This Winter

Chapter 30

Senior Year

"Do you think I should play football in college?"

My Mom hums in thought as she places her plate in the dishwasher. "I can't make decisions for you, Ethan."

I sigh obnoxiously as I flip through the papers in the file Coach had handed me. "Can you just make this one?"

"I thought you loved playing? What's holding you back," she presses.

I divert my attention from her, instead staring off into the window on my right. The sun is just beginning to set.

"Nothing," I mutter. My brown irises staring into the golden sun that peaks from the blinds.

"Sometimes change is good. Don't settle," she tells me while tucking a strand of brown hair behind her ears.

My mother's hair is long, the brown waves of hair cascading down her back. The same darkness as mine, but a gold tint that every so often catches the sunlight. I've never lived to see the day she cuts it above her shoulders- only in pictures years before I was born.

Change is good. But why change when my life here is great? Here I have my Mom and Noah. Not only them but the whole town.

I can't fathom a reality without my traditional coffee run with Noah every Christmas, Friday night football games, or the winding roads I take almost everyday to Noah's.

It's hard to realize that even if I decide to stay here for school- life will still change drastically. My years of youth are nearing an end and with that thought I worry of Noah and I.

It's a sickening thought that creeps into the back of my mind. I worry how long we can contain our relationship to the confinements of secrecy until we reach total madness.

I flip open the beige file to another college packet- McKendree University. The purple and gold colors that paint the glossy paper are far from my blue and white heart. A wildcat growls on the page with intimidation and I grimace.

Coach said they've been watching me since my Junior year; a school all the way in Illinois. It wasn't too far from my hometown, just over four hours to the campus.. but somehow it felt too far.

I don't like Illinois; I like home.

***

Weeks passed and the folder remains closed. I shove it somewhere on my desk, under stacks of paper and clothes. Suppressing all thoughts of college as long as I can before I inevitably must decide.

Sometimes I think of telling Noah, but I never do. I'm not really sure why.. I know he would be happy for me, probably encourage me to play. Maybe that's why I don't tell him.

My inevitable decision stays unanswered, and instead I find myself living through Noah and Ashley's lives.

I ask Ashley about her math grade at school, to which she replied 'All thanks to Noah.' I then asked Noah how the studying went, but a simple shake of his head and thumbs up was all I received.

Noah and Ashley had been aquatinted for months now, and I was beginning to see that maybe they wouldn't ever be friends. I had hoped they would, but maybe it was okay.. it wasn't like they hated each other, they're just my friends.

Separate friends. Separate lives, and that was okay...

But then one night I got thinking.