GIN AND JUICE pt 13

All of the players in the locker room whipped their heads around when the sound of hard metal against muscle drew their attention. Shawn slammed Brian up against the lockers, holding him there by the edge of his hard plastic pads.

“What the ****, man?!” Brian spat, unable to keep the loathing from coloring his tone. Shawn raised his arms a little, sliding the smaller quarterback up and off the ground. Brian’s legs kicked out and around, trying to find purchase but only coming up with air.

“I know you opened your fucking mouth, snake.” Shawn grasped the pads tighter, the plastic starting to protest against the strain, “if you ever talk to the fucking press about what happens in practice again, I swear to God.” The corners of Brian’s mouth turned up in a self-satisfied smirk, “what are you gonna do, Mendes? Pretty boy isn’t so perfect is he? Gonna tell your little girlfriend?”

Shawn could see the team circling again, just like his last confrontation with Brian. It wouldn’t be long before the coaches came running. He leaned in, so only Brian could hear, “mention her one more time and I’ll make sure you never hold a football ever again.”

“MENDES! CRAIGEN! BREAK IT UP!” Coach wrenched his arm between them. Shawn dropped Brian, making sure to slam him once more against the lockers hard enough to knock the breath out of him. He looked at Coach while Brian wheezed, taking a steady breath to calm down, “I thought we didn’t talk to reporters about team business.”

The onlookers parted, allowing Shawn to get to his locker. No one made a sound. He stripped off his practice jersey and tried to act like nothing happened, like he wasn’t panicking inside knowing that she would have seen the article by now. He wished he had his phone, wished he could send her a text to check in or assure her that it was nothing, that no one knew anything. But he had to wait until the game was over. He gripped his helmet and slammed it into his locker, the vibrations carrying through his arm.

He took a deep, cleansing breath. It was the last game of the regular season. This game would lock up the conference championship and a postseason bid for the national championship. Shawn had to focus, remember what it was like before her, when he could breathe without a sharp pain under his sternum where she was tethered to him. Another breath. He focused on the numbing sensation he used to call upon, the feelings he got when he drank himself onto the bathroom floor, the sweet bliss of feeling nothing. His heart rate slowed and he opened his eyes, panic and anger turned to cold indifference. The game, the opponents he was about to face, his team leaning on his every move, they meant everything and nothing. The dark ruled his periphery, tunnel vision submerged in a black pool. He only knew what he had to do.

He had to win.

* * * * * * * * * *

You hadn’t left your dorm in two days. Your legs had pulled you toward the door more than once, but your head wouldn’t let you go. As soon as you had finished the article, dropping the paper to the floor, the whispers you had heard earlier seemed deafening, like everyone knew you were here, knew that the article was talking about you. The paralysis set in then.

All you could do was think. Why did he say that? He had to have known she’d take it that way. He’s not stupid. He knows this press bullshit better than anyone. Does he want to go public? Am I holding him back? You had seen the faint glimmer in his eye. The one that hoped you’d decide to hold his hand or walk with him to class. Hell, you knew he would be happy just leaving the library at the same time. But the same fear that kept you in your room, kept you from being able to tell him you were ready. Your heart stuttered and your lungs spasmed even thinking about it. The article was proof that you would be under scrutiny. People would know you . Know your name. Know your face. They would look at you, be jealous of you, scorn you for taking what they thought was rightfully theirs even if they only knew the armored Shawn that you’d fought to break. Those parts of him embedded in your chest quivered, threatening to dislodge and leave you bleeding and broken. You loved him, but you couldn’t love him in the way that he wanted. I’m never going to be able to give him what he wants.

“Hey, do you want to watch the game?”

Caroline was staring at you from her desk. She’d been hovering since she’d brought you the news the morning before. Other than meals and class, she had been in the room, verbally checking on you every four and a half seconds. After awhile, you had started to feign sleep, but you were pretty sure she’d wised up to it. You rolled over and looked at her, just the top of your head out of your comforter. You knew your eyes were sunken and red from bouts of crying between short naps but no real restful sleep.

“I’m guessing yes. I’m not really sure, but I’m going to put it on anyway.” She switched on the TV, the pregame show already blaring. “Have you heard the gossip in the student paper?” you heard the sideline reporter ask, “it’s all over Twitter. Shawn Mendes might have a girlfriend?!” You groaned, throwing your comforter over your head and turning over.

“OH MY GOD, ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!” Caroline screamed, scrambling for the remote to mute the sound. There was the confirmation that literally the entire world was talking about you. Or talking about the idea of you. You knew that your picture would be on the TV if they knew your name, if you were holding his hand or walking with him to class. Your knees involuntarily pulled in to your chest. Your whole body began to tremble.

The mattress dipped beside you and you felt a slight pressure on your shoulder through the comforter. Caroline sat there while you tried to breathe. No nervous words or trying to cheer you up, she just let you know she was there and would still be there when you needed her. The trembling gave way to shuddering sobs. You didn’t deserve her. Didn’t deserve Shawn. You were holding them back and you knew it. This behavior, the fear and panic you felt when you thought about going places, about being seen, neither of them needed it in their lives. Why do they put up with it?

“Okay, babe. He’s on. Come out of your feather prison.” She coaxed you out of the comforter and there he was. Watching Shawn on TV felt like a dream, like you were a fangirl just like Caroline and everything you’d felt and experienced with him was a product of your overactive imagination. But the memories weren’t hazy. You could feel his skin under your fingertips, the hard muscle reacting to your touch. The memory of him around you, inside you, was as present as Caroline sitting on the floor in front of the television, not two feet from you. You thought about what it would be like without him, alone and isolated again, protected from the world and him protected from you.

In some ways, it was comforting. Leaning into the solitude was always something you were good at. It was easy to plan on things when you were only ever planning on yourself. After meeting Shawn, that center shifted. Almost nothing was just about you. You couldn’t be invisible when he could always see you, see right through to your beating heart. You hadn’t ever known how much was missing until he touched you and now you weren’t sure that you could live without it.

It was too much to think about right now. You’d already cried enough.

Instead, you focused on the game. He was playing well. The announcers were using impressive phrases like “born to play on Sunday,” and “practically already a Heisman winner.” He faked right but moved left, a quarterback run straight into the endzone. The crowd went wild. He ran to the camera, kissed two fingers and held them up in a peace sign like he always did when he scored. You focused on the screen. Even though the signature move appeared totally normal, something was off about his face. The cameraman was moving around too much for you to put your finger on it, but there was something missing. That thought sat in the back of your mind as you watched the rest of the game. Caroline whooped and hollered when he threw a final spiral down the field for a sixty-yard touchdown completion, putting the cherry on an almost perfect performance. No turnovers, no lost yardage, over a thousand yards of offense. Everyone crowded around Shawn. His teammates and coaches piled on him, all of them wanting a piece of his success. Sure, he would push it off of himself, say it was a team effort and how he couldn’t do it without them, but everyone knew that it would be a losing season without their lucky quarterback. The clock ran down to 0, sealing the deal, and catapulting the team to a conference championship and Shawn into the microphone of a sideline reporter, the same blonde woman who had gushed earlier about the viral article on Twitter.

“Shawn, you played a near perfect game today,” she yelled over the roar of the crowd, “how do you feel about your Heisman chances?”

“Personally, Erin, however it plays out in December, I know that I’ve played the best I can possibly play and that’s all thanks to my coaches and my teammates.” You controlled the urge to roll your eyes and leaned into the TV. Now that you were getting a closer look at him, you could see that it was his eyes that seemed different. His eyes were normally so bright and alive, windows into the boy you loved, the boy you knew and no one else did. They told you he loved you even before his lips did. The eyes on this Shawn were foreign to you. They were dead. Deep, dark pools with no reflection, no feeling. He mouthed all the responses you knew he would, words that were courteous and humble, just like the Shawn that held you through the night two days ago, but there was no warmth to them. He was cold, calculated, armored to the teeth. You knew it wasn’t enough of a difference for anyone else to notice. They had all known the old Shawn, the Shawn that hid himself from the world. But, this man was an aberration, as unfamiliar to you as kissing in the sunlight.

Before the reporter let him go she asked him one more question; “I know the Twitter frenzy around your romantic situation can’t have escaped your notice. So, tell us Shawn. Is there really a secret girlfriend?” She smiled at him like he was going to spill it right there on national television. He smirked, no blush, no side glances, just cold, cruel honesty. You felt a pang beneath your sternum. “Nah, I don’t have a girlfriend, secret or otherwise, thanks Erin.” He grinned wide and flashed his peace sign, running toward the locker room, leaving you staring at the television with your heart in your throat, unable to move or speak.

He lied.

Your chest quaked. One of the pieces of him forced itself free and left an invisible, gaping hole. Gasping and holding your hand to your heart, you tried to hold in the pieces still encased inside. You remembered your earlier thoughts about invisibility, about holding him back, about going back to the way it was before you’d met him. No one could reach you, no one could touch you there, no one could cause you pain.

I’m never going to be able to give him what he wants.

* * * * * * * * * *

He sprinted up the stairs to her dorm room. Everyone was out celebrating the win tonight so he hadn’t even bothered with his usual disguise. He knew she would be here, he’d expected it. When he knocked on the door impatiently, he hadn’t expected Caroline to answer, looking like a mama bear protecting her only cub.

“What the **** do you think you’re doing here?” She’d gone from heart eyes to daggers so quickly. He probably deserved it. Scratch that, he did deserve it. He’d known about the interview. Known how it might have gone. But, he hadn’t told her. He’d been fucking stupid.

“Caroline, let him in,” he heard her call from inside. Her voice sounded ragged, from disuse or crying he wasn’t sure. He shuffled in, looking mostly at the floor while Caroline collected her stuff and looked at him, still the same daggers jutting from her eyes, pointing her key at him like a sword.

“I’ll be at Naomi’s,” she looked back at her roommate and softened her gaze, “let me know if you need me. I’ll have my phone glued to my hand.” She paused, “and you,” she turned her gaze to him and if looks could kill. She gave her keys an extra stab in his direction, “if you fucking hurt her anymore, I know where you live.” She turned on her heel and slammed the door behind her, locking them in with a click.

He finally lifted his head and looked at her, stifling an involuntary quick inhale at her appearance. She looked like she hadn’t slept since he saw her last. Her eyes were sunken, purple circles with red rims underneath the cerulean blue hue of the irises he dreamt of every night. Splotches of pink touched her cheeks. She was wearing the same t-shirt, his shirt, from Thursday night and a pair of oversized sweatpants. His fingers ached to hold her, to tell her it was nothing, that everything was going to be okay. His legs propelled himself forward, but she moved backward in equal measure, holding up her arms to keep the distance.

“No, Shawn. You stay over there.” She wrapped her arms around her middle, one hand pressing against her chest like she was holding herself together, but only just. He looked down, around the floor, past her shoulder, anywhere but in her eyes where he knew he’d see disappointment and irreparable sadness.

“You have to let me explain. I didn’t know what was going to happen with the article, if she’d even print it after I said what I said. I didn’t want you to panic if it turned out to be nothing.” He could feel her looking at him, feel the pressure in the room rise. “I thought if I didn’t confirm or deny her statement that she’d throw it away and not write about it. I had no idea that she’d twist it into some bullshit confirmation. I had no idea she’d talked to fucking Brian Craigen about you being at practice and me punching him in the fucking face.” He breathed heavy, catching his breath. His words were urgent, needing her to understand, to believe that he would never hurt her on purpose. He finally met her eyes and what he found there shook him to his core.

“But, what about earlier Shawn? What about the reporter? The lie you told her on national television?” Her tone was flat, like she’d cried everything out and there was nothing left for him to come back to, to bargain with. “I didn’t even recognize you. Your eyes were so cold. You lied to her. Maybe it was to protect me, but you lied so easily. So smoothly. How do I know you’re not lying right now? That you haven’t lied before?”

“Because you know me! The real me! We promised we wouldn’t lie! I love you! Do you really think I would jeopardize that?!” He was pleading, foreboding growing in his abdomen. This wasn’t going at all the way he’d planned. To be honest, he barely remembered the interview after the game. He barely remembered the game itself. After he had set his mind in the locker room, it was like autopilot. Nothing could touch him there. He remembered answering the reporter’s questions the way he would have before he met her, a little bit of humble, a little bit of teamwork, a little bit of flirt. “I told that reporter that I didn’t have a girlfriend because I thought it would take the heat off, make people stop talking about it. I thought you would be happy about it.”

She looked resigned, set on a course that was going to break him. “You thought I’d be happy? Shawn, you looked lifeless out there,” she crossed the room to him and took his face in her hands. “I can usually see everything you’re thinking, everything that’s going on in your eyes, but today I saw nothing.

“If that’s what you have to do to be with me, then maybe you shouldn’t be with me.” She dropped his face and turned away, crossing her arms over her stomach again, “maybe it was always doomed. I know you’d love nothing more than to look at that reporter and confirm that you’re taken, but you didn’t do that today because you wanted to protect me. You shouldn’t have to do that. I shouldn’t ask you to do that. But you did and I have because I’m never going to be able to give you what you want.” Her words stung when they hit him across the face.

“So I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t?” It came out more bitter than he had intended, but it felt good. If she was going to throw words, then so was he. “I’ve told you before that I’ll wait for you until you’re ready. I’d wait forever if that’s what you wanted. Do I wish I could tell people? Could hold your hand? Walk you to class? Kiss you in the sunlight? Yes! Of course I want those things! But I would never force that out of you or from you because I know you’re not ready. I want to be with you, that’s what matters. But if you don’t want to be with me, then that’s on you. You can’t blame this on me.”

She turned back around, her face streaked with tears, “I just think you’ll be better off without me. I’m too broken to make you happy.” He didn’t know what to say to that. It was like she’d stilled the wind and stolen his sails. He was a sitting duck in the ocean, no shore in sight. She made him happy, happier than he could remember being in years, but he’d just said he wanted more and she just said he might not ever have it. The silence stretched between them, broken only by the sound of their breathing and her quiet sniffles.

“I…I think you should go, Shawn.” She wiped her face with the hem of his shirt. He exhaled, his breath leaving him as if he’d been punched in the gut. His hands curled into fists, resisting the urge to reach for her. He wanted to so bad, but if he tried, he knew she’d recoil. He’d rather walk out of here forever than see her back away from him again. She was already turned so far into herself that the blue of her eyes had dimmed, had lost the sparkle that he clung to at night. The light he retreated to was threatened by his shadow. He could feel the hook beneath his sternum pinch and scream at the frayed line between them.

She walked behind him toward the door, her head hanging low to hide her tears. He turned the door knob and walked out into the over saturated light of the hallway, making stark the reality of what had just happened. Swallowing his own emotions, he whirled around, catching her off-guard. His hand came up to cup her cheek and she stopped breathing, “don’t.”

But he pressed his lips to her forehead anyway, not knowing if it would be the last time they would touch her skin. Unfallen tears burned the back of his throat when he parted from her, rushing down the hallway, needing to get out of there. He heard her door click shut at the same time his phone buzzed in his pocket.

Zubin: Hey man! Celebration party on Greek Row, this shit is lit! Come meet us!

He stared at the text, moments bleeding into minutes, walking out of her dorm building and into the chilly night air. Taking a deep breath, he choked on the feelings roiling in his chest. He needed them to be quiet, needed an outlet. Darkness called to him. The bittersweet bite of alcohol flooded his mouth, rushing back with memories of bathroom floors and splitting headaches.

**** it.

He knew there would be a bottle of gin waiting for him.

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