Boot(s)

45- Boot

Coach Jackson

I could tell Bobby was gone before I opened my eyes. His gangly limbs were normally tossed over my crippled body in some way or another when we woke up in the morning.

I took that first gasp-like breath in as soon as I woke up, and that was the first thing I noticed. I wasn't sticky with his sweat or constrained under his 50-pound quad. I was alone. Anxiously, I shook my wrist free from our comforter and aggressively tapped my smartwatch awake. 5:30 in the morning.

I sat up. The bathroom light was off. He wasn't reading in the chair by his dresser like he sometimes did when he couldn't sleep. The room was a hazy, foggy blue covered in stripes of the morning coming in through the blinds. I pulled myself out of bed and hobbled outside the bedroom and called down from the top of the stairs.

"Bobby?"

The only response I got was the sound of Millie's paws padding on the kitchen tile. She appeared at the bottom of the stairs seconds later, as if asking me the same question, while I listened for any other signs of life. I must have been waiting for Bobby to call back for at least a minute. It was only Millie's adorable sneeze that brought me back to reality.

I made my way back to bed, falling onto his side of the mattress as my mind scanned the mental database of all the places he could be.

He could have gone to the gym. He could have gone for a run.

I eyed his bedside table. His phone charger lay useless, no device attached. The sight gave my rapidly pounding heart a break.

He had his phone. He was fine. He was running, or walking. He couldn't sleep. Last night he couldn't sleep, I remembered that. He kept getting up to use the bathroom, and I hazily felt his fingers wind through my hair and scratch my back until late in the morning. He always did that when he couldn't sleep.

He was fine, I convinced myself of that, but I grabbed my phone and sent him a text anyway.

It's 5:30? What's up? Where are you?

A month earlier I would have deleted the last three words in fear of sounding controlling. But it was December now, and we had been together almost 3 months. Which, for us — living together, knowing each other and relearning each other all it once — felt like years.

I tried to fall back asleep for another hour, but it was fruitless, even sleeping on Bobby's side, in his scent.

It was 7 by the time I was leaving for school, and I still hadn't heard from him. I was busy shoving my coffee in the car cupholder and balancing my wallet on a stack of peanut buttered English muffins when I commanded the technology in my new Jeep to call him. It was a Grand Cherokee in a sexy navy blue that I had very humbly gifted to myself after driving Bobby's cars around for much too long. I needed something that tethered me to the Earth. I needed something I could sign my name on and call mine.

I was so shocked that his phone went straight to voicemail that I dropped the English muffins peanut butter face down on the passenger seat. I swore loudly, right as the machine was telling me to leave a message after the beep.

"Just dropped two pieces of peanut butter toast in the car," I muttered to no one. "Well, anyway, if the toast was any indication, I'm already having a shit day. I'm worried, Bobby. Where the hell you been all morning? Phone turned off? I'm not your mom, but c'mon dude, tell me where the fuck you're going at 5:30 in the goddamn morning." I paused, forcing myself to take a deep breath in as I backed out of the driveway. "Alright, well, I'm going to work. Damon and I are meeting with some of the JV girls to bring them up to varsity practice to ready them for next season already, if you can believe that. Anyway. I'm worried. Call me. Love you Bo. Alright. Bye."