The Football Complex

The Friendship Complex

Grady's practice ends with the curt call of a whistle, gathering all the kids to the middle of the field towards Chris and three of his football buddies. The boys crouched down to their height, speaking to them excitedly before they all chanted something that I couldn't pick up from where I sat.

Chris follows Grady and Surrey towards where Stella and I are sitting. He muses their heads, smiling, and for a moment I can see how Stella can believe that this boy could somehow pull me out of whatever hole I'm stuck in.

But I was never one for fairytales, and I'm not about to start.

He closes in on us, shooting us his award winning smile, though it feels as though it focuses more on me.

"Grady is doing really well out there," I take a moment to realize he's talking to me. Grady has already placed himself down next to me, completely ignoring us for the task at hand, taking off his cleats.

It takes me a moment to put together an answer. "Well it's in the blood," An awkward silence encompasses us, Chris's eyes search for around for moment. He looks very much like a cat stuck in a corner.

"Surrey is doing awesome as well," He turns to Stella, finding his escape in my best friend.

Fairytales aren't real, if Chris couldn't handle that, I'm scared to think what would happen if he really had to deal with this. I couldn't blame him, I knew how hard I am to deal with, that presently I gave off a devil may care vibe that scares the crap out of people.

I come back to earth as Stella says goodbye to Chris, he barely waves as he makes his way back onto the field. I realize that the field had become crowded again. This time with boys who very much acted like children but didn't look like them.

My breath catches in my lungs, as I watch these guys joke and push each other around. Guys that I have spent to majority of my high school career around. Guys who had been hit with the same devastation I had. I had lost my father, they had lost a role model, some who pushed them just as much as he use to push me.

I could see a few of them glance my way, when they did the laughter would die on their lips for a brief moment. Their eyes told me everything I had already heard.

'I'm sorry, we miss him too.'

I don't think they realize how much more there is to him being gone for me. To them they miss a person, they miss something that use to be. For me, I didn't just miss the person because I didn't lost just a person, I lost myself. I lost a part of my soul, pieces of my heart, he had taken that all with him. Leaving empty spaces that I couldn't fill, even though I tried. Alcohol is a shitty substitute for what's missing, but in the moment it filled just enough for the pain to go away. Enough that I could breathe, if only for a moment.

"Ron can we stay and watch them practice?" Grady tugs on my shirt sleeve excitedly, his eyes already focused on the field, even though nothing is going on other than them making fools of themselves.

"Maybe next time," I don't want to tell him that it's too painful to watch. That I had my fair share of watching logged in, and that it would never be the same with him gone.

He pouts, his bottom lip jutting out past the top. I have the urge to grab it like dad would when I was little.

"Why don't we go for lunch?" I jump a little, forgetting that Stella had been on the other side of me. She gently reaches her hand out to touch me, but stops before she can. It sucks, what tradies can do to bonds, when they're not taken care of. It kills me that Stella didn't even feel comfortable enough to reach out and just touch my shoulder. It would have hurt him to see us like this.

"That sounds nice," Grady's mood lifts. He quickly jumps off the bench ready to leave now that the promise of food is in the near future.

Surrey joins him as they make a break for the car lot.

"I'm sorry about the whole Chris thing." She looks so lost now, I only recognize the look because I find myself wearing it quite a bit these days. "I just... Sometimes I forget that grieving is a process and that we all take our own time and we find our own ways. I just miss you and I think a selfish part me just wants you back, but I know that's not how this works, and..."

I circle my arms around Stella, surprising even myself, but it's something that needed to be done. I'm sick of wallowing in my own demons. I'm sick of letting them hold me by my heart strings. I'm sick of them telling me it's okay to hurt the ones I love.

But even as I hug Stella and she hugs me back, I know it won't be that simple. I know I can't just tell my demons to go screw themselves and hope that they magically disappear.

There's no telling how long it would take for me to be half the person I was six months ago. Hell, even a quarter of the person I was six months ago.

I have to start somewhere, at some point I have to pick myself up and try to climb out of this hole.

Looking up at the top of the hole, I can see the hand of a red headed, spitfire, who is ready to help me climb out.