The holidays had come and gone and Lily for one was grateful they were over. Juggling time with Grant and his family while sneaking around with Ford, was starting to take its toll. She hadn't been feeling well. And while things were great between her and Ford, life for Grant was spiraling downward. The pain from his injuries was becoming unmanageable. Lily watched as Grant began taking more and more pain pills and once he had run out, and the doctor had denied his request for refills, he turned to alcohol to lessen his pain. Grant's drinking increased at a rapid pace. He used to only drink at parties in the off season, but without football to focus on and his future at college stripped away, he didn't have much to keep him on track.
On a chilly February morning, Lily stood in her usual spot by her locker waiting for Grant. He was late, which wasn't entirely unusual these days. Most mornings he showed up at the last minute, disheveled, as if he'd just rolled out of bed, which was the polar opposite of his previously always-put-together-yet-in-an-effortless-kind-of-way look. Lily felt queasy and searched the hallway anxiously. Her eyes wandered over the throngs of students when Benny approached.
"Grant's in trouble," he stated very matter-of-fact. Benny was the kind of guy who was always joking around, so when he was serious, Lily knew it meant something was really wrong.
"What do you mean?" Lily asked in concern. "What happened?"
"It's not what happened, it's what's happening. He's blitzed out of his mind and stumbling around the middle of the football field."
"Jesus," Lily replied and her heart sank. Like being late to class, Grant showing up drunk to school wasn't entirely unusual either, but being completely wasted before noon was a new low.
"What can I do?" she asked.
"He won't listen to me or any of the other guys. Ford might be able to get him under control but I can't find him anywhere. Coach has been lenient in the past with some of Grant's screw ups because of what...ya know...happened."
Even since Grant's accident everyone danced around talking about it. No one dared to say the actual words.
"But Grant's super drunk," he continued. "If Coach finds him like this I don't think he's gonna be able to look the other way. I'm worried Grant's gonna be in some serious trouble. I thought maybe you could get through to him and convince him to go home."
"Of course," Lily nodded. "I'll take care of it. Thanks Benny," she laid her hand on his shoulder in appreciation. He was always a good friend to Grant, even possibly his best friend, now that Ford had mainly gone MIA because of his guilt.
She shut her locker and immediately headed towards the field.
She found Grant just where Benny had said, wasted and stumbling around the middle of the field, waving his arms in the air with a flask in hand. Lily made her way towards him. The ground was cold and hard but there wasn't any snow. It had been a long time since they'd had a good snowfall.
"Grant, what are you doing?" Lily asked as she approached.
"Oh, ya know," he said, taking a swig from the flask. "Just re-living the glory days," he laughed, but his chuckle was dark and filled with pain.
"Come on, we should go. If anyone catches you out here you'll be in big trouble."
"So?" he said, taking another swig. "What are they going to do to me? I've already lost my scholarships, my chance at a football career, my entire future. What more could they possibly take from me? I don't have anything left to lose."
Lily stood silently. Me, she thought to herself, and it felt like the pain of her guilt might swallow her whole. She didn't know what to say. What could she say? It'll be fine. I'll all work out. You'll still have a great life anyway. Bullshit. It was all a bunch of feel-good bullshit that she knew Grant would see right through. Lily didn't know what to say but she certainly knew what not to say. It would just piss Grant off more and right now she needed to help him calm down.
"You know it's funny," he began, eyes wandering around the stadium. "I used to love this place. I loved the adrenaline I felt as the crowd cheered my name. I loved that surge of excitement when I nailed a pass and the thrill of winning. There's nothing like it. Hell, even losing had its pluses. It motivated me to do better, try harder, practice more. I loved having something to get up for every morning. This place was my home. The team was my family, but now....now I just fucking hate this place."
He paused to take another drink and Lily tried to think of something to say, but it had already all been said to him and none of it worked. Grant didn't need a pep talk. He needed to speak his truth, to get out what he was feeling. He'd been bottling it all up and using the alcohol to mask his pain. His parents had tried to get him to talk to a therapist but he had refused and when Lily sided with them, Grant had snapped at her. Now he was finally opening up. This was his monologue and she was an audience member watching him spill his guts onto the field. At least it was a performance for one and no one else would see. She couldn't' bear the idea of anyone watching Grant fall apart like this. Under different circumstances she probably would have gone and found Ford to help out, but he was hurting too and seeing Grant like this would only make his pain worse. She was bearing the weight of both their pain, but there was no one to carry hers, so she set it aside. It was the least she could do after all the drama she had caused.
"You know they barely talk to me now."
"Who?"
"The team. I'm like a piranha. No one wants anything to do with me."
"That's not true."
"Yes it is. They feel awkward. They don't know what to say. Even Ford keeps a distance."
It was all true and Lily's silence confirmed it.
"He wasn't there. He should have been there. Why wasn't he there?"
"What do you mean?"
"Ford. He wasn't there to block me. Why?"
"I don't know," she lied and her heart sank deeper in her chest. A sick feeling rose up her throat. There was a question she wanted to ask, but she wasn't sure she had the courage.
"Are you..." she hesitated, but if there was ever a time to ask, it was now. She wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer, but part of her hoped what Grant would say might help Ford.
"Are you you mad at him? Do you...blame him?"
"Yes...no...I don't know. I changed the play. I shouldn't have changed the play, but I wanted to impress the scouts. I wanted them to see how good I was, not just as part of a team, but on my own. I wanted to stand out and show them what I could do and instead I fucked up my whole life!"
The pain is his heart was visible. It was written all over his face, etched in the lines of his forehead, his furrowed brow. He took a long swig off the flask, hoping to wash the hurt away. It spilled all over his mouth, but he didn't care.
"I think about it all the time," he continued, as he wiped the liquid off his face with the back of his hand. "I lie awake in bed replaying that moment in my mind over and over again. Sometimes I feel like if I shut my eyes tight enough, I can somehow go back in time and change things."
Grant swayed and stumbled as he put the flask to his lips and began to pound what was left inside. Now Lily was really beginning to worry. He was either going to drink himself into oblivion or get himself expelled from school. Her guilt had stopped her from intervening sooner but she knew in that moment that she had to speak up.
"Grant, why don't you give me that," she said, stepping towards him.
His eyes turned towards her but his lips never left the flask.
"Come on Grant, you've had enough," she said more sternly.
He pulled the flask from his lips and again wiped his face with his sleeve. With how much he was swaying back and forth, he could barely manage to get the liquor in his mouth.
"I've had enough?" he laughed maniacally. "I've had enough?" he repeated, but this time his sinister laugh was gone and was replaced with anger. "What are you, my mother?"
It was like a flip had switched from vulnerability to anger in a split second and Lily realized she wasn't talking to Grant anymore. The boy who stood before her was a drunken sad hurt shell of who he used to be. She barely recognized him. He was mean Grant now. It was a side of him she'd never seen before and while it hurt her to see him this way, she wasn't going to tolerate being spoken to that way.
"Don't be a jerk Grant. I'm trying to help. You're wasted. You're gonna regret this."
"I'm wasted? I'M wasted. Ha!" he mocked her. "That's rich, coming from the queen of the keg stand."
Lily was shocked by his comment. He'd never spoken to her like this before. This was a Grant she didn't recognize, or maybe she just hadn't been paying attention. Maybe this was who Grant was now, but she'd been too blinded by her feelings for Ford to notice that he was unraveling.
"I'm not the enemy Grant. I'm trying to help."
"Oh yeah. How? By bringing me my homework and snuggling on the couch. We've barely kissed in the last couple months. What kind of a girlfriend are you? I get more action from my sister!"
Lily let out an audible gasp and then fell silent. It was true, but it was cruel. Grant wasn't himself, and as mad as she was at him for how he was speaking to her, she knew she couldn't say anything. She deserved to be on the receiving end of his wrath. She deserved a lot worse. Grant didn't need to know about her betrayal in order to make Lily feel like shit. She'd been beating herself up for months.
She stood there quietly, holding back tears, not over what he had said, but over his demise. It pained her to see him this way. He was at the top of his game, the king of the world. He had fallen so fast and it was a long hard fall from the top.
Grant was losing his temper in a way she'd never seen before, a way that scared her. It must have scared him too, because he immediately hung his head down in shame. He saw the hurt in Lily's eyes and it quickly quelled his anger. He dropped to his knees, releasing the now empty flask as it fell to the ground. He cradled his head in his hands. She'd never seen him so weak and so vulnerable. It crushed her.
She approached him slowly and knelt down next to him, placing her hand upon his back. She rubbed him gently.
"I'm sorry," he said, looking up at her with eyes rimmed in red.
Lily had never seen him cry. Come to think of it, she'd never seen him with any emotion other than happy or at the very worst, stoic.
"It's okay," she said, pulling him towards her.
He collapsed into her lap.
"It's okay," she repeated, stroking his hair. She felt his body relax into hers.
A snowflake fell from the sky and then another and another, but Lily didn't budge. She sat there holding him in the middle of the 50 yard line. It was the closest she'd felt to him in a very long time, maybe the closest she'd ever felt in their entire relationship. In that moment, she realized that maybe their relationship fizzled because he'd never fully let her in, but neither had she. It was all surface level, and things on the surface have a way cracking.
Lily's mind flashed to when they had first started dating, to times that were carefree and filled with happiness. Part of her wanted to go back to that, back to a time that was simpler, a time when she was living in her bubble, that moment right before it burst wide open and shattered all their lives. But in those memories, she also saw Ford, always present, on the periphery, hurt and waiting, hoping for his chance. She realized that it wasn't just him watching her, she had been watching him too. He was the first person she searched for when she arrived at a party. She unconsciously looked for him when the team would run onto the field. She'd been watching him, all this time, unable to make sense of the feelings she had for him.
She looked up into the stands and there he was, Ford, staring at Lily and Grant in the middle of the field as the snowflakes floated down around them. He watched them for a minute, frozen in his fear, guilt overpowering his ability to go and comfort his friend. Lily didn't know how long he'd been watching them, but she knew now wasn't the time for him to jump in and help so she simply shook her head, indicating that he should go and relieving him of feeling any sort of obligation that she was sure he couldn't fulfill. She couldn't tell for sure from the distance she was at, but he seemed sad, hurt. He only stood there a few moments more, before turning and leaving.
Lily stayed with Grant for a while before helping him to his feet. She wrapped his arm around her shoulders for support and walked him to his car. She put him in the passenger side, cranked on the heat and drove him home. Both his parents worked so she knew they wouldn't have to worry about being caught.
She helped Grant up the stairs and into his room. She looked around in shock at what was once the cleanest boy's room she'd ever seen and was now a total disaster. Clothes were strewn around the room, a dirty still wet towel hung over a chair. Candy wrappers were littered across the floor and an empty vodka bottler lay half hidden under the bed, which explained his current condition.
She tried to set him down on the bed but he was dead weight, dragging her down with him. They fell onto the mattress and it squeaked as their bodies bounced up and down until they came to a rest.
"Stay with me," he said through slurred words, looking into her eyes as their heads lay side by side on his pillow. His eyes were glossed over and he was having trouble staying focused. He grabbed her waist and pulled her towards him. Lily felt like she was going to vomit from the smell of the liquor on his breath.
"I can't," she said, trying to slither our of his grasp. "I have to get back to school. I've got a test."
It was a lie, but it was the only thing she could think of as a legitimate excuse.
"Since when do you care about tests?"
Damnit, just like Violet, he knew her too well. Why couldn't she care more about school? It made for a great excuse.
"I need you," he begged. He cradled her head in his hand and pulled her closer. Panic began to rise in Lily's body.
"Grant, come on, we can't do this right now."
"Why not?"
"Because your parents could come home."
Another lie.
"I don't care. I need you Lily."
Even as he said the words, she wasn't sure he actually meant them. Did he really need her or was it just that he needed someone, anyone or anything to keep his mind off of the pain?
"We should..." he began and his hand trailed down her body to her pants. He fumbled with her zipper.
"Grant, no," she said more sternly this time.
Grant had tried a couple of times to have sex with Lily but it never happened. They had done plenty of other stuff of course, but they'd never gone all the way. It just didn't feel right and she never really understood why until she was with Ford and realized that that was how you were supposed to feel before you gave yourself to someone.
"So when you said we shouldn't do this right now, what you really meant, was that we shouldn't do this at all."
"Grant, come on, I..."
"No you come on Lily. You're my girlfriend and we've been dating forever! When did you become such a prude?"
It was so hurtful and so not Grant. She knew he wasn't himself right now, both because he was wasted and because of everything he'd been through the last couple of months, but she'd tolerated enough. She didn't need to be his punching bag.
"You're drunk," she said as she ripped his hands off of her and sat up.
"Wait," he pleaded and just like that his emotions had flip flopped again. He was an emotional wreck. "Just stay with me for a while."
His eyes were bloodshot and unfocused. She wondered exactly how drunk he was. She was worried about leaving him. Lily wanted to go, but her guilt drew her back. She laid down next to him and pulled the covers over the two of them. Grant didn't try to make a move. Instead, he nestled his head into her shoulder while she stared up at the ceiling. Tiny white glow-in-the-dark stars were stuck in a pattern that spelled out the word "yes." It was from when they had first started dating and Grant asked her to the Homecoming dance by making some of the football players do a flash mob dance in the middle of her health class. She responded with the stars on his ceiling for him to see when he went to bed that night.
Grant's breathing was heavy and slow. Before long, he was completely passed out and snoring loudly. Lily waited awhile to make sure he was okay. He just needed to sleep it off. She slid out from under the weight of his body and pulled the covers up and over his shoulders. Then she filled the empty glass by his bed with water for when he would wake up.
She kissed him lightly on the forehead and stared at him for a moment, watching him sleep. She was reminded of a quote from The Outsiders: the only book she ever enjoyed reading in high school. "Maybe people are younger when they sleep," Ponyboy had said, and that's exactly how Grant looked. He was at peace. So maybe Grant was right, if he shut his eyes tight, he could go back in time to how it was before all this had happened. All the sadness of the past few months was wiped from his face and Lily could see the Grant she used to know. A tear rolled down her cheek.
She turned and left his room, shutting the door quietly behind her. She leaned up against it, the back of her head rested against the door. She closed her eyes and when she opened them, tears streamed down her face. It wasn't just Grant that she was crying about. There was something else, something she was hiding from. And by the time she had pulled herself together and left his house, she knew exactly what she needed to do.