Bryce and Miranda

Five years of college football had come to an end for Bryce Walker.

He sat on the sidelines, the empty bench, looking out at the empty stadium. Except for a few cleaners spread out in the grandstand, cleaning up the mess of the viewers, the place was like a ghost town.

The sky was dark, free from the clouds, a distinct cool breeze hitting his skins. But it didn’t bother him, he was hurting right now.

Gone were the screaming fans, all of them quickly forgetting about the game and the season as they drank the night away. For Bryce, that just couldn’t be done, this wasn’t anything he could walk away from nice and easily. This wasn’t just any game, it was his final ever game.

The light of the electric scoreboard felt like an extra kick in the guts. In big bright red letters, wrote the score:

Eagles - 27

Gators - 30

He stared blankly at the numbers, feeling his heart sink in his stomach. Even the sound of footsteps behind him didn’t snap his attention back to reality. Bryce ignored it until the mystery figure came up to his side, touching the edge of the bench.

Turning his face, he saw Miranda standing there.

“I’ve been looking for you…” she said, politely smiling at the blonde boy.

Bryce didn’t know what to say, he didn’t know why she was here, why she would be looking for him, nothing. He forced a fake smile, waiting for her to take a seat next to him.

The blonde girl had her long hair down to her shoulders, keeping warm in a red college jacket along with her tight light blue jeans. She sat down next to her ex-partner, aware that he was extremely upset, “Tough game huh?”

Still feeling sick to his stomach, Bryce just nodded before looking down at the ground. His blonde ex-girlfriend saw the emotion in his face, being at the game and seeing the final result, she knew this would be the case.

“Why does this mean so much to you?” she questioned him, “Why have you treated this as if it was the most important thing you’ll ever do in your life?”

“Because it is… i mean, it was…” he muttered back.

That’s the way he had seen it, the way he had always seen it, Miranda knew that from when they dated. He had never put her first over the sport, that and the team had always been his number one priority. One of the reasons their relationship ultimately failed.

She shook her head, “Football’s not everything, you’re going to have a great life, this game won’t define you.”

She was trying to get to it, wanting him to feel better. Bryce was having trouble seeing that, he was almost teary in the eye as he shook his head.

“You don’t get it,” he spoke, “I’m not good at anything else, for years here, I’ve been the king pin on these grounds, on and off the field, people respect me here… once I walk out of here for the last time, I’m fucking nobody again…”

It started to make a little more sense to her. As the quarter back and the captain, he had a great deal of power. Tonight was another realisation of that, hearing the home crowd cheer his name, ride every bump with him. That would be the final time he would have that experience.

Off the field, he felt the same way. When he walked into a room like the Eagle Nest, people were either desperate to impress him or too intimated to communicate with him. He couldn’t lie, he loved that effect he had.

“You’ll realise that isn’t everything one day,” Miranda told him, “Half those people here just suck up to you because of your position here. Those people shouldn’t mean shit to you, it’s the ones that truly genuinely care about you that you should consider.”

He tried to smile, appreciative that she was trying to help. Shrugging, looking up to stare at that scoreboard again, the hollow feeling inside him, Bryce still felt empty.

As Miranda got up and prepared to turn away and give him some privacy, Bryce watched her hand running along the back of bench as she prepared to disappear. He stopped her by turning half his body around and putting his hand on her’s.

They looked each other in the eye, holding their gaze.

“Do you ever think about us?” he asked in a very serious but hopeful tone.

“All the time.”

“Do you ever think it would work a second time?”

She didn’t want to kick him while he was down but Miranda was a woman of principle and she wasn’t going to straight up lie to her ex-boyfriend.

With a sigh, she shook her head kindly, “You’re going back to Philly, I’m going to be here for another year and I have no idea what I want to do after this… Maybe one day if we were ever in the right place at the right time… but… but that’s nothing either of us should be waiting for.”

The blonde hair boy felt that sinking feeling in his stomach grow deeper. He knew any chance of redemption with Miranda was going to be tough to gain but he still couldn’t deny a sense of emotional attachment to her.

She held his hand in hers and tightly squeezed it. Opening her mouth, she was about to continue on but she paused, not knowing how to put it all together.

Instead she just half smiled back at her ex before letting go of his hand slowly, running it along the top of the bench as she left.

Bryce watched her walk away until she had disappeared for his current view. Seeing that was like watching two chapters of his life close in front of him.

Miranda and his football, all over.