wearing my jersey. I love those idiots. Every last one of them. For a split second I have the crazy thought that if this is myfinal season, I could move back to Boulder and never have to miss another family gathering. But as quickly as the thought comes, I shake it away because I’m a quarterback and it’s the playoffs. I live for this shit.
And I have a game to win.
Chapter Three
Julie
