Chapter 11

Sen

It was weird to sit in the stands at a football game. I hadn't been to any since high school and back then, I was the one people cheered for. The attention had never been something I liked, but I pretended.

This place was significantly bigger than the stadium at my school. I had to crane my head back to see the top of the stands. It was enclosed with bright lights above that made it impossible to see much of the sky. The roar of the crowd was familiar and helped get me in the mood for a game.

Kai found me earlier today and told me there'd be a spot saved for me. He gave me a row number, which put me just high enough to see the entire field and offered a huge amount of leg room since there were no seats directly below it.

I squeezed past the people who were already there until I came to a seat with a makeshift paper placard with my name on it. It was a small thing, but I appreciated that he actually followed through and made sure I'd have a seat. When I picked up the paper, I realized there was writing inside.

Putting a hand over my mouth, I smothered my laughter. I almost couldn't believe that he'd taken the time to write this himself. West wasn't wrong when he raved about Kai being a good person. He felt more genuine than most people I'd come across in my whole life.

"You came," someone said to my right. I turned and saw Brooks with a huge foam finger and a hot dog. It was a laughable sight, the law student with strict parents clinging to those two things.

"So did you."

"Yeah, West acted like there'd be nobody cheering for him out here."

"Will he even get field time?"

"Maybe. Apparently, he's sort of a badass, so I wouldn't doubt it."

When the crowd started cheering, I focused on the field. It took me a while to find Kai's jersey, but when I did, I stayed locked on him. Someone slightly taller than him, who I assumed was West, performed a dramatic bow toward the stands. Kai followed suit, looking a little less thrilled about it, but eager to please.

The first part of the game passed by in a blur. Kai wasn't on the field and neither was West. They were freshmen, so I wasn't surprised; just disappointed. I wanted to see how they played. With how close they were, I imagined they operated like a well-choreographed pair.

"I don't know much about football," Brooks admitted, leaning close so that I could hear him over all the noise.

"All the steps aren't really important, honestly. You'll know when they score. Then, you cheer."

"A man who makes things simple. I'm a fan of that."

"I think it's more fun to just enjoy it instead of picking apart every play. It's been hard for me not to do that. Habit, I guess."

"Kai said you used to play."

I nodded, trying not to ask when that had come up. Did they hang out?

"In high school," I replied. "Not for me."

"Makes sense. I know all about parental pressure."

"Yours might be a little worse."

He laughed before he stared intently at the field. We were down twenty yards and our points sat a good deal lower than the other team. There was plenty of time to make a comeback, but they'd have to pull it together quickly. When the wide receiver went down hard, half the crowd stood up to see what would happen.

Even though he got up, the coach replaced him. My heart beat a little faster when I saw 43 run onto the field. When he was in position, it looked like he turned his head in our direction. I knew he was just looking into the crowd, but I still felt nervous, just like I always did under his stare.

"That's Kai," I said.

Brooks leaned forward. "He'd better turn this around."

"They can do it."

Kai got taken down and I sucked in a breath. He got up and shook out his arms, but it wasn't until the next play was set up that I started to relax. That was my least favorite part about the game. One of my friends got a concussion during a homecoming game and another fucked up his knee pretty badly. I was always worried about an injury, not just for me, but for my friends and teammates.

You should like rough sports, my dad had said. They get the blood pumping.

So did a minimal-risk jog, but I hadn't told him that.

Thinking about my dad just reminded me of my last conversation with him over the weekend. He'd been trying to call me for five days now, but I never picked up. I didn't know what there was to say and, frankly, I was angry.

On Sunday, he asked me when I was going back to see Derek. I'd simply told him that I was still thinking about it. That didn't go over well. Things escalated to the point where he tried to guilt and shame me, claiming that I was on a downward-sloping path and trying to live in denial. I couldn't deal with it, so I decided not to for a while, even though it was bound to bite me in the ass when I did finally pick up the phone.

My mom left a sobbing voicemail, which was worse. It probably made me a bad son, but I hadn't responded to her either.

I straightened as I watched Kai run across the field. He was incredibly fast. The crowd erupted when he made it to the end zone. There was still a ways to go, but it was a solid step. He appeared lighter on the way over to the sideline and as soon as he made it, West nearly tackled him.

The rest of the game wasn't as great. The former wide receiver took over and even though we scored a couple more times, so did the other team. We'd inched closer, but it wasn't quite enough. The energy on this side of the stadium was noticeably less exuberant as the clock neared zero.

I wasn't disappointed in the way it turned out. This was only the team's second game and according to Brooks, they won the first one. People like West, though, had a hard time with that. I could tell from the way he walked as they headed toward the locker room.

Without any particular reason, I said a quick goodbye to Brooks and made my way down to the field. I managed to squeeze through without anyone stopping me. Once I was in the end zone, I tipped my head back and took in everything around me. I couldn't imagine playing in a place this size. During a win, it might make you feel like a god, but when you lost, it would be as if the field goals were looming over you, taunting you.

It must have been a while that I stood there because when I looked around, the stands were mostly empty. I was surprised nobody had kicked me out. I turned around and saw a shape standing in the tunnel that led to the locker room. It grew larger, then Kai came into view.

"Are you that impatient to see me?" he called. He was grinning as he jogged over to me. "How was the seat?"

"It was a seat."

His eyes narrowed. "I worked hard for that. You don't want to know what I did for it."

"Called dibs?"

"Pretty much," he laughed.

He dragged his fingers through his damp hair, still sporting that smile. Wearing a t-shirt and basketball shorts, he looked so casual and calm. I wondered if he ever worried about things in his day-to-day life. What was there to worry about when you were Kai Adler?

"So, this ritual," I reminded him.

"Oh, yeah."

Grabbing my wrist, he pulled me toward the sideline. I resisted the urge to yank my arm back, instead waiting until he came to a stop. I shoved my hands into my pockets and watched him pull a duffel bag from underneath one of the benches. He crouched and unzipped it, then pulled out a few things- a lighter, a bag of what looked like coins, and a jar. Weird combo.

"Sit," he instructed, settling on his ass.

I dropped to the ground in front of him and sat criss cross. He opened the bag to pull out one of the coins, then passed it to me. I ran my thumb over the smooth surface, realizing it was wood.

"Am I supposed to understand this?" I asked.

"Patience, grasshopper."

With a frown, I flipped the coin over. There was a small, carved football on it. It was a little choppy, but impressive for the size of the thing.

"I make them," he said before I could ask.

"You keep whipping out new skills."

Smiling, he uncapped a sharpie. "Write the date on the back."

When I did, he handed me the lighter. I hesitated, but when he moved it closer, I took it.

"Burn it."

"Uh…" I looked at the coin, then at him. "Really?"

"Yeah. I'll explain, just do it."

Shaking my head, I flicked the lighter and held the flame to the wood. It lit surprisingly quickly. Kai flipped over a bottle of water and poured it in a small circle. I dropped the coin in the middle of it and we both watched it continue to burn.

"The wood's dry," he explained. "It'll burn quickly."

"And what's the point?"

"It's something my dad started doing with me after my first game. We lost and I was completely devastated. Blubbering, crying, saying I wanted to quit."

"Not surprised."

He breathed a laugh and started to drum his fingers on his knee. "I may have been a little dramatic and sensitive. Instead of trying to tell me we'd do better next time, he brought me onto the field the next day and lit a wooden coin."

Grabbing the jar, he pointed to the coin inside of it. That one wasn't burned and it had been marked with a date.

"You savor the wins and you let the losses go. Every time I win a game, I create a token. When I lose, I accept it and release the negative energy back into the universe, so to speak. The tokens give me something to look forward to and, after a while, I learned to accept that loss is a natural part of life."

"I wish I would've seen it that way when I played. I beat myself up for every loss, trying to think of reasons it was my fault."

"I still do that, but this helps me to remember that it isn't important. We can't change it and I don't want to carry around a token of negative energy."

"Why did you show me this?"

"I don't know," he admitted slowly. "It seemed like something you should see. Maybe there are things you need to let go of. That, or I'm extremely worn out and need to sleep."

"Thank you."

His head cocked. "For making you burn a coin?"

"No, I…" Dragging my teeth over my bottom lip, I tried to resist blurting out everything going on in my head. "This is surprisingly beautiful. It's wholesome. I think I needed something positive like this."

"Oh. Well, you're welcome. It's nice that another person gets to have a piece of something my dad instilled in me."

We kept our eyes on the coin as it slowly became ash. The grass in the circle was mostly burned by that point, but it didn't breach the border of water. I stared at it a moment longer, thinking about the strange but meaningful ritual. I thought about how it might apply to my own life, but when I tried to separate the negatives from the positives that I wanted to keep, I found them interlaced by an intricate knot.

Was I holding onto negative energy and if so, what effect was it having on me every day? How would I even know?

What Kai had just shown me was personal. That fact wasn't lost on me. I felt warm and it wasn't from the tiny fire fizzling out between us.