Guy and Reason

Chapter 29 (Eden/Reason): His Jersey

Copyright © 2025 by GroveltoHEA

When Guy left the suite, I picked up his jersey from the bed, and it suddenly felt very heavy to me, laden with so much symbolism representing our past and our future.

I suppose anything holding my future would have felt weighty.

For a man who'd lived his life simply and under the radar for the past three years despite being a popular, well-known NFL player, this jersey was a beacon, a representation of so many aspects of his life. This jersey had helped Guy keep his focus while he'd worked on himself. I had no doubt in my mind all the work he'd put in, and I admired it.

As a person who'd never suffered from depression, I couldn't say I knew what he'd gone through, but as a medical professional who had seen it many times, I knew it wasn't easy. I'd seen patients beside themselves, feeling their lives being take over by this dark shadow. I'd seen the frustration and helplessness, the utter despair that their lives didn't feel like their own, that they couldn't get out of the hole they'd fallen into. I'd seen them curled into a ball, crying uncontrollably, not able to stop and not understanding why. 

I also knew that for every person who had depression, it manifested itself in a million different ways. I couldn't count the number of times people had said to me that they didn't know what was happening to them because they knew so-and-so who had depression, and they hadn't done this or that. It was like quicksand, pulling you under before you realized what you were in. People around them often said, well, you should have talked to someone or you should have gotten help, but it wasn't that straightforward. That required logical and rational thinking and depression often stole that from you like the thief that it was.

Guy had been struggling, not understanding what was happening to himself, thinking he'd get the strange feelings under control, thinking tomorrow would be better, keeping it to himself -- because how could you describe to someone else what you yourself didn't understand? It's why people often didn't reach out and ask for help until things got serious.

So fighting that beast, fighting to get that aspect of his life under control with meds and therapy was a fight like few others. Guy had done it while playing professional football, an immense stressor itself. He could have walked away from football and focused on programming while he worked on himself, but he'd taken the harder road because playing ball allowed him to make our dream come true.

Whenever I thought about what he'd built, that part always amazed me but it didn't surprise me. Guy could have lived the high life. He could have forgotten our dream and used his money for himself, but he hadn't. He'd built our dream. He hadn't stayed faithful to me, but after he'd lost me, he was determined to be faithful to the only thing he had left of me and that was our dream. Guy had turned it into a reality that was helping thousands and thousands of people who wouldn't normally receive medical care. 

That was Guy. He was a good man, but an imperfect one. The man who wanted to do good. The man who looked out for others. The man who would help others but wouldn't ask for help for himself. The man who'd made horrible choices and had had to battle back from almost letting those choices -- and what they'd done to me -- destroy him.

He didn't deny what he'd done. He didn't try to excuse it. He recognized the perfect storm that had been brewing and had led to him making choices he normally wouldn't have made. And then he'd dedicated himself to fixing what had gone wrong in him.

Those thoughts weighed me down and felt as heavy as that jersey still sitting on the end of my bed back at the hotel.

These last months had been illuminating, with the boy I'd known so well showing me who the man I didn't know so well was. Some things hadn't changed, but many things had and I'd enjoyed getting to know him again.

One thing I thought had changed but really hadn't was how much he loved me. I'd been so sure that what he'd felt for me hadn't been love if he could have cheated on me, but that hadn't been true. I had no doubt now that Guy loved me and had never stopped.

The emperor Shah Jahan had built the Taj Mahal for his beloved wife who'd died. In a similar vein, in his grief over losing me, Guy had built A Reason to Care as a monument to me, out of the love he had for me. It was his way of keeping connected with me.

Fortunately, my mother and Leslie were too preoccupied with catching up at dinner to notice I was distracted. I did my best to follow their conversation, but thoughts of Guy and what he'd said kept pushing forward in my mind.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The following morning, we were up early, and Guy picked us up right on time. Once again, I was distracted during the meal, and I felt Guy's curious gaze on me as we ate breakfast. 

I studied him while he spoke with our mothers. The sweet expression in his eyes, his ability to listen carefully, his seriousness and his swift smile were so familiar...but so different seeing them in the man's face. I knew this man, and I didn't. I'd known him so well, until I didn't know him at all, and then we'd been working on getting to know each other again as adults.

Guy drove us to his apartment right after breakfast and we walked up to the fourth floor -- the elevators were usually broken, he told us -- and walked into his home. Threadbare carpets, minimal furniture, the glass in one window cracked. His kitchen had dark brown cabinets from the seventies, two of which were missing doors, and the linoleum on the floor was faded and starting to split at the seams.

He turned to me, eyes shining. "Nothing but the crappiest, as promised."

I started laughing, that deep laugh that Guy loved and had worked hard to bring back. He'd been right: I hadn't laughed in a real way for years. He'd recognized that and had done something about it.

"And now, seeing all this luxury the NFL player's living in, my gold-digger tendencies are surging forward and the dollar signs are blinking in my eyes, as you suspected."

Forgetting our mothers were there, or maybe just not caring, he said softly, "I'll build you a house, Reason."

I'd live here with you, Guy.

Fortunately, that hadn't come out of my mouth since no one was looking at me strangely. Then he spoke even more quietly, making sure this moment was just between us, knowing I'd recognize the words. 

"I have a dream. I persist in dreaming it although it has often seemed to me that it could never come true. I dream of a home with a hearth-fire in it, a cat and a dog, the footsteps of friends -- and you!"

He knew what that section of L.M. Montgomery's Anne of the Island meant to me because we'd read it together many, many times. It was Gilbert Blythe's confession to Anne after he'd recovered from an illness that almost killed him. Gilbert's words were filled with so much tenderness, hope, vulnerability and longing that they never failed to break my heart.

"Gilbert never stopped loving her, Reason. And I'll never stop loving you."

"Ready?" Leslie said brightly, unknowingly interrupting our moment. "We have a lot to do today!"

What we saw that day, I couldn't tell you. Where we ate lunch, I had no clue. What we talked about escaped me.

All I could think about was Guy.

When he hugged me good bye at our hotel, he smoothed my hair away from my face and kissed me sweetly, the way he had when we first began dating.

"See you tomorrow at the game, Reason."

He didn't ask if I'd be wearing his jersey, but it was all I could think about.

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