Capturing You

Chapter 14: A Promise

     Super Bowl morning.

     I was hardly able to sleep the night before, butterflies hatching and multiplying and fluttering about in my stomach as I laid in bed, Spencer and Trish — who I'd shared the hotel room with — sound asleep. Last night I finally told them what had happened between Joe and I, and they incessantly teased me, insisting he was my new boyfriend despite my protests that we had only barely made the first step past being friends. I didn't want to admit it, but I guess they could see it in my face alone: I was deathly nervous for the Super Bowl and I wanted nothing more than to see Joe hold that trophy.

     I got up before my alarm rang in the interest of getting my jitters out, hoping a long shower before anyone else woke up would do the trick. But there, my thoughts ate me up more. I pushed away any negativity, not wanting my overthinking habit to possibly jinx the Bengals after they'd fought so hard all season to get to this point. I closed my eyes and centered myself by thinking about Joe, his coolness on the field throughout his whole career and how that couldn't possibly change just because the stakes have gone higher. The image of him tossing a football on the field to me a week ago, smiling at me, calmed me down.

     I opened my eyes.

     Spencer was assigned to locker room coverage. Trish and I would hang forward, waiting at the end of the tunnel for the team to come out. Unlike Joe promised, I hadn't been able to see him until this moment, but I decided that my stomach would probably feel way worse if I had actually seen him. It was better that we hadn't seen each other and I held no bitterness toward it; the team and his game were the most important things today, and I wouldn't let him put me above them.

     "Ave, you're shaking," Trish said, snapping me out of my thoughts. It wasn't quite the big game yet — the teams were heading out on the field for a warm-up.

     I hadn't noticed until I relaxed my arms and felt relief from that stiff pressure, loosening my grip on my camera. "Jeez."

     "It's gonna be fine," she told me. I could tell she was nervous, too. Neither of us were that into sports — she was far less than I was, as she loved fashion more than she did football— but this team was practically in our blood. How could we not want the guys we knew and saw multiple times a week to win the biggest game of the year and reign supreme? "We're just a few hours away from seeing them win."

     I appreciated her comforting words, letting my camera dangle from my neck. "It's gonna be fun," I said. But did I believe it?

     An uproar came from the other end of the tunnel, and Trish and I — and the gaggle of other reporters next to us on the other side — prepped our cameras. Surrounded by the media, all of our lenses pointed at the team... This was the part about my job that I hated the most: having to capture every moment of the players as if they were performing animals at a zoo.

     And yet, as soon as they came out, I was ready to hit the shutter button a thousand times over. I could only imagine how fast my finger would be working when it was their official entrance.

     "Here they come," Trish sang, hopping excitedly where she stood. I looked through my lens, watching and waiting for the first figure — typically Joe — to lead the way. In an instance, though, I could feel her energy drop.

     I kept my eye fixed at the end of the tunnel, not letting go of my camera. Just barely peering out from the darkness I could see giant C.J. Uzomah, tight end, looking as if he was...

"Avery, I think he's calling you."

"What?"

"Avery, I think he's calling you!" Trish urged, patting my shoulder.