Once A Saint

“There are two doors in front of you, Mr Matthews. It is your choice which door you choose to enter.”

“What is this place?” Eddie asked, fear shrouding his voice.

“The place in between your past and your future. Some people call it the present. I liken it to that little place Christians call Hell.”

Eddie swallowed deeply. His dull blue eyes idled back and forth between the two doors. One white and royal purple, the colours of his beloved team, the only consistent thing he’d ever known. The other was black and white and filled him with dread. His breath caught inside his throat and his fingers curled into his palm. Turning his head, he searched the crowd for his parents, desperate for their help, but before him, the field emptied faster than wilting flowers in winter. The sky was black, the graduation decks evaporated into the mist, and he alone, ice-cold and dangling over the precipice.

With no-one to turn to, Eddie glanced back at the strange figure beside him. Her hair was longer than Christopher Robertson’s, but shinier. Her smile crinkled like Chris’s husband, George, but there was an unease about her dark eyes, coiled over into the same worn-down frustration whose pangs Michael Addams fell victim to. One that even Eddie himself suffered. The inability to sit still while things changed around him without his control.

Under all that tension, her smile seemed to bloom a little of Luke Daniels’s class clown; Julie’s ruthlessness; Ben’s caution to the wind; and Owen Harper’s steel fortress, which kept out the frauds and the manipulators. The wall he’d built up around the Cincinnati Saints, the same wall which mirrored the cage within which Eddie had trapped himself for years. He understood Owen’s reluctance given his old malignant treatment of the Saints, long before he knew them as people, when he was still full-speed-ahead in the suffocating whirlwind of the Lions’ success.

Sometimes Eddie wished it still engulfed him so that at least that way, he would not have to face these doors. If someone else could decide upon his future for him—his coaches, his father, literally anyone else in the world; even Daniels—he could die stress-free. Exhaling softly, the blond stepped forward.

“What do they mean?”

“The door on your left leads you to everything you ever wanted. Football. National stardom. International fame. Your name up in lights, people screaming your name, all the glory and fame you deserve. Money beyond your wildest dreams. Mansions. Private jets. The sky is the limit.”

Eddie gazed at the door, tracing his fingers lithely over the golden handle. As his hand closed around it, the handle scratched and bruised his fingertips. Eddie flinched as flecks of rusted gold varnish dug into his flesh, and he pulled back from the doorframe. Small surges of pain rippled through his wrist and head, and ribs, unrelenting, vicious flesh memories of all the injuries he’d inherited from the game. All the time he’d spent in state hospitals, hours, even days. All he could do was stare at alabaster ceilings, whiling away the seconds. His mind drifted away with them, leading him down rabbit holes.

He’d wished somebody would take pity on him. Every single incident he’d taken in his stride so he could continue the game which had carried him through the years, the only good thing he’d known, the only thing which fulfilled him through the dark lonely nights of suffering false friends. He recalled how scared he was as he slid towards the metal goalpost on his stomach, unable to halt himself or see the ball into the goal. His last thoughts had been of failing to win for his team. They were of Mark Shepherd taking a chance on him; and Owen Harper finally accepting him after the collision; and of Michael.

He tried to imagine a future in football but came up empty. It would only be worth it if it were with the others. They made him want to be better. A better person, a better player. Somebody worth knowing. Michael’s continued support made him good.

“What’s behind the other door?”

“Nothing spectacular. You’ll be just short of average. A quiet life. Not much to show for it at the end of your life.”

“Where are my friends?”

The woman shrugged.

“Sometimes you have to sacrifice what you know, to be the best. You know that.”

Eddie gulped. He understood perfectly what she was insinuating. If he chose the first door, he would lose everything he had fought for. It wasn’t the game. What he wanted was a family. A home. He had that with his team now. If he gave that up now, he’d be betraying himself. He’d be making a fool of himself because he was already the best he could be, and if he forgot that, he’d end up right back where he started. A Lion until the very end.

Rich boy.

Eddie shook his head and ventured away from the colorful door with its elegant greens and purples and dashes of white. Settling his hand upon the black door, he glanced at the woman one last time, offered a small consolatory smile, and pushed the door ajar.

“I don’t have to sacrifice anything, but thank you for trying.”

He disappeared into the dense black smog behind the door. Suddenly, the field vanished. In its place, a bar erupting with cheers. Confetti burst down upon his head; a familiar tune rang in his ears, screaming ‘happy birthday!’ at him, and choruses of ‘rich boy’; and for the finale, a painfully shrill voice boomed in his ear. Pint glasses sloshed stale beer all over him. Staring down at his clothes, Eddie Matthews frowned deeply. He couldn’t figure out what he was, or where. All he heard was Luke Daniels snickering in his ear and jabbing him in the side. Eddie flinched.

“Daniels!”

Eddie finally looked up, catching his reflection in the mirror above the bar counter, and then stopped dead. His hair was a longer, dirtier shade of blond, and his eyes seemed more tired than they had ever been. His skin sagged before him, his brow was damp and wrinkled, and his mouth felt trapped in a downtrodden smile. As he stared at himself, at the long decades which seemed to have stretched out between who he had been and who he was now, it was not just Luke Daniels he recognised. Dotted around him were Rafael Ramirez; Danny; Ben Robbins’ smiling face; Arabella Grey; Christopher, beer in hand, and George by his side with a baby slumped against his shoulder. Even Richard Bailey had caught a lucky break and swung by. The only face he didn’t see was Michael’s, and at this observation, Eddie’s heart sank.

“He’s not here.”

“Mikey? He claimed he was busy tonight, but said he’d catch you later, rich boy.”

A faint smile caught traction in Eddie’s eyes.

“He’s not avoiding me for selling out?”

“Please. You tried that once, but came right back home without a second thought. He’s proud of you for it. Besides, lawyer ain’t hardly a sell-out is it? It’s growing up. It’s being responsible and having a back-up plan.”

Eddie sat up and nodded, a little more reassured. He wanted to hear it from Michael himself, however. When he turned to look at Luke, he could see his friend twigging on internally. He silently prayed—begged—the jester to oblige him. Relief washed over him seconds later when Luke gave him what he needed.

“He’s at the skate park, Mattsy.”

His smile brightened. He grabbed his coat, patted Luke’s shoulder, and booked it from the pub. Some twenty minutes later, barely sliding in underneath the speed limit, Eddie swerved into the abandoned parking lot adjoining the old skate park he’d loved so dearly in his youth, flicked off the ignition, and dragged himself from inside it. His breath formed a cold mist in front of his face as he glanced around the park, searching for his oldest friend’s face in the distance, hoping against hope that he had not missed his chance to see him. After a few hard minutes of scanning the area, Eddie finally spied Michael slumped in the distance, his back turned to the fence, and felt more relief surge through him—more than relief, if he were honest with himself. He exhaled, mustered up a small smile, and then shoved his hands into his pockets, slid through the narrow gate, and marched towards Michael.

“Addams.”

Eddie perched himself on the edge of the bench beside his friend.

“Why didn’t you come? Everyone else did.”

“Even Jacobs, right?”

“Yeah. I looked for you in the crowd.”

“I needed air. It’s quiet. Comforting. I think part of me expected you would come.”

“I’ll always come to find you.”

Eddie bumped Michael’s arm and offered a wider smile, feeling more awake and sober under the silvery light of the moon and the frosty night air whistling around the two young men. The serenity of their surroundings crushed down hard upon Eddie’s shoulders. He welcomed it, and so savoured the vicious sting as it zapped down through thick layers of muscle and bone until it lightened the burden of Michael’s no-show on his heart.

Over the past ten years, he’d felt that distance growing, and watched as Michael retreated more and more into himself, an angry, embittered shell of the kid he’d once been. No longer confident and full of life; just tired, frustrated, disconnected. The forced smile on Michael’s face screamed volumes to support that, and Eddie hated it. Seeing his captain so worn down by life, so exhausted, so close to the edge. Eddie could bear the pressure. He had his entire life. He didn’t want that for Michael. He wanted to steal his pain clean away.

He wondered how close Michael was to repeating Shepherd’s toxic cycle. From Eddie’s perspective, Michael seemed to be consumed by a job he despised, broken relationships, and lost potential snatched from him without a second’s notice; and instead of dealing with it, whether by confiding in friends or seeking a qualified counsellor to teach him coping mechanisms, Eddie rarely saw Michael without a bottle to hand, drowning his sorrows and strangling his dwindling hope. Eddie, plagued by regret and longing, itched to reach across and snatch the booze from him, to just toss it away and watch the bottle crack into pieces. He imagined the label tearing and smiled; then he pictured the enticing liquid trickling across the tarmac and felt pangs of disappointment and frustration seep under his own skin, creeping until he no longer wanted to banish the cursed drink from Michael’s hand, but share in his misery too, to contemplate whether his life choices had robbed him of potential just as Michael’s had. The thought left him dry in throat, restless in mind, and aching for a drink, for release, for a few hours of freedom himself, wherein the actual world was gone and he had no worries to chase him to the brink.

“Congratulations,” Michael muttered, lifting the bottle to his lips. “Making the bar. Impressive.”

Eddie nodded and allowed his gaze to wander. “I had my doubts.”

“I never did.”

Eddie tilted his head. “No?”

“I’ve believed in you from the moment you set foot in our changing room and became a Saint; I’ve never stopped believing in you, Eddie. And it’s true, maybe I forget sometimes, and I don’t always get it right, but it’s always there, that belief in you above everyone else. I’m sorry for the times I forget and I blame you. The things I say to hurt you—you know it wasn’t personal, don’t you? I was angry. You were right there, staring at me, and I think I needed you to be that person.”

“A punchbag.”

Michael nodded simply. “It was wrong, and I’m sorry for it, but I always trusted you. Even when you had the chance to leave us in the dust and go back to the Lions. Especially when you told me your fever dream about two doors.”

“That wasn’t a fever dream, that was real.”

“Sure it was,” Michael quipped, brows arched.

Eddie shuddered, skin crawling as Michael swigged the bourbon straight, its stench swilling around Eddie’s face. Closing his eyes, Eddie slouched, muscles tense against the back of the bench.

“I told you that in confidence. I thought you believed me.”

“I do. I believe you had an epiphany and chose us. I’ll tell you what Alex told me. If you feel that it’s right, then grab it with both hands and never let it go.”

“She told me I’d be making a mistake if I let football pass me by.”

“Do you feel it was a mistake?”

“Not once. I think I won the lottery by picking you,” Eddie murmured with a small sigh. “I thought about all the success I could have without all of you, and it felt so hollow. So pointless. And then I thought of you and Mark and how Saints always stick together. Saints stick together.”

“Not Saints anymore, rich boy.”

Eddie scoffed, then smiled to spite himself.

“Once a Saint, always a Saint.”

THE END