Chapter 4: The Fake Zone: Chapter 4

The house I grew up in looks borderline depressing during the winter months. The beige exterior of the doublewide trailer is dull, and the roof is becoming more orange than gray as the rust spreads in angry, greedy splotches. The yard is well tended, though; come spring, dozens of flowerpots will be filled with brightly colored blooms.

Mom opens the front door before I get out of my truck. “I told you not to stop by today. You’re supposed to be getting ready for your game.” She’s already dressed in navy blue scrubs for her job as a medical assistant, her blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail.

“Glad to see you, too,” I say, climbing the stairs I rebuilt two summers ago. Inside, the scent of coffee lingers.

She smiles smugly and then leans up on her toes to hug me. “I’m always glad to see you. I’ve told you before if I had it my way, I’d buy a duplex, so you’d never be more than a few feet away.”

I love my mom more than life, but sharing walls with her is a little too close. “We’ll get a giant plot of land, and we’ll each have a big old house,” I say, following her inside. Though the outside looks rundown, the inside is clean and homey. Gramps and I painted and replaced nearly every part of the mobile home, including the floors, shower, faucets, and the entire kitchen.

“I don’t know what I’d do with all that space. All I need is something to cover my tomatoes to stop the damn hornworms.”

“You’ll have a greenhouse twice the size of this place.”

Mom laughs. “I don’t know that I need tomatoes.”

It doesn’t matter. For the first time in her life, I want my mom to live in excess, even if it’s something as simple as plants, which she has always loved.

“How are you? I haven’t seen you since Christmas,” she says.

I want to tell her that was just a couple of days ago but quickly realize it’s already been ten. “Football’s been crazy.”

“Did you do anything fun for New Year’s?”

“Drank too much and rode a sled off some dude’s roof.”

She crosses her arms, feigning a look of disappointment, but she can’t fight the grin that pulls at the right side of her mouth, knowing I’m lying. She flashed the same defiant smile any time I got in trouble for doing something she was secretly proud of but was supposed to be mad at me for, like in the sixth grade when a kid made it a habit to steal my best friend, Cole’s, free school lunch, claiming his father’s taxes were paying for it. I finally got him to stop by adding laxatives to the chocolate milk before the asshole took it. He spent the rest of the day in the bathroom.

The school warned our parents if they found out what we did, we’d be suspended. Mom splurged and bought pizza that night, telling me to always stick up for the underdogs because that’s what we were—underdogs.

“Sounds boring. You could have at least done something exciting.”

“Nolan and Hadley threw a party.”

“Oh, she’s already back? That was a quick trip home. She must really like him.”

I tell my mom too much shit about my personal life. I always have. Mom was only eighteen when I was born, and as a single parent who couldn’t afford much, time was usually her gift. We’ve always been close. “She was probably worried he’d get bored and try something stupid with Lenny,” I say, referring to our tight end, known for his bad ideas and worse judgment.

Mom quirks a brow. “Like sledding off a roof?”

“Or getting so drunk they don’t know where they are for three days.” Again.

Mom shakes her head. “What are you guys going to do after you win your game Friday?” Her blue eyes spark with excitement and the promise of our team’s victory like it’s a sure thing.

“The university worked out some kind of a deal, and we all got free tickets to Disney World on Saturday.”

Mom points at me. “You’re not turning that down. You better ride every damn roller coaster. I’m expecting photographic evidence.” Her face softens. “Deb, that lady I work with, goes to Disney World twice a year with her husband. I think we should go when I retire.”

“You’re only thirty-nine,” I remind her.

She grimaces. “I’ve decided I’m staying thirty-nine. We’re just going to keep celebrating the anniversary of me turning thirty-nine.”

I roll my eyes. She doesn’t have a vain bone in her body, but age freaks my mother out. “Which faucet is leaking, the kitchen or the bathroom?”

“You have a big game tomorrow. You don’t need to be worrying about this right now.”

“Your water bill’s going to be ridiculous if we don’t fix it.”

She points at the kitchen faucet.

I circle around the counter and pull open the cupboards below the sink, finding a pot with an inch of water at the bottom.

Mom tells me about work, how bad traffic has been in town, and then about my Aunt Rita as I take apart the sink.

“It’s the O-rings,” I tell her. “Let me run up to the hardware store.”

“I can go,” she says. “Just tell me what you need.”

I’d argue, but determination has formed a hard line between her brows, warning me I won’t win this argument. I tell her what we’ll need, and she reads the details back twice before heading to the store. While she’s gone, I slide the forty dollars cash I brought with me into the old coffee tin where she keeps her rainy-day cash. We never had enough money to take trips to the beach or mountains. Still, Mom scraped and saved and crafted, making every holiday special and splurging when she could after a particularly hard test or game, and sometimes for no reason at all by ordering pizzas or taking us to the movies, our pockets filled with candy we brought with us.

I check around the house, ensuring problem areas aren’t causing issues, and take out the trash before she returns.

“Okay. I think I got the right ones,” Mom says, opening the front door.

We change the rings and get everything put back together in under thirty minutes.

I’m testing to ensure it’s fixed when she grabs the old coffee can I added cash to and pops the lid off. “Busted,” she says, withdrawing the small wad of cash and fixing me with a stare. “I don’t need your money, Grey. I’m the parent, remember?”

“It’s so you can do something nice this weekend. Go to the movies or dinner. Go buy something besides more work clothes or shoes that won’t make your feet hurt.” I wish I had enough to buy her tickets to come and watch the game in person.

Mom shakes her head and shoves the money at me. “I have the best job I’ve ever had. I’ve got things covered. You know me.”

I do, which is why I tried to slip the money in while she wasn’t here. She’ll never ask for help—or accept it. “I’m making close to twenty bucks an hour,” she assures me. “I’m good. You work too hard for your money. Spend it on something stupid and fun at Disney World.”

“You’ve wanted to try that new pizza place for months.”

“They’re almost forty bucks a pizza. We’ll wait for a coupon and order it for my birthday.”

“When you turn thirty-nine?”

She cracks a smile. “Exactly.” She shoves the bills into my palm. “Thanks for coming by and fixing my sink. Don’t get hurt tomorrow. Okay? And don’t forget, photographic evidence.” She gives me a knowing glance before wrapping her arms around my waist and squeezing me tightly.

“Keep the pot down there another day or two, just to make sure the O-rings were the only problem.”

“You underestimate yourself,” she says, giving me another tight squeeze. “I already know you fixed it.

Her arms loosen as she takes a step back. “I’ve got to get to work.” She pulls on her coat and hitches her purse over a shoulder. “Where’s your jacket?”

I pull at my hoodie. “It was sixty when I left.”

“It’s supposed to get cold next week,” Mom says, locking the door to the trailer and following me down to the driveway. I hope to buy her a house with a garage one day, so her car will never be too warm or cold. “Have a great game and an amazing time. I love you.”

“I love you too, Mom.”

I head to Cole’s, knowing he’s already awake and training.

His parents live just five minutes from my mom in one of the dozen trailer parks that make up much of Highgrove. I pull up behind his dad’s Suburban that is currently sitting up on jacks with the back left tire off.

I slam my truck door shut and circle around to their backyard, the neighbor’s pit bull barking at me through the five-foot chain-link fence that separates their properties. Rock music confirms Cole is inside.

I knock twice on the shed door before pulling it open. Cole looks at me from where he’s doing biceps curls and grins. “About time you showed up.”

I grab a dumbbell and take a seat.

“I’m pissed things didn’t work out, and I can’t make it to Florida to see your game tomorrow,” Cole says, completing his set.

“Don’t worry about it.” I try to brush off his guilt.

I lower the dumbbell, the warped mirror in front of me, making my biceps look too short and then too long, like a fun house mirror. Like everything else in here, it was something we salvaged.

Highgrove, my tiny hometown located thirty minutes south of Oleander Springs, was built on old money and influence and continues running that way today. A handful of families who live here are filthy rich while everyone else is poor and works for them.

That small group holds the wealth and runs this town, looking at families like ours as though we choose to be poor, choose to not have enough money to pay both the electric and gas bills some months, and choose to live in trailers that don’t have adequate insulation or air conditioning when the North Carolina sun threatens to melt everything in its path. They don’t care that my mom juggled three jobs for most of my childhood or that Cole’s dad had seizures that prevented him from working while his mom picked up every shift she could at the café, earning too much money to ever get on state insurance and too little to afford their own healthcare. We were stuck living in a vicious cycle of poverty that our parents and grandparents struggled through. Cole and I have been determined to break that cycle since we were kids.

I imagined myself living in a high rise, driving a new, fully loaded truck to an office, and wearing a suit tailored to fit me. I was committed to the college route, believing good grades and a prestigious degree would get me there, but Cole pointed out how many other kids had the same dream—the same path. We realized the only way we could break out of these patterns was to excel in ways that allowed us to stand out. For me, that was football, and for Cole, it was fighting.

We turned his parents’ shed into a gym and have been training and studying our crafts together and separately for the past decade.

“What do you know about this guy you’re fighting tomorrow?” I ask, grabbing my water bottle. My coaches and trainers would lose their shit if they learned I was working out hours before our flight. But sitting around would only lead to Cole razzing me, and I don’t have the energy to put up with his shit when all my attention and time has been focused on tomorrow’s game. “You said it’s a big pot.”

Cole nods. “He’s from Staten Island or something. Abe says he’s stacked but doesn’t know how to use his weak side.” Abe is Cole’s younger brother, and if he could control his temper, he’d be one hell of a fighter because he reads the defense better than anyone we know.

“If he’s seeking you out, he knows something about his weak side.”

Cole chuckles. “It sounds like he goes one hundred percent and burns out quickly. I’ve just got to keep him moving and wear him down.” He lies back on the bench press. “What about you and tomorrow’s game?” he asks, gripping the straight barbell. “Are you still feeling confident?”

Our game is against Cal State, and if I were allowed to bet, I’d put every cent I own on the game. “Without a doubt.”

“Good. I bet on you.”

“Guaranteed money,” I tell him.

“You haven’t changed your mind on the draft?”

Until a couple of weeks ago, I had intended to enter the draft, but then our head coach shafted us, benching two of our best players that cost us a win and our chance at playing at the final game. My closest friends on the team—including Hudson McKinley, Corey Bishop, Zack Palmer, and Nolan Payne—and I decided to wait one more season, allowing me to earn my degree and a better season to place higher in the draft.

I’ve got it all mapped out, but once again, Cole’s reminding me of contingency plans.

“I mean, you were a beast this year. You made national TV reels. This is huge. How could they not draft you?”

“A lower draft pick could mean I won’t get any minutes.” For me, it’s the long game. When the average NFL player’s career is a mere three years, if I don’t have a degree to fall back on or any endorsements, even the large signing bonus won’t last me but a few years. It certainly won’t give me a way to get my mom into an early retirement or help Cole and his family.

Cole hefts the bar up. “I hear you,” he says, knowing these concerns I’ve listed a dozen times prior. “Are you worried about sticking around another year and going up against some of the guys on your own team? Payne was flexing in the last game, and Palmer isn’t exactly someone to sneeze at.”

“If we go undefeated next year, it’s going to help all of us get what we want. That’s the point.”

Cole blows out a sound caught between a scoff and a laugh. “If you ask me, they need you more than you need them. You make them look good. Even in that game you guys lost, you looked good.”

This is one of the stark differences in our sports. As an individual athlete, all decisions are based solely on him rather than a team. “Hudson’s the best damn quarterback I’ve played with, and these routes aren’t something I can do alone.”

Cole heaves a breath of exhaustion. “Are you going to spot me or sit there and collect dust?”

I stand and meander over to him. “Depends. How much weight did you put on the bar? Is it enough to choke on your own words?”

He chuckles.

“Hey, assholes,” Abe steps into the shed with Dustin two steps behind him.

Dustin grew up with us and has been working out with us and training in fighting for nearly as long as we have.

Our buddy Bryant used to hang out with us most days. Like Dustin, he’s never had the same desperation to get out of Highgrove. His parents, grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles all live here, and though he did well in high school, he didn’t want to go to college and never gave a shit about having a career with a pension or health insurance. He’s content working for one of the mechanics in town and married his longtime girlfriend the summer after graduating high school. They already have two kids, so we don’t see him often.

Abe, like Cole, wants to get into the fighting scene. He’s worked hard to try and get into the circuit, but his temper flares and takes control. Both brothers have a switch in them, but when Cole’s is flipped, he becomes focused, animalistic, and unstoppable whereas Abe loses control and focus.

“Didn’t expect to see you here,” Dustin says, wrapping me in a side hug. “How’s it going? You missed the barbecue last week.”

I nod. “I know, man. I’m sorry. I’ve had a shit ton of meetings and additional practices to prepare for tomorrow’s game.”

Cole nods, clapping a hand on my shoulder. “We know. And we’ll be gathered around my living room, cheering you on and toasting to you for making me an easy grand.”

Dustin laughs, and Abe winks.

I fucking hope he’s right. “I’ve got to head out.”

“Go get on your fancy jet?” Abe’s voice hints at contempt.

“Hell yes,” Cole says. “Once we start rolling in the money, that will be us, jet-setting across the country for Vegas, renting out the biggest suites, private everything…”

“You get to stay in a suite?” Dustin asks, turning to me.

I scoff. “No.” I don’t mention it’s still a four-star hotel or that we’re staying through the weekend, despite the game’s outcome, to celebrate the season.

“Give them hell,” Cole tells me, pulling me into a hug.

I head for my truck. It won’t be the first game my friends or mom haven’t been able to attend, and in some selfish way, not having them be there makes things easier. These two parts of my life are so wildly different that keeping them separate is usually simplest.