Free Six Ways from Sunday by Mercy Celeste

one of them right now. He was sweating Gator Aide, it was that bad. But his job was secure for another year. No new upstarts straight out of college were going to put him on the bench.
    People watched the practice that day, media and some family. His never showed up, his dad was back home doing the same thing on the high school level but from the coaching side and his mom wouldn’t come alone. They’d come to the first game of the season. He already made the arrangements. Everything right down to the flight and hotel. It was their thing. The first game and the first home game. Despite the money he sent them, his dad still worked. Despite everything he had now and didn’t need, he was alone. Too much.
    But there they were. Both of his parents waving from the sidelines. Maybe the heat had finally gotten to him and he was mistaking another guy’s mom and dad for his. He grabbed a bottle of water from the water boy and started the jog across the field. They were done for the day. Time to deal with the interviews and the photo ops and he’d rather just go hug his family and fuss at them for not telling him they were coming.
    That’s when he saw her. Slightly taller than his mother. Same type of hair. Except brown. Straight, styled to the side with a little lift on top. She wore a dress in this heat. A black one. He hadn’t seen her since that morning seven years ago when she’d walked in on him and Dylan. And screamed and ran out.
    Bo faltered a step, his jog coming to a halt. He couldn’t see anything but her. He couldn’t hear anything but his own blood pounding through his head as it roared past his ears. He dropped his helmet and the water and just stood there staring at her. She wouldn’t be here. Unless. Unless.
    “No,” he said, shaking his head, hoping he really was hallucinating. “No, no, she can’t be here.”
    “Hey, ‘Cephus, you okay, man? You look…” Bo didn’t know who was shaking his arm, or who was speaking. He just heard the words. He couldn’t look around; he couldn’t take his eyes off her. Not even when she started across the field.
    “She can’t be here. She can’t,” he told the guy shaking his arm. But she was and he didn’t need her to say a word. He could see it in her eyes. “No. It’s a lie. No.” His legs wouldn’t hold him up. His knees screamed at the impact. But not as loud as his heart. “No.”
    There was noise all around them. Her arms were around his shoulders and she looked down at him. Tears tracked down her face.
    “Nooo, it’s a fucking lie. Noo. No. God dammit, no. You can’t be here, it’s all lies. You can’t.” There were hands on him from all around. He shoved them all off. He couldn’t stop staring into her eyes.
    “Dammit, Bo, get up. Get up and stop acting like this.” His father’s voice intruded and in that moment he hated him. Hated him for all the bullshit he’d put Bo through. All the years of riding his ass. Of treating Dylan as if he were dirt under his feet.
    “You never liked him. You never got it. You never…he was mine. I won’t let him be gone. Not now. Not when he promised. One year. He was coming back to me in one year. We were going to be together. He never lied to me. Never. The only person I ever trusted to tell me the truth. He isn’t gone. He isn’t dead.” Bo tried to shrug off the hands that grabbed his arms. He tried to get away but there were too many. Too many hands. All stronger than him. They dragged him off his knees and across the field into the building, away from the cameras that were recording everything. Away from the mother with the tears who never said a word. But not his father. Never his father.
    “Was that why?” Bo screamed at him the moment his ass hit a bench. His father just stood there, looking lost and small next to all of those uniforms around him. “Is that why you hated him, because you knew he loved me? Is that why none of the coaches would help him get a scholarship. You didn’t want