Chapter 8

Suzette wrapped her tiny arms around me much as I had her beside the water two years before.

"I got here as fast as I could, Jay," she said. "You should have gotten mom and dad up last night."

She and Jeff put their arm around my waist and helped guide me toward the locker room. The local television stations were there as were a couple of larger market newspapers. The Associated Press picked up a picture from one of its subscribers of the three of us walking toward the locker room. I've been told it was voted one of the best pictures of the year by the AP. I'm glad someone could gain something from my misery.

Suzette waited with her dad by the locker room for me to come out. She took her place by my side, and her dad put his hand on my shoulder as we walked to the car. The Crawfords' front porch and mine were covered with food items and more people were bringing things as we drove up.

Suzette whispered to me as I got out of the car.

"Go take a shower, you smell like shit," she said, but at least she was smiling. "I've heard that before, but I can't quite place the context."

I didn't smile, but it cheered me up a little anyway.

"Do you think I can shower at your house," I asked. "I don't think I want to go in there yet."

"Honey, you have to go in there at some point," she said. "It's just like a band-aid. Get it over quick. I'll stay with you, though."

I dawdled a little bit, greeting people and picking up items they had dropped off. Finally Suzette took me by the arm and we headed inside.

It wasn't as bad as I expected, but the first thing I did was look to see if Mom was home. Suzette led me upstairs to the shower and told me she'd get some clothes for me. The Crawfords had sold Suzette's car during the summer, and I had taken her scrapbook from under the seat and put it in my closet.

She was carrying it and some clothes when she came back.

"I wondered where this went," she said. "Dad said he didn't look under the seats or anything when he sold the car. But he told me you'd cleaned everything out and even vacuumed it. I wondered if you found this.

"Every time I tried to quit, this was what I'd use. I'd look through this and hope I'd find inspiration. I did for a while, but then I just saw it as another reason to do what I was doing."

I tried to tell Suzette I was sorry for what had happened, but she stopped me.

"This is not a good time for either of us to be talking about that," she said, and I just nodded. "Now get in the shower. I'd offer to join you, but I'm discouraged from forming romantic entanglements at this point in my recovery."

I told her I must be recovering from something, too, because my romantic entanglements had been discouraged somewhat, too.

Suzette stayed with me every day for the next two weeks. Classes had started for me and I was adjusting to things as well as I could. Her parents didn't even protest when she told them she was staying at my house until she went back to her aunt's.

The funeral was, well, a funeral. There were a lot of people who showed up. Most of them I didn't know. Many of them I'm pretty sure my mom didn't know. But they were there anyway.

Suzette and I spent a lot of time alone — which was rare. In a couple of weeks we probably spent more time by ourselves than in the entire 16 months we dated combined. The second week, she even slept beside me in my bed. I had never slept in the same bed with another person for an extended period of time since I was about 11. I vowed the next time I did so it would be in a larger bed.

We finally got around to talking about "that afternoon in March." It was a tense conversation and Suzette still harbored animosity toward me. I couldn't blame her.

"I'm not ready to say I forgive you for how you did it," she told me. "But I can say thank you for what you did."

I wasn't looking for praise or forgiveness, but I accepted it anyway.

"And I'm finally able to forgive you for deserting me when I needed you most," I told her. "I know you smoked up just before you got here. I found the shit in your car and you stunk. You had to know I'd notice or your parents would notice or the cops would notice. But you did it anyway. You wanted someone to know and to help you. I believe that and you can't convince me otherwise.

"It took a lot for me to accept your parents' support through mom's illness. And when I finally did, you pulled your stunt and any network of support I had counted on was gone — including the person I was counting on most: you.

"You had your own problems and you had to find a way out of them. I was mad at you for a while. Then I was sad for a while longer. But mostly, I just missed you."

I don't think Suzette wanted to hear some of what I told her. But it needed to be said. I'm glad I told her because it would be almost seven years before I'd see her again.

Our last night, as we lay beside each other in bed, Suzette put her head on my shoulder.

"Please let me feel loved again," she asked. "For just tonight, I want it to be like it was last year."

We made love tenderly — even lovingly. I still had very strong feelings for Suzette and the combination of love and lust made it too easy to give in. I didn't regret it, and I don't think Suzette did, either.

Suzette and her parents followed the team in Week 3 to our first away game. It was our last out-of-conference game and it was against a perennial Division II playoff contender, Indiana (Pa.).

The Bobcats handed the politically-incorrect Indians a thorough scalping (whose PC now) and Suzette and her family headed off to her aunt's after assurances I'd be fine. I told Suzette I'd see her as soon as I could.

Before she left, she pulled me aside.

"I don't remember the last time we kissed goodbye," she said. "I'm sure if I'd have known it was going to be the last, I would have made a mental note.

"Do you think... ?"

She didn't get to finish before my lips were on hers. It was a sweet and gentle kiss goodbye. It was hard for me to accept that it was forever and I hoped somewhere down the road, our paths would cross again.

I told coach after Week 6 — we were still undefeated at that point -- that I would be transferring at the end of the season.

He greeted me with a "no-shit" look.

"I know you didn't ask me to, but I've called a couple of schools to gauge interest," he told me. "They can't contact you, obviously, but some are pretty impressed with what you're doing here.

"R.J., it's not going to be like it was in high school," he told me. "The powerhouse schools are pretty well set. There are some mid-tier major conference teams who have asked me to send them some game clips. I wanted to ask you before I sent anything though. We're not talking Notre Dame and Florida anymore. We're looking at the Northwesterns and Oklahoma States of the world.

"Come over for lunch tomorrow and I'll show you who I've talked to and what level of interest they have."

I was astounded.

"Coach, you didn't have to do that," I said. "Thanks."

"Son. R.J., I've known you for what, eight or nine years now," he said. "When you were in middle school, you came to my camp. When you got to high school, I expected you to quit coming. But you showed up your freshman and sophomore years. By the time you were a junior, you were the top-rated quarterback in the country. And you came to my camp. When I got your application before your senior year — you'd already committed to play football at Notre Dame and you were coming to my camp. But every year, I saw you for a week. I saw you mature. I saw you learn to make good decisions. I saw you grow.

"I'm not talking football. I'm talking as a young man and now as an adult. By your junior year, you started helping the younger players with drills. I saw you walking with a couple of kids who were real pains in the ass. I knew what you were telling them, because you were a pain in the ass once yourself. By your senior year, you were throwing extra passes to any kid who wanted to work out. And the amount of time you would spend playing catch with my kids in the evenings wasn't lost on me.

"What I'm trying to say is you stopped being a right arm to me years ago. Don't get me wrong, if I thought it would help, I'd try to keep you here. But it won't. Staying here will hurt you in the long run. It'll help the hell out me, but it'll hurt you. So now, all that's left is to try to help you make the best decision you can for where you go next. The NCAA is going to allow you to play immediately, so that's not an issue. I hope we can find a school where you can go to enjoy life for a while and be happy. You deserve it."

That's what we did.

By the time Wesleyan College out the tiny WVIAC finished its season at 14-0, Coach Street had decided a national title was the perfect way to hang up his whistle.

And his star quarterback was off to a new school for the next chapter of his life.

Mom's will was cut-and-dry. Everything she had was now mine. It turned out she had a lot more than I thought. I put the house on the market and a professor from the college and his family bought it almost immediately.

My mom had acquired stock equity in lieu of small pay raises for about 10 years. So while she was station manager, she also owned 30 percent of the company that owned it. The company offered to buy the stock back, but my mom's attorney advised me to hold on to it. My mother also had a $750,000 life insurance policy. Even after all the bills were paid, I had a pretty tidy sum to last me for a while.

I said goodbye to the Crawfords, sans Suzette, on a snowy December morning. After our last kiss, Suzette had broken off contact. Her parents said she still needed to work through her feelings for me — right now they were a mixture of love and hate.

I understood the feelings she was having. I told them if she decided the only way to live well was by staying away from me, I could accept that.

"When I did what I did 'that March afternoon' I knew I was sacrificing our friendship for her life," I said. "If she turns out OK, I'm fine with that. If she doesn't, I'm going to track her down and kick her butt."

The Crawfords told me she was doing well and she was expected down at Christmas if I wanted to come back. I told them I didn't think I'd be back for a while, but I'd call them and let them know when I got settled.

The Crawfords were waving goodbye as I pulled away. They would have divorced and moved away by the time I made it back to West Virginia a few years later. I kept in touch for a little while, but life changes and so do we. I sent Max and Marie Christmas cards the next year and got two in return. Then they were out of my life like everything else from the first 18 years of my existence.

When Coach Street and I started looking at what colleges might want me, I won't lie and say I wasn't disappointed. He was right about the big boys backing away. And they were backing away in droves. A couple of teams questioned my commitment after I backed out on Notre Dame. I figured those teams could go screw and I put a note on my mental checklist to demonstrate how committed I am to beating them if we ever met.