Celestial Love (Anthony Rizzo)

.3. Rock Meets Hard Place

Celeste

My dad chose the name Celeste because he was a astronomer, lost in the stars. The term celestial is outer space as observed by an astronomer. And my dad said I was a star in his and my mother's life, a force to be reckoned with and burning bright from the day I was born. And for someone who spends so much time looking into the darkness of the blackened night sky, he says everyone needs to have that light in the darkness. At least that's what my mom tells me, for my dad died when I was just three years old. I had little memories of him but my mom made sure she kept his spirit alive.

But now that I might lose her too I'm slowly losing my grip on things. Trying so hard to hold on but with each passing day my strength is slipping away. I would do anything to keep her around, she had given me everything and I wanted to give her that back. If only she knew how much I had to give up just to keep her around.

James Daniels was your typical jock, thinks with his muscles and doesn't care much for anything outside of the game of football. He is conceited and hard headed and often times unbearable, but he was home to me. We've been together for a decade, and not all ten years were awful. High school was sweet and college was fun. I've been there for him through everything, followed him from Seattle to Alabama for college, left college early to come to Chicago and watch him follow his dreams. Sit by and support him like any good high school sweetheart should.

No one cares much what I think. I was your typical football wife who plans surprise birthday parties and supports the team and gives the fans anything they want. I'm called faithful for staying with him all this time, even though his cheating has made front page news almost every time it has happened. And still he denies it all, says it is the media is lying to everyone because they want to paint him as the bad boy. For some reason he has it in him that the media wants to see the cities golden boy down on his knees. But I know, most of the girls he cheats on me with are my friends, they tell me. Show me screen shots and videos of him being unfaithful. I usually find out before it makes it in the news. Doesn't make it hurt any less when your face is the face of spineless football wife being cheated on again, I can't have friends that are boys but I might catch a std because he wants to fuck around. Because of what he does on the field he is untouchable off of it and it sucks. I was helpless.

And ever since my mom got sick he's been paying for her treatment. It's been about a year and it's been up and down when it comes to her health but he pays for everything. Holds it above my head every time we fight. "Watch it Celeste, we wouldn't want anything to happen to your mother would we" he says with a beer in his hand while I am backed up against a wall like I have been since we got here. And mom thinks he's a saint, he is sweet to her and he does help her more than anyone else. She deserves this kind of love from him, but so do I.

I'm all for being faithful, ride or die, end game. All of that. But if I would have known he was going to be so awful I would have called it quits long ago. I'm almost 27 and I want more to life than following this man around as he controls every aspect of my life and everyone turns a blind eye. He has five assistants following him around and they're almost as miserable as me. No one cares to speak up for me and I haven't had a voice in this relationship since I got this ring.

I wanted a family, someone in my life I know would love me despite what James would say about me, but James says he doesn't want a family while he's playing. He doesn't want any distractions therefore children are out of the question. So when I got pregnant while on birth control he paid for the abortion, he was there to make sure I went through. Every second I was in that chair I was embarrassed, I was in pain, I was heartbroken. I didn't have a choice about what happened to my child, and I'm all about women having having that choice but I wanted to keep it. Not everyone is ready for kids but I was. I wanted so bad to have something, but he wouldn't even let me have my own child. He won't let me have anyone that he couldn't control.