Chanel cornered me in the bathroom after a game. “You know he’s just using you for sympathy, right?” she hissed. “Once he’s healed, you’ll be back to fetching ice.”
“Then rewrite it,” he said. “You’re the only real thing in my life. The football, the fame—it’s a role. You’re the only person who ever saw me when I was sidelined. And I don’t want to be sidelined from you.”
He sees home.
He leaned down—slowly, because his knee still ached—and kissed me. It was clumsy, desperate, and tasted like the cheap coffee from the press box. It was the most real thing I’d ever felt. HDSidelined- The QB and Me
I finished my degree. I became a physical therapist. And on game days, I still stand on the sideline. But now, when the quarterback looks my way—before the snap, before the throw, before the glory—he doesn’t see a trainer.
As his primary athletic trainer, it was my job to hunt him down. I found him in the empty locker room, sitting in the dark, still in his practice jersey from three weeks ago. He smelled like stale sweat and defeat.
The team lost in the final seconds. The backup threw a pick-six. The stadium emptied in a mournful sigh. I was packing up the medical kit when I felt a hand on my shoulder. Chanel cornered me in the bathroom after a game
Then came the fall of our junior year—his last season, my second-to-last.
By midseason, the team was winning without him. The backup was mediocre, but the defense carried them. Dallas became a ghost on the sideline, wearing a headset but saying nothing. I stood a few feet away, holding his brace, ready for the moment he’d overdo it.
He laughed. A real laugh, not the camera-ready one. It was rusty and loud. I decided I liked it. “You’re the only real thing in my life
It stung because I’d thought the same thing a hundred times. I wasn’t his type. I wore sneakers to formal events. My idea of a good time was a documentary about rare bone diseases. He was Dallas Hart—the man who once chartered a private jet for a weekend in Cabo.
They say you can’t go home again, and you can’t change a person. But you can grow with them.
But the night of the Homecoming game, he proved her wrong.
“Lena,” he said, breathless. “I panicked. I saw the red light on the camera and I just… I went to the script. I’m sorry.”
People started to notice us. The way he’d save me a seat on the bus. The way I’d pack two lunches because I knew he’d forget to eat. The whispers began: Is the quarterback dating the help?