Just before I go to bed, I get a text from Derek. It’s the picture of the whiteboard from before he erased it.
Derek: This is going to work.
I hope he’s right…
The stadium is roaring.
It’s game day and we’re all suited up, shoulder to shoulder in the tunnel, gathered just out of sight, waiting for the go-ahead to take the field. This is a high-stakes game—every playoff game is—so the fans are extra rowdy. There’s a heavy mixture of chanting and booing.
Jamal is buzzing beside me. He loves this. There’s an energy meter above his head, and with every decibel increase from the crowd, it ticks up higher. Mine lowers. I have to tune it all out.
He accidentally nudges my arm while circling his shoulders, trying to get himself hyped up, and for some reason, that makes me irrationally annoyed. The rest of the team is behind us and bouncing on their toes, clenching and relaxing their fists, stretching their necks side to side. We’re a bunch of bulls waiting to storm the arena.
Fog starts filling the air, and we’ll be told to take the field any second now. I try to get my head clear, focus on this game alone and not worry about what it means for us. But it’s hard not to feel the pressure. I always feel it lately, and it’s swirling around me in this moment. No matter how hard I try, I can’t push it away.
I shut my eyes tight, trying to block everything out, but my pads feel tight. Tighter than normal. Constricting.
“Stand by!” a cameraman yells, lens pointed in our direction.
So much noise. The roar of the crowd, the music, the drumming of hands against the stadium seats—I used to love it, but lately I feel like running the opposite way. I can’t figure out why. Something just feels off, and wrong, and I’m sweating even though it’s only thirty degrees out.
I shake my head.
Jamal turns toward me and yells over the excessive noise, “You good, man? You look off.”
My heart is beating in my ears. I feel like I’m going to pass out, but I know I can’t. I have to stay on my feet. There’s no time for whatever this feeling is creeping over me. I don’t get nervous. I help get our team to Super Bowls, not pass out in the tunnel before a game. But maybe I can just sit down on the floor real quick and take a breather?
“Yeah, I’m good,” I lie because Jamal can’t know that I feel like I’m inside a tornado. He depends on me. They all do. Everyone does.
Trying to gain some sort of composure before we have to run out, I shut my eyes again and think of Bree. I see her wide smile and I hear her bubbling laugh. I tell myself that in roughly five hours, I’ll be flying home and I’d bet my entire fortune she will be there waiting. She’ll throw her arms around my waist and squeeze. It’ll be quiet there.
My chest loosens a little.
“Okay, everyone get ready!” the cameraman yells again. The announcer comes over the speaker telling the jam-packed stadium we’re about to take the field. The crowd sounds like an intense rainstorm slamming down on a tin roof. It’s drowning me. Right now, the only thought grounding me is Bree. What would she say to me if she were here right now? It would be something perfect. She always says the perfect thing.
“Three, two, one! Go, go, go!”
We run out of the tunnel, through the heavy fog and directly into the chaos. The only way I keep myself from pulling a Forest Gump and running all the way home is to picture Bree: nose scrunched, tongue sticking out of the side of her mouth with a big thumbs-up just like she did the very first time I took the field in Daren’s place four years ago. I choose to hear her as a whisper in my ear instead of listening to the roar of the crowd. You can do it, Nathan.
Bree
* * *
Are you kidding me right now?! Only gigantically tall people keep their 9x13 baking dishes in the very tip top of their cupboards. Nathan had his apartment renovated a year ago to fit his vertically blessed stature, which means taller-than-average countertops and cabinetry that touches the heavens. We get it, Nathan, you’re tall!