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Nick Navarro wakes up with a bad taste in his mouth and a body twisted in sheets and hanging off the side of the bed. He flails around momentarily trying to stop his phone from buzzing and falls to the floor, and even the nanos can’t stop him from letting out an exhausted groan in pain.
He slaps his hand down on the cracked screen of his phone in a weak attempt to turn off the alarm. Miraculously, the ringing ceases and the room falls silent except for the drone of the air conditioning. Nick heaves a sigh of relief and flops his head down onto the hardwood floor. It’s not exactly a comfortable position to be in, but he couldn’t really care less right now. His head is droning and the light from his window seems all too bright for noon.
God, noon. Past noon, actually, a good while past it. It was kind of his fault for not setting his alarm earlier, but he could already hear Coach yelling at him. Years ago it would have been her yelling at his husband for this kind of thing.
Nick ignores the thought and sucks in a breath as he pushes himself off the floor and shifts into a sitting position, throwing off the sheets. He fell asleep in his clothes last night, but does the distinction between clothes and sleepwear even matter anyway? Nick doesn’t think it does. Regardless, he undresses and tosses them into the trash bag he uses as a hamper. In their place he puts on his athletic stuff, an old basketball tank and some running shorts. He yawns, an uncomfortably long one but not unwelcome, and leans on the doorframe for a minute, trying to regain his balance.
The floorboards of the old house creak under him as he makes his way to the front door, swinging it open and squinting down at the porch. A couple grocery bags sit on his doorstep, and he annoyedly kicks them over the doorframe and drags them into the kitchen. He doesn’t really care if he dents the cereal box or whatever because a few seconds later he opens it and shoves his hand in, grabbing a handful of Cheerios and shoving them in his mouth.
Hoping that momentarily satisfies his aching stomach, he turns back to the pile of bags and leans over them. There’s a note taped to one of them, signed by one of his neighbors. The nearest grocery store on the field is miles away, and after making the trek a couple times, some of the other people in town saw the man hiking through the hills with milk cartons and bags of fruit and took pity on him. Nick didn’t even care that they knew he was a player, pretty much everyone in their little settlement knew of the weird couple from San Diego that had barged through a couple millennia back.
He somehow musters the energy to put the rest of the groceries away, shoving them in cabinets and the fridge. It’s going to be hell to find what he needs the next time he actually decides to make a full meal for himself, but he couldn’t care less right now. He’s practically falling asleep on his feet.
Fuck! No, not now, Nick. Not today. He snaps awake and tromps over to the bathroom, leaning over the sink and splashing cold water on his face. He bites down on his lip as the water stings his eyes, but he forces them open and looks up toward the mirror.
His hair is a mess. Worst case of bedhead he might have ever had, to be honest. He’s been meaning to get it cut but he’s not exactly looking forward to any activity that involves himself sitting alone in a room with scissors and a mirror. He doesn’t have to shave for a couple days either, probably, so really the most glaring issue is the glaring issue. His face is plastered into an awful tired sneer, with the darkest eyebags he’s ever seen on himself.
It’s whatever. He doesn’t care, and he’s planning on making sure he’s the only one who gets a glimpse of that today, so it doesn’t matter. He rubs his eyes and slams the bathroom door shut behind him as he returns to his bedroom. Nick grabs an old black hoodie and throws it on, pulling up the hood and letting its musty scent surround him. Practically, he probably doesn’t need the hoodie. It’s plenty hot outside. But it’ll help with preventing his neighbors from seeing his grumpy mug, so he doesn’t care.
After a breakfast of fucked up looking eggs with no cast-iron skillet to blame it on, Nick fills up a water bottle, laces up his running shoes, snags his phone and arm strap and steps outside. The midday sun is glaring so bright he can almost hear the ground sizzling as he walks, kicking up the dust with every step. He doesn’t need to start running yet, and his sore shoulders thank him for that. Right now he just needs to survive the most difficult part of this journey: Avoiding social interaction.
Luckily for him the houses in town are few and far between, so he can avoid some pitying look from his neighbors asking if he wants them to move their barbecue to the field, or if he wants anything from the store, or if he’s running out of shampoo or some other shit like that. He’s so sick of them asking because the answer is always the same. If Nick actually needed something he would ask, but these people just don’t seem to get it. Nick knows exactly what he needs.
He finally makes it to the edge of town. He’s starting to sweat underneath this hoodie, so he tears it off and ties it around his waist. Not the most comfortable thing to run with, but hell, he’s run with a backpack full of footballs before so he’s not exactly worried. Plus, he doesn’t want to just leave the hoodie here in the dirt and risk it blowing away. He doesn’t think he would forgive himself if it did, and he wasn’t about to wash it either.
Doing a couple stretches, he looks out toward the horizon. If all goes well, he’ll run fifteen miles out, spend a while out there to rest, and then run another fifteen back home and be back a couple hours after midnight. Same routine he’s done for years now. Sometimes it’s fewer miles, sometimes he’ll do multiple laps, sometimes he goes all the way down to the border and camps out just for the hell of it.
Why he chooses to set out when the sun is at its hottest and dead ahead, he’ll never know, but he definitely thinks about reworking his schedule every time he starts running up this hill. His hair is hot to the touch by the time he reaches the top, and his legs are caked in dust stuck to sweat. He doesn’t stop though. He doesn’t stop for the first mile, until he’s crossed the peaks of two ridges and settles into a valley. This part is shady, and it’s here he only pauses for a moment to take a swig from his water bottle before setting off again.
Really, he’s not tired. Not because of the running at least. In fact, this pace is almost easy for him. Something else is tiring, in the back of his mind, and it’s because of this his thoughts slow to a stop and he can only focus of the sound of his feet against the dirt. Which is pleasant, actually, not having to think for a while. He much prefers this than actively having to avoid the thoughts.
He runs for a long time, falling into the rhythm of the hills and his footsteps, the wind on his skin. When Nick runs it’s like he’s free from time itself. He falls out of this space and into another, and suddenly he’s nowhere and everywhere at once. He’s on the playground in fifth grade playing tag, he’s at track practice behind the middle school, he’s on a jog around the neighborhood listening to the news on an April morning. He’s playing football in a field in Wyoming, he’s training in the mountains in San Diego, he’s dashing through the desert with his husband by his side. He’s on a road in Tennessee, he’s clutching a backpack until his knuckles are white, his husband is screaming his name but he’s not listening, he can’t listen, he can never turn back, he can never go back—
He screeches to a halt and nearly falls over the next ridge. His breath is heaving and his face is soaked in sweat, but he’s here. He takes a moment, reminding himself of where here is— He’s in Southern California, down in the desert, training in the mountains. He’s dead center of the Boise State field. Not in San Diego. He’s a couple miles away from San Diego actually, and if he squints out at the setting sun he can almost pretend he sees it.
Nick brushes his bangs out of his face and pants, letting out a cough and dropping to the ground. Fifteen miles. He checks the time. It’s about where he wants to be in terms of speed. That’s good.
He unties the hoodie from his waist and hugs it to his chest. It’s much too hot to put on, but he wants to bury himself in the smell that lingers in its sleeves, in the crumbs that bounce around in its pockets, in the signature on the tag that reads “BAEZ” in thick black Sharpie.
He swallows, his throat dry and full of dust, and inhales the smell of the hoodie once more. He’s been trying to preserve the smell as long as he can, so he only pulls this hoodie out once a year. He doesn’t know how long it’s possible for a smell to persist on a garment, especially one as worn as this one. He can’t even remember what the hoodie used to say, since all the lettering has peeled off by now.
He sits there catching his breath and watching the sun slip behind the horizon until the sky is a deep purple, just breathing in and out. He tries not to let his mind wander too far, not letting it cross those five miles ahead of him, and yet still he slips into wondering thoughts.
What are you doing right now? Who are you with? What are you looking at?
Can you see me? Can I see you? Are you thinking of me? Are you waiting for me?
I’m waiting for you.
Twilight fades into night and soon enough Nick is starting to feel the pangs of hunger sneaking into his stomach again. A granola bar materializes beside him— he’s not exactly starving, but he thinks the nanos might have grown a little too overprotective. Still, he takes their offering and shifts into a crouching position, leaning forward with his phone and the hoodie in the space before him.
It’s a pretty great view from the top of this hill, and he can see why the university decided to build their observatory nearby. It’s a perfectly clear night and the stars are out. Nick was never much into astronomy or anything like that, but you learn things when you live for thousands of years and spend half the time sleeping under the stars.
He’s learned enough to know that the person who designed this whole game is up there. A space probe, weirdly enough, designed this whole mess of a game that Nick still finds himself playing all these years later. It almost makes him laugh, because of course it was a space probe. What else would it be? No human being could design a mess like this. He wants that to explain everything. He wants that to be the reason he’s sitting here now and thinking these things.
But Nick knows he only has himself to blame.
He pulls out his phone and checks the time. It’s close now, just a few more minutes. His eyes glaze over as they fall on the Messages app, and despite everything telling him not to, he opens it up.
A couple messages from Coach, as always. Some from his neighbors, he scrolls through those and leaves them on read. One from Mike, a couple other people from Grambling, one from Carol of all people… He reaches the bottom of his message list, and his breath catches as he opens the last conversation.
God. Fuck. Nick ignores the tightening of his chest and turns his attention back to the time. Nearly midnight. He keeps his eyes trained on the sky above the horizon five miles away. He waits with the countdown in his mind, feeling each second pass. Nick knows exactly how long a second is, more than just a “Mississippi” or a “one thousand.” Each second is one year of his life. Each second is a year of staying on the field, of cooking dinner and laughing and crying and living. Each second is a year of memories that he can’t keep track of, that he tries to forget or forces himself to remember.
Five seconds. Then four. Three. Two. One.
He watches one firework burst over San Diego. Then two. Three. Four. Five. His phone buzzes, and he unlocks it to find an email.
--------------------------------
FROM: ADMIN
TO: NAVARRO, NICK
NOTICE OF TRANSACTION
Dear NAVARRO, NICK,
This automated message serves to inform you that the Bowl Game’s officiating system has detected that you have remained located in bounds for one (1) year. In accordance with Bowl Game rules, you have hereby automatically earned one (1) second of out-of-bounds time (OBT).
This 0:01 of OBT was awarded on
JANUARY 1ST, 20121
and may be exercised at any time.
According to our records, you have earned a total of
125
seconds of OBT. If you choose to exercise this, failing to return to the field of play before remaining OBT is expired will result in an automatic and permanent ejection, without exception.
If you feel you have been sent this message in error, please contact a Bowl Game official.
--------------------------------
He huffs and closes the email. He knows exactly how much OBT he has. That number has been ringing in the back of his mind for the past year, and it will again for the next year, and the next after that, and the next after that. He hears it now, five faint booms that echo around him, the sound from those flashes of fireworks he saw seconds before. A little less than 25 seconds.
That’s how long it takes sound to travel the five miles between Nick and San Diego. Twenty-five seconds. That’s how much OBT Nick had left a hundred years ago after making that dash. If he was as fast as sound, he could make it. Nick could make it across the desert to San Diego. Every day he wonders if he could make it, if 25 or 26 or 37 or 124 seconds is somehow long enough for a human being to make it across five miles. He’s done the impossible before, why couldn’t he now?
Nick wonders how much of this is worth it. Why does he have to wait for all these years? Why did he choose to do this to himself? Why did he and his husband choose this life for themselves? What makes them want to do this? They’re so damn crazy of course they married each other, and of course Nick has somehow ruined that for himself.
This is how they chose to spend their eternity. Nick has to remind himself of that sometimes. He chose to be this way. He chose this life for himself. Through his own choices he dug his own grave.
Across the desert, five miles away, is San Diego. San Diego State University and its Goddamned stadium built at just the wrong angle. Across the desert is Nick’s husband, in San Diego. And here is Nick, wallowing in his own choices, in his own despair, in his own guilt. Sometimes Nick hears people wonder if this is heaven, but he knows the truth. He knows where he is.
Manny is in San Diego, and Nick is in Hell.
Nick swallows again, breathing in the cool night air, feeling it rush across his skin. He reaches for his water bottle, grabs his husband’s hoodie and ties it around his waist, and turns his phone on again.
He takes one step to the west, as if those few feet will bring him any closer to the one he's missing. Slowly, he types out a message.
