“He makes me feel like I can do anything. You understand, right?”
Hallie smiles, glancing down at the ring on her finger, and I know she’s thinking of Ben. “I do.”
I give her another quick hug before picking my bag up from where I dumped it on the floor. “I have to go.”
“Text me later, okay? Just tell me how everything is.”
“I will,” I say, heading out and closing the door behind me.
Fifteen minutes later I’m pulling into Asher’s driveway. As I make my way to the house, I wonder if I should knock on the door or walk right in. Knocking feels weird but walking right in also doesn’t feel quite right and what a ridiculous thing to think about, but I guess I am who I am no matter what and there’s a kind of comfort in that. Asher saves me the trouble of deciding when he opens the door just as I’m approaching.
We stand there looking at each other for a beat. He looks exhausted, and I see immediately that it’s his eyes where his pain lies. His gorgeous sky-blue eyes are shattered and devastated, and there’s something else in them too that I don’t quite understand, and it breaks my heart to see him this way. This kind, funny, loving, laid-back man should never look this broken. I take two steps forward and put my arms around him right in the doorway of his house. He wraps his arms around my waist and holds tight, burying his face in my neck. I hear his rasping, shuddery breaths in my ear and his back heaves like he is trying desperately to hold himself together.
“Let it go, Ash,” I whisper in his ear. “It’s okay.”
As quickly as he grasped onto me, he pulls away, shaking his head. “I can’t. Not right now.”
He turns on his heel and walks back to the kitchen. I freeze for a second at his uncharacteristic withdrawal but then followhim. In the kitchen, he grabs a glass and fills it with ice, pressing against the Dr. Pepper dispenser. Lost in thought, he doesn’t notice the glass is full until it’s overflowing onto the counter.
“Shit,” he mutters, staring at the puddle that’s starting to stream onto the floor. Walking over to him, I gently grasp his arm, tugging him away from the mess. He comes willingly. I take him to the sunroom off the kitchen, guiding him to the couch.
“Sit, Ash, okay? I’ll handle the kitchen.”
I turn to walk back to the kitchen, but he grabs my hand to stop me, pulling me back towards him. He lifts my hand to his mouth and presses a kiss to my knuckles, looking up at me through his lashes.
“Thank you,” he whispers, his voice gravelly, as if just pushing those words up through his throat is painful. I lean down and cup his face in my hands, kissing his forehead and both of his cheeks before smoothing his hair away from his face like my mom used to do to Ben and me when we were sad. It’s a gesture of comfort that seems to have the desired effect when Asher leans into my hands, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath.
“Always. Anything. I’ll be right back, okay?”
He nods, and I go back to the kitchen, cleaning up the spilled soda and filling a new glass. I carry it back to the sunroom and hand it to him before sitting sideways on the couch so I can face him, my legs tucked under me. He takes a long sip and sets the glass on the coffee table, turning so he can face me too, one leg on the floor and the other bent against the cushions. He’s not ready to break; I can see that. I understand that better than anyone. I’ll be here when he is, but for now, I ask him the question I would want someone to ask me if I had just been given life-altering news and wasn’t ready to deal with the emotional part of it.
“Do you want to tell me what happened?” I keep my voice even, matter of fact, and I know it’s the right move because he takes a deep breath, dropping his head down, and starts to talk without making eye contact.
“There were so many tests. Blood work, range-of-motion, other ones I don’t know the names of. I met with a physical therapist, a trainer, the doctor, and my coach. When you’re a starting quarterback saying words likepain in my throwing arm, it makes everyone nervous, so they check everything. Then they brought me down for an MRI. There is actually an MRI machine right in the stadium. Makes for easier scans and results to diagnose injuries during and right after games. I went from the MRI right to the team doctor’s office, and even though I probably only had to wait for a few minutes, it felt like hours. When he came in, he started talking about how I was one of the most dedicated athletes he has ever known, and I couldn’t listen to any of that. I knew what was coming next and listening to everything he was saying to try and cushion the blow was fucking torture. I snapped at him. I hate that I did that. I never snap at anyone, but I felt like I was about to jump out of my skin. I told him to just say it. So, he did. He said…”
Asher cuts himself off suddenly, breathing hard. It kills me to see him like this, so I reach over and take his hand in mine, and he grips it like a lifeline, looking up at me for the first time since he started talking. His eyes are a little wild, panicky, like saying out loud what he is about to say will make it true. Make it real.
I nod at him, squeezing his hand. “Just say it fast.”
“I have arthritis in my shoulder. It’s bad. Really bad, and it’s not going to get better. I can’t play anymore. My football career is over.”
His words tumble out in a rush and then he sucks in a breath and rubs his free hand over his heart, as if speaking thosewords out loud broke it in half. And I understand now the look in his eyes when he met me at the door. Grief. Asher is grieving and he probably doesn’t even know it. And I didn’t know until this minute that it was possible to actually feel another person’s pain as if it were my own. Asher’s grief is a living, breathing thing, sitting right in this room with us.
In the face of this enormous shift, my lawyer brain is doing the thing it does when I get complicated information. Parsing through it. Breaking it down into its parts. Making a mental list of missing facts. Finding a solution. Making a plan. It’s habit. Instinct. As natural to me as breathing. Which is why my next words come out without me considering them first.
“So, what happens now?”
I know immediately it’s the absolute wrong thing to say. Asher looks at me blankly for a few seconds, then drops my hand and pushes up from the couch, pacing the length of the sunroom with his hands clasped behind his head. After a few lengths of the floor, he turns back to me.
“I don’t know. I have no idea what to do next. We didn’t get that far. As soon as the doctor told me I was done playing, I just left. I couldn’t be there anymore. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now. No one told me. I didn’t stick around long enough. My phone has been ringing a lot.” He gestures over to the kitchen island where I can see his phone lighting up with a call.
“I haven’t looked at it though. I guess I need to talk to my coach. And tell the team. Unless someone will do that for me. I don’t want to do it. Or maybe I do. I don’t fucking know. I need to tell…” He trails off, eyes glossing over.
“I need to tell my family.” His voice cracks on the last word and his breath hitches. He drops his head, pressing his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose, no doubt to stem the flood of emotion trying topour out of him.
“I can’t,” he says, shaking his head.
“You can’t what?” I ask gently, trying to break him out of his spiral.
