Second Down (False Start #1) - Prologue

Dallas, 2024

I opened my eyes to the sterile white ceiling of the hospital room, the same view I’d been staring at for weeks now. I almost cursed being awake, since awake meant pain. The doctors were doing what they could, but at this point, it was almost impossible to keep the pain management up.

Half the time I was so doped up I was barely conscious, which was probably how everyone wanted me to do it. I was so close to the end, regardless of what they said about fighting and how strong I was, I didn’t want to give away these last few days or hours or however long I had sleeping. I’d be asleep forever soon enough.

I tried not to be bitter about it. I knew it could have been worse. I hadn’t lingered for months and months, gone in and out of remission. Hell, I’d been able to skip chemo entirely. By the time I went in to see the doctor about pains I’d been having, it was too late to do anything. The cancer had spread quickly, eating away at my body like termites through wood.

“Mr. Sims, are you certain you don’t want to talk? It might ease your mind,” the hospice priest said, just about scaring me out of my bones.

Hell, I’d forgotten he was there. He’d been talking to me and I’d drifted again. I turned my head slightly, meeting his eyes. I could see he was trying to be kind. To offer sympathy. Part of me wanted to brush him off, but I could also feel it.

Today was the day. I knew it.

I wasn’t sure I wanted my last day to be completely silent, with no one to talk to.

“You know,” I started, my throat so dry it felt like sandpaper. “I was gonna be somebody once.”

“Really?” he said, I think surprised that I’d actually spoken to him finally.

“Youngest varsity quarterback in Wheaton High history. Made starter as a sophomore. Took us to our first state semi-final in fifteen years.”

“That’s quite an accomplishment,” the priest said, but in that humoring ‘you peaked in high school’ kind of way.

I let out a bitter chuckle that turned into a cough. “Yeah, well, fat lot of good it did me in the end.”

“What happened?” he asked gently.

I closed my eyes, memories washing over me. The roar of the crowd, the weight of the football in my hands, and then what happened next.

“Dad died. Just after the season ended. He was a sheriff in Midland in the nineties when they had that bad gang problem. Came up on some kids stealing a car and boom, they just shot him as he got out of his car. They said he went fast, didn’t even have time to know what happened. Didn’t feel a thing,” I said before drifting for a moment. “Bullshit. I sure as hell felt it. After that... nothing else seemed to matter.”

I didn’t talk for several minutes, just remembering it. Remembering the serve, mom breaking down, Joshua just standing there like a fucking robot. Everyone telling me how great a man he was, how I needed to be the man of the house now, how I had to help my mother.

“I dropped out,” I finally said. “She had these headaches that would take her down for days. Migraines. Had to quit her job … freshman year? I don’t remember. She couldn’t work. We got on government support and she had disability, but it wasn’t enough, so I dropped out and went to work.”

“That must have been incredibly difficult.”

“Coach tried to talk me out of it. Said I had real potential, you know? That I could go pro if I stuck with it. That I should get my education, which would be really what would help my mom. But we needed the money then, not in eight years or however long it would have taken. Still. Pro. Can you imagine? Instead, I ended up in construction. Spent my life building things for other people while my own shit fell apart.”

“That was only a small part of your life. Work isn’t all we are. Surely there were happier times?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I mean, I had some laughs, but mostly it was just … constant struggle. Work, bills, taking care of Mom. Never enough time or money. By the time things settled down, there weren’t really any other chances. I was too old to go back to school and I couldn’t afford it anyways. So I kept working. Just thinking if I could get a little more, you know. Just a little ahead, I could figure out something. But I never got ahead, and then the job that I’d poured my life into, trying to scrape a little out for myself, it did this shit. Not that the company would pay my medical bills. Can’t prove they gave me the cancer, so they get to make the next chump sick.”

“What about friends? Or your family?”

“Do you see anyone here?” I said, trying very hard not to snap at him. “I moved from job to job too much and half the guys I worked with were illegals, so they didn’t stay put long. And Family? Mom … she was never the same after Dad died. The migraines got worse, and then the depression set in, and then Joshua … man, my little brother. He finished her off.”

“I’m not sure I know what that means?”

“He was always a strange kid. Mean, angry all the time. I remember him being such a pain in the ass. But as he got older he got … you don’t know who my brother is, do you?”

“I’m sorry. We have very little personal details, I’m afraid.”

“He was the West Texas Strangler.”

“Really?”

That had gotten him. The gentle, well-practiced tone slipped in his shock. I didn’t bother holding back a chuckle. The one thing I got for having a serial killer for a brother was I one-upped every story anyone else had. I’d used it to get free beers enough nights, that was for damned sure.

“Really. Don’t get me wrong, it was a shock, for sure. Like I said, he’d always been strange, but we’d never thought he’d … you know. I heard some people on the news say if Dad hadn’t died he’d have kept it under control, that it was what put him over. I know he did those interviews and convinced everyone it was his childhood, but I gotta tell you, he had it easy. Mom doted on him. And he wasn’t the normal kid he likes to tell people he was, traumatized by the death of his ‘brutal’ father. He was a fucking psychopath from day one. After they caught him, it destroyed my mother. Her mind had always been fragile, but that... that was the final straw. She never recovered.”

After staring for a moment, the priest started to open his mouth to say something, but I cut him off. I’d done this song and dance a few times. People just don’t know what to say to that, so they fell back on platitudes.

“Don’t,” I said. “Don’t try to tell me every family has problems or whatever else you’re gonna say. He was crazy and they pumped him full of shit and he’s gone. What’s done is done, I figure …”

My words were cut off as I began another coughing fit. I gripped the bed rails, my body convulsing as it tore through me. Each hack felt like a grinder scraping my insides raw. I couldn’t catch my breath, couldn’t stop the violent shaking.

A nurse rushed in just as it started to settle down. She fiddled with the machines, silencing their urgent beeping and checking my vitals, but there wasn’t much she could do. I’d turned down the last of the meds and told the docs I didn’t want to stay completely doped all the time, a zombie waiting to die, so there was a limit to what she could give me.

All she could basically do was wait around and mark the time of my death. I saw her exchange a look with the priest. It was the kind of look that said everything without saying a word.

“Would you like to pray together, Blake?” The priest said as she left the room.

“I’ve never been the praying type. Don’t see the point in starting now.”

“Prayer doesn’t have to be religious. It can be a wish, an offering to the universe. Sometimes, it’s just a way to speak what’s in your heart.”

I almost said forget it, but... what did I have to lose. I’d held it in all these years. Sure, I’d been pretty bitter, but I hadn’t blamed anyone, said it was anyone’s fault. Shit happens. You keep living until you don’t.

Maybe it was time I told the universe to fuck off. Or maybe ask for what was mine for once. I wasn’t even sure what I was going to say when I opened my mouth.

“I wish my dad hadn’t died. That’s where it all went wrong, you know? If I could do it over... man, I’d do everything different.”

I don’t know if the words were supposed to make me feel better, but they didn’t. The weight of them pressed down on me, heavier than any construction load I’d ever carried. All those years of struggle, of just trying to keep my head above water. And for what?

“It’s never too late to forgive yourself, Blake,” the priest said. “It’s not your fault. You can still let go of that guilt you’ve been carrying.”

Man, he could see right through me. I turned to look at him, wanting to say something. To argue, maybe. Or to agree. I’m not sure which. I opened my mouth, but I was having trouble getting the words to come out. The air was so hard to push.

“I don’t...” was all I could manage.

Blackness began to drift in from the edges of my vision. The priest, his eyes so kind, went blurry.

And then, nothing.