When We Were Young

Chapter Fourteen

Desireé POV

"With the twelfth pick in the 2014 NFL draft the New York Giants select Odell Beckham," Roger Goodell spoke into the mic and I watched as Odell rose from his seat with tears in his eyes and walked to the stage with his Giants hat.

"You made it Dell," I spoke softly before getting up from the chair in the break room and making my way back to do my job.

I couldn't help but feel happy for him. He'd dreamt of the moment that he was living since he was a little boy. Regardless of what he'd said or done, I never wanted to see him fail. I just couldn't; I knew how bad he wanted it.

"Desireé, you're gonna be running the front for a while, you good with that," Mark, my manager asked me.

"Yeah," I nodded as I clocked back in and went to the front desk of the hotel.

Working at the Club Quarters was a means to a mediocre end, I didn't get paid much, but I also got paid for doing very little. It was one of three jobs I had, the hotel, a waitress at IHOP and a hostess at Dallas BBQ.

I just had to keep a roof over my head and the lights on, which I did. I sold my car before I left Louisiana to pay for my bus ticket home and have some money in my pocket once I got back here to New York. I didn't graduate, I never got the degree that I'd always dreamt of getting.

After me and Odell stopped being friends things with Derrick got worse and worse, and it started effecting my grades. I was put on academic probation before I just decided to drop out.

I felt like such a failure, because I didn't accomplish one of  the only real goals that I'd set for myself that was in my grasp and I allowed someone to take it from me. But at  the same time I was okay and slightly happy, because for the first time in a long time, as sad as it may sound, no one was laying their hands on me and I had my own food to eat.

That sounds really shitty. Actually that is really shitty that that's what I had to be happy about, but there were people out there that didn't even have those things. Not that long ago I was one of them.
~

A while after I went a man entered the lobby and came towards the desk.

"Hello, sir are you checking in, or is there anything I can help you with?"

"Yeah," he nodded. "My son is stayin' here an I wanna know what room he's in."

"Is there a number you can call or text to ask your son what room he's in? I'm not exactly at liberty to give that information out, the privacy of our guests is very important."

"His last name is Beckham, are there any Beckham's reserved at this hotel," he asked, getting impatient.

I typed in the last name in the computer and who the fuck pops up?  Odell Beckham Jr.

I sighed heavily before turning my attention back to the man, "I'm sorry sir you'll have to wait for him to get here, or have him call and say you can go up."

"Look girl, I'm his daddy, the boy is named after me, you know Odell Beckham Jr.? Well I'm Odell Beckham Sr. and he got drafted tonight, so tell me his damn room number so I can congratulate my son."

Oh now you wanna come around? Hmmm🤔... That's  convenient.

'Dezzy he told me he didn't want me. I just wanna know what I did for him not want to me. He's my dad.'

Words from Odell's letter all those years ago flashed through my mind, along with all the times he'd told me he wished he had a father. He'd tried to keep those feelings to himself, since my father was dead he felt he didn't have a right to complain, but all the while his father was as good as dead with the way he treated him.