Allison Parr - Running Back

“But you had all of that and you ended up in an awful marriage.”

“Your father...he’s not always very good at emotions. I don’t think he ever really learned to develop them.”

I drew back so I could see her face. “What if I’m like that? What if I’m—romantically stunted?”

“Why would you think that?” She sounded horrified.

“Because I am. I have this different world view than everyone else, and everyone sees love as this perfect, beautiful, rainbows-and-puppies emotion and I just can’t see that. Or I couldn’t, but now I do, now I feel it, and I don’t trust it, and I don’t know what to do.”

“Why don’t you just follow your heart?”

“ Mom. ” I swiped at my eyes. “That is so unrealistic and nonsensical. What does that even mean?”

“It means I want you to be happy.”

I didn’t need love to be happy. “What about you? You left all of that. But now what? Will you be happy here, all by yourself? Won’t you be lonely?”

“Natalie. You don’t have to take care of me.”

I pressed my lips together. “But then who will?”

“I will.” She pulled me into her arms. My mother would never be soft and warm, physically or emotionally, but she was still my mother, and I loved her. “I will take care of myself. And right now, I want you to take care of you. ”

That afternoon, Jane Ellington’s article on Mike and me came out.

I read it without blinking. It was a gorgeous article, and the accompanying photography was stunning, but I fixated on a little piece of filler description: “It’s very clear that the archaeologist and the running back are in love.”

Very clear.

Except I’d never managed to say it to him. Not once.

I was on a mission.

I stormed into Cam’s bar, brushing past the surprised doorman, and almost knocking into three customers as I marched to the front of the bar. Cam looked up and waved. I stopped before her and took a deep breath. “Cam. Have I even told you I love you?”

A couple of the patrons looked up at my brusque, almost aggressive tone. Cam just raised her brows. “Why? Did I do something? Are you taking it back?”

“No. I mean—it’s a real question.”

Surprise crossed her face, and then she shrugged. “I’m sure you have.”

“Really? You can remember?”

She paused to think about it. “Well—I guess I can’t explicitly remember.”

I knew it. I hadn’t. I planted my hands on the bar and leaned forward. “Camille Chan. I love you.” I immediately felt lighter.

Cam didn’t seem to notice. She just screwed up her face affectionately. “Aw, I love you too.”

“Ow- ow! ” a frat-ish guy hollered from behind me.

Cam jerked up her head. “Shut up or you’re kicked out.”

I slumped on a stool. “Oh my God. I’ve never said ‘I love you’ before.”

Cam started putting together something blue and high-proof. “That’s ridiculous.”

“No, it’s true. Who would I say it to? My parents? My dad and I don’t. My mom. I can’t remember. I think she tells me, occasionally—noticeably when she moved out, but I don’t. And you’ve been my best friend for seven years.” I shook my head. “I’m emotionally stunted I’m a freak. Maybe a sociopath.”

“You are not a sociopath.”

“Maybe I am!”

“Stop it.”

I took a deep breath. “He said he loved me, and I wasn’t able to say it back.”

She raised her brows. “Maybe you don’t actually love him.”

I met her gaze, and her face softened. “Oh, Natalie.

“I just miss him so much and I want to see him and I don’t know how.” I tried to subdue the misery in my tone.

I must not have done a very good job, because Cam handed the blue concoction to me along with a sympathetic smile. “Maybe you’ll run into him somewhere. On the subway.”

I smiled wryly in return. “Maybe. If we lived in a rom-com.”

“God, I wish. Then work would always just be a montage of me doing dishes and pulling pints but thirty seconds of fast music later I’d be out having fun.”

“I don’t think dishes would make it into the montage.”

“Huh. Yeah. I guess they’re usually about the couple moping. Like you’re doing! Aw, what a cute montage moment.”

“Maybe I should just give up.”

She set down her cloth and focused entirely on me. “Why? Because you’re scared?”

“Because...” I gestured wildly, unable to get rid of the tight, frantic feeling in my chest. “I don’t know what to do with it. It’s too big. It’s pointless. Maybe I should just shelve it. It seems so unnecessary.”

“Natalie. I love you. You make me happy, and laugh, and think, and I like spending time with you. Is that pointless? Is joy pointless? No. Tell him.”

And she was right. I knew she was right.

But first, I had to get through the conference.

The American Academy of Archaeology Conference took place in the Javits Center in New York, a complex on the Hudson River within spitting distance of the Leopards’ Stadium, if you were a very excellent spitter. It had little charm, lots of space, and thousands of archaeologists and grad students frantically running around.

I arrived with a half-dozen grad school friends. We picked up our badges on the ground floor, one of the few places flooded with natural light. I took a moment to admire the blue highlight across my name that marked me as a panelist, while my friends oohed appreciatively.

Then the panic set in.

Without Jeremy, I’d be carrying this all by myself. I’d never presented a field report entirely alone before. I wasn’t even sure if anyone would show up, now that Jeremy wasn’t appearing since Kilkarten had nothing to do with Ivernis.

We spent the morning wandering around the floor, picking up the few free pens and bags and hoping and failing to find free food. We broke up to attend different lectures, but they all promised to come see mine, and at two o’clock I made my way to a small room hidden off a side hall. I’d almost reached it when a harried organizer hurried up to me, frowning down at her tablet and then back at me. “Ms. Sullivan?”

I stopped. “Hi. Yes?”

“We’re moving you to 1C. One of the larger exhibition halls,” she clarified when I looked at her blankly. “You’re up in twenty.”

“What? Why?”

She shook her head. “More people than we expected want to see your lecture. There’s a line forming outside right now.”

“Really?” But I was just a grad student with a tiny little site in Ireland...

We stared at each other, and then recognition bloomed on her face. “ Oh. You’re that model dating the football player.”

“No—I’m not, that was my mother—I mean, yes, I dated—”

She shook her head, not interested in my muddy clarification. Not, apparently, all that interested in me now that she realized I was the nightclub singer sidekick.

I followed her to the back entrance, and then waited there while the current speaker finished up. He walked past me when he left, and I did a double take, since he’d just wrapped a miniseries on the Olmecs. He grinned. “Ah, the model. You’re up next?”

“Yes, sir. But—”

“Aren’t you dating the Leopards’ running back?”

I drew up my shoulders. “No, but I am working on the excavation at Kilkarten.”

He looked confused but nodded genially before continuing on his way. “Good luck up there.”

I stared after him, and then threw a quick excuse at my guide before dashing toward the closest bathroom.