Page 76 of Going for Two

“You and me.”

That’s all I wanted today’s game to be. Me and all my friends playing one last game together.

“Heat pack?” Lottie asked me when I walked into the training room.

There was a lightness about her that I hadn’t seen in weeks. We’d stayed friendly this entire week during practices here in Los Angeles. But I hadn’t given her much attention because I needed this week for myself. If I wasn’t playing again next year, I was going to soak up every ounce of these last few moments before they were gone.

And it seemed like she understood that.

“Please,” I told her.

The normal charades of the Super Bowl were dulled inside the training room, but we could still hear the bass from the song the DJ played out on the field. The NFL hoped for today’s event to be the biggest sporting event of the year, so no expense was spared. Between the entertainment they brought for before the game and the halftime show or the tailgating events they hosted for high-paying individuals, the entire thing was a spectacle.

But in this room, it was just the two of us. Like it had been the entire season. Exactly how I wanted it to be.

“Are you ready to have fun today?” Lottie asked me. She didn’t ask if I was ready for the game like so many others. She didn’t ask me if I was nervous. She only asked me if I was ready to have fun.

I remembered all the pep talks that she had given me throughout the season, but the one that stuck out the most to me was her reminder to have fun because I owed myself and all the work I’d put in that much.

Any nerves I had left floated away with her question.

“Are you?” The smile she gave back to me had me thanking the heavens that I got to walk into today’s game with that image on my mind.

“First Super Bowl game I’ve gotten to be a part of. Can’t say I’m not excited.” Lottie’s calm demeanor was slowly brushing off on me the longer I sat in here with her.

“I don’t think it’ll be your last,” I told her.

Lottie laughed. “And it might not be yours either.”

I don’t think she intended her words to be a dig, but they stung, nonetheless. Her mouth dropped open when she saw the hurt on my face. I missed her and I wanted to clear the air between us. I wanted her to know that I’d made my decision, and I made it for myself. “I don’t know about that.”

The last thing I saw as I walked out of the training room was Lottie’s slack jaw as she watched me leave—wondering if I had just told her I really was retiring after this year.

“One more game?” Hawthorn asked me as we all filed into the tunnel to run out onto the field.

“One more game,” I agreed.

The cue from the NFL producers came shortly after. We burst out of the tunnel and into the deafening noise of the stadium. The coin toss went in our favor as we chose to receive the kick.

Clear your mind.

All the noise slowly faded away as I stepped out onto the field. It was just me and the game I loved.

Breathe. Throw.

The ball sailed from my hand toward my receiver, and I relished in how comforting I found this moment—being in charge with the game at my fingertips. I had the power to win it all or lose it all with the football in my hands.

Clear your mind.

But as I marched down the field with my team toward the end zone, I felt for the first time a sense of readiness. I’d slowly come around to this chapter closing during all that time I’d spent fighting the end.

Breathe. Throw.

I’d heard plenty of athletes talk about how you knew when you were done, and as I threw my first touchdown of my last Super Bowl, I knew. I watched Adam and Hawthorn shifting their priorities toward their family and I wanted to do the same.

The linemen lifted Derek into the air as they celebrated our first touchdown and when my best friend pointed down at me, screaming at the top of his lungs as he celebrated, I joined him.

People talked about how there were many great loves in one’s life. For me, football would always be one of them. There would be a place carved out for it in my heart for the rest of my life. It was the place that allowed me to express my truest self. It was the freest I’d ever felt, but it was also a place that had made me feel the most exhausted as I had to constantly strive to be better than what I had just accomplished. Now all I wanted in life was to be appreciated for me and not have to evolve into something else yet again.