Saving Savannah

Kerrie had even started going back to the house that she shared with Pete at night. I could have anything I needed. All I had to do was pick up a phone and one of the security guys would get me anything I asked for. I sometimes wondered what would happen if I asked him to bring me the one thing I wanted most.

Kerrie didn't have any answers either. She said that his behavior was strange even to her this time. She said that normally he'd have had her handle it. She'd have moved me into a hotel until they figured out what to do with me. She didn't understand what he was thinking this time either.

A few days after that, I woke up. I looked around my room. I saw from the time on the clock that it was only five forty-five in the morning. I wondered why the hell I'd wake up then. I was just about to go back to sleep when I heard it and realized that it was what had probably awakened me in the first place. It was a clanking sound. It sounded like two metal objects hitting each other again and again softly.

I'd slept in a tank top and a pair of boy shorts panties. My swim suit covered way less so I followed the sound. It was coming from downstairs. I followed it and opened the door to Greg's workout room.

He turned and looked at me as the door opened.

"Sorry," he said. "I didn't realize I was loud enough to wake you up." He put down the dumb bell he was lifting and flexed his arm rotating it one way and then the other. I couldn't help but to look away from those deep brown eyes when I saw the scar on his arm. It stood out in contrast to the dark brown of his skin. It was still a really angry pink color. The scar was about six inches long and went along the inside of his forearm from just past his wrist to only an inch or so away from his elbow.

"Why are you always apologizing, when I'm the one who fucks up?" I asked. He didn't say anything.

"Well, it's actually good that we ran into each other this morning. It gives me a chance to tell you goodbye and thank you for everything you've done for me," I said.

"Savannah, where are you going?" he asked. "According to the police you have no family and they haven't located your friends yet. Oh wait...you do have your dad, but I thought that you didn't really get along with him."

"I don't," I snapped. "I'd never go back to that bastard. He's as bad as the Druckers."

"So where are you going?" he asked.

"What difference does it make, to you?" I asked. "I feel really bad about putting you out of your house. You know Kerrie is right. You do have a tendency to be way too nice."

"Savannah, I'm not going to let you leave unless you have someplace safe to go," he said.

"Oh, so now, you're going to be the one keeping me somewhere against my will," I said. It was all bullshit. But he didn't know it. In reality my heart was beating so fast I was sure he could hear it.

"What's the difference between you and the Druckers?" I asked.

"There's a big difference," he said. "I'm not trying to take anything from you. I just want you to be safe. I feel like I owe it to you, because..."

"Because you feel responsible for what happened to me?" I started. I was getting louder and I fought to calm down. I had to get this right this time. I was sure that if I messed up again, I wouldn't have another chance.

"Greg, do you know how many people passed right by me that day?" I asked. "You were the only person that stopped...besides the Druckers. You actually tried to help me. And you know, I could have said something too. But you kind of hurt my feelings."

"I'm s..." he started before I cut him off.

"Please don't tell me you're fucking sorry again," I said. "You didn't know. You couldn't have. The way you hurt my feelings was because I liked you. I didn't want you to leave. I'd even been trying to flirt with you, but I'm just not that good at it. I don't want you to feel guilty about anything. Whether you know it or not, you've treated me nicer and done more for me than almost anyone I've known in my whole life in just these few short weeks. I don't know of any way to repay you, not just for letting me stay here, but for saving my life. You got cut so badly that you almost died. And the one thing I could think of to try to give you, you didn't want."

"Savannah," he started again. My stomach was churning, my chest was pounding and neither of them was from lack of food. I could smell just the tiniest bit of his scent and it was literally driving me wild. He had to be completely crazy not to know what was going on with me. My breasts had started to enlarge due to the pregnancy and while they were never going to be big they were at least visible, especially with my nipples tenting the shirt that way.

"Before I go, there are a few things you need to know though Mr. Gates..." this time he cut me off.

"Savannah, you're not going anywhere," he said again. "I don't want you to leave. It was wrong of me to just disappear after what happened last time. We should have talked about it. I hope that it's not too late and maybe we can talk now, over breakfast,"

"I would love that." I said.

We went into the kitchen together. I was buzzing from head to toe. "I'll make the pancakes, you make the bacon," he said.

"Hold that thought," I smiled. I ran back up the stairs to my room and put a bra on under my shirt. I also put on a long tight skirt made out of a stretchy material. We'd bought it because I would expand a bit as my tummy did, but for now it also served to subtly highlight my legs and my butt without being obvious.

I ran back down the stairs and got a cast iron skillet out. I was so happy to be standing elbow to elbow with him over that stove that you couldn't have pried me away from there with ten crowbars.

"I spoke to Kerrie about what happened with us before," I said. "I went about it totally the wrong way. So I need to explain things to you. I'm going to be totally honest with you..." I told him the whole story of my life up until then in detail. I talked the whole time that we cooked and carried the food out to the sunny side and set it out on a table. As we sat down, I continued to talk.

"So yeah I went about what I did wrong, but I think it was for the right reasons," I said. He looked at me with that "She's crazy," look again.

"I've already told you that I'm not good at the whole guy/girl/sex thing," I said. "You have to realize that you're the first person I've really liked that way. Sometimes you do things that just have my stomach churning. I'm telling you this because I want to be totally honest with you, even though it's embarrassing for me to admit it. Kerrie always tells me that I have to be careful and not do this or that because men will take things the wrong way. The problem is that until a couple of years ago, no men were even interested in me. And once they were, they were only interested in certain parts."

"I've already told you what I had to do to get away from my dad. And I told you what happened to me with the Druckers. And I understand that you think that maybe, I'm a little bit off from what happened to me. I think that you have the idea that I think that the way to get things is to offer myself, in exchange for safety and to stay here. And I need for you to understand that you're wrong. There is something going on with us and there was since before we were interrupted."

"Vannah, what are you talking about?" he asked smiling.

"I'm talking about if you call me that again, I may not be able to control what I do to you," I snapped. "Greg, what was the last thing I said to you as the Druckers were pulling up?"

"Savannah that was over a year ago, and I was already nervous," he said. "Don't be angry but I can't remember."

"I was hinting around that there had to be a way I could pay you back for helping me and I didn't have any money," I said. "Greg, I wanted you even then and I think you know it. So let me clear the air for you so everything is out there. You were the first person that I've ever met that I WANTED to have sex with. So when I got you in my room a couple of weeks ago, that wasn't going to be you taking advantage of the poor abused girl. It was only going to be two people both getting what they wanted."

"But Savannah..." he started.

"Grrrr," it came out before I could even think of what I was going to say. "If you're thinking about starting that black and white shit, then just stop now," I said. "I will not listen to it at all."

"Savannah, you don't need me in your life," he said. "I'm pretty messed up. I don't trust people period. Growing up, I had two things going for me. I was pretty smart, not genius level but I did well in school. And I've always been fast. At least I was. I played football from junior high school on. I grew up in a really poor neighborhood in Chicago. I was really lucky because my teachers saw something in me and a lot of them gave a damn. While most of the kids in a lot of my classes could barely read, my teachers, especially my English teacher Mrs. Ellington, made sure I could not only read well, but write and count and speak as if I had a brain. From the sixth grade on that woman hounded me. When I went to high school she got a colleague of hers to continue it. If I spoke anything less than good clear English, I was penalized with extra work. The kids next to me could get away with saying, "Yo Dogg Whut up?" For me it had to be, "Good Morning Mrs. Ellington or Mr. whomever I spoke to."

"Throughout high school, every teacher I ran into knew the story. If I tried to coast or did anything less than the very best I could, I ended up doing two or three times as much work. It paid off. I had great grades all the way through school. The problem was in those days no one was offering college scholarships to minorities in academics. And even then as good as my grades were, there were lots of kids in the suburban schools around us who could not only match my grades, but some who could beat them and their grades came from schools with even higher academic standards. There was also none of that affirmative action bullshit going on either. So in my senior year, I kept my grades up but I concentrated on football."

"The choice for me, my parents and Mrs. Ellington, who was very old by then, was obvious. I could either go to a small local college on a partial academic scholarship, or go to a major university, with a full ride for playing football. I went with football. I was actually one of the few guys on the team who actually did a real program. Those were the hardest four years of my life. Luckily the discipline I'd learned from Mrs. Ellington paid off. I was able to keep my grades up and get my degree in manufacturing technology, while becoming the school's star wide receiver."

"The most difficult part was managing all of the distractions. You wouldn't believe how many people there were offering me anything and everything you can think of. All they wanted, of course, was to be a part of the gravy train when I went into the NFL."

"Drugs, women, cars you name it..."I held up my hand then.

"Uhm, what kinds of women?" I asked. He ignored me.

"Savannah, I was picked in the middle of the first round. My contract seemed huge then. Twenty million dollars for four years, with ten million guaranteed. Now a days wide receivers get more than five or six times that. Calvin Johnson just signed a contract with the Lions for over a hundred and twenty million dollars." My eyes had already gone crazy when he said twenty million dollars.

"So my rookie year, I go to camp," he said. "Everything is great. My high school sweetheart, whom I'd remained faithful to for all of that time, moves into a nice house in New York with me. I bonded with all of the players on our team. We were like brothers. We played together, we trained together, we partied together."

He raised his shirt sleeve and showed me a tattoo on his shoulder.

"B4E," he said. "Brothers forever. Our team motto. I went up for a pass in our second pre-season game and ended my football career. If it hadn't been for the guaranteed money in my contract, I'd have been flat on my ass broke. I've had surgery on that same disc in my lower back five times. They finally got it right three years ago. But even now, a hard enough bump causes me pain for weeks. That's why I work out so hard even now. The stronger the muscles around my spine are the less chance I have of getting hurt again."

"My life changed overnight. I went from being an expected NFL rookie sensation to yesterday's news at the drop of a hat. All of the friends I'd cultivated and the people who hung around me, vanished. The thing that still awes me today is the way they did it. They all came to visit me in the hospital and wished me well, while telling me I'd be back on my feet in no time. But each and every one of them never came back to see me again after their visits. It was as if when they said, "Hey don't worry about this it's just a set-back," they really meant, "Your ass is grass, but just in case, remember I told you you'd make it."

"The players on the team, my brothers, were especially interesting. In retrospect, I can understand them. For them, seeing me laid up in the hospital was a reminder that it could happen to any one of them just as fast. That same danger lurked every time they stepped on the field. On any given Sunday, they could begin the day the strongest healthiest guy they knew and end up, hospitalized and fighting for their life or health."

"The bitterest pill to swallow, of course, was Melissa. She got off on all of that player's girlfriend bullshit. Even when we were apart while I was in college, we constantly texted each other and saw each other often. She wore my jerseys and gear from my school all over Chicago even though she never attended my school. She loved hearing people say, "That's Greg Gate's girlfriend."

"It only intensified when I got the contract and we moved in together. I was so naïve. To me, the football thing was just a means to an end. I always had my mind on what I'd do after football. The whole point of playing was to get the money so that my kids and I wouldn't have to scrape to get by like my parents did. That was why getting my degree was so important. There are a few who last in the game, but certain players like running backs and wide receivers, who take the biggest hits, don't often stay in the game for more than five or six years. I was twenty two when I signed the contract, I figured that by the time I was twenty eight I'd be out of football."

"Everyone has heard all of the stories about players who go broke after making all of that money. For every guy who still makes a comfortable living as a sportscaster or a coach, there are twenty who end up poor and broke. My focus wasn't on living the life and spending millions on houses and cars and dumb assed jewelry. My focus from the beginning was on what I'd do when I was done. I'd never had any intention of being one of those guys who tries to sign a last mega contract based strictly on what they used to be able to do, just to be able to limp through the rest of their life. Most of those guys who end up in a small market on a third rate team sign those contracts just hoping to be able to pay off their debts that they incurred during a career marked by excessive spending and partying. Fans see that Joe Blow signed a huge contract with the Falcons and never realize that Joe owed nearly the entire amount to his car dealer, realtor, bookie or back child support payments to women he doesn't even remember for kids that may not even be his. Before Joe ever takes a step on the field, the money is already gone."

"Anyway, Melissa was great for the first few weeks in the hospital. She was there every day. But as her hope that I'd ever play again dwindled, so did her visits. It did two things for me. The first was as you'd expect, it hurt me very badly. We'd grown up together in a very rough, very poor neighborhood and stood by each other through all of the challenges life brought us. I always thought that if I could trust anyone, it was Melissa. When my parents were killed in a car crash during my junior year of college, Melissa flew down to me and stayed with me the whole time. I cried like a baby on her shoulder and leaned on her at their funeral. "It's just us now Greg," she told me. "So we have to take care of each other no matter what."

"Her dwindling visits also made me angry. All through my life, I'd overcome every challenge set in front of me. Shitty neighborhood, no problem, I'll fight my way out. Shitty school system, no problem, I have people who'll help me get an education. I just need to do the work and want it. Damaged disc in my back...Fuck you doctors, I will walk again. I'll be fine."

"Melissa gave up on me, but I never gave up on myself. I went to a very exclusive clinic in upstate New York. They worked wonders. I had two more surgeries and a few months of intense physical therapy. During the therapy, I guess I figured that Melissa was still sitting at home crying over me. I thought that it was hard on her seeing me laid up, when I'd always been the strongest person we knew. I was wrong."

"Before I even went home, I decided to stop by and visit with some of my old team mates. Even though they hadn't been able to visit me or even write, I knew how fast paced the life can be. Shit, financially, I was better off than most of them and I didn't even have to step onto the field again. I was twenty three years old and had more money than I'd ever need. All I had to do was avoid the temptation of being stupid with it. There are pro athletes who spend more money than it costs to run this place for a year, on parties during the season."

"As I stepped back into the locker room, I noticed a couple of the guys, relieving their tension on a woman near the spa. When there wasn't a game or a public practice, it wasn't unusual to have women in the locker room, so I barely noticed it. I mean every profession gets them. Cops get badge bunnies. The guys who wear any kind of uniform get them. Nerds even get groupies now-a-days. I'd never used them but I didn't see it as anything terrible."

"That is, until one of my old team mates, yelled, "Hey guys, Double G is back in the house." Then everything seemed to happen in slow motion. The woman in the back's head popped up spitting out the dick she was sucking. Her head snapped up like one of those heads in that whack-a-mole game. Her eyes filled with both terror and surprise. At the same time the two guy's heads turned straight towards me with fear in their eyes. "Jerry Stevens, was so shocked that his hips continued reflexively pumping his dick in her ass. When he saw me, he stopped trying to hold it back and started pumping his seed into Melissa."

"All kinds of things go through your mind in a time like that. One was that stupid fucking tattoo on his shoulder. Maybe we were all drunk and charged up when we got them but I really thought they meant something...apparently it was just to me, or else my former best friend, wouldn't have been fucking my fiancé while I was still supposedly in the hospital."

"The other guy, the one whose dick Melissa spat out. He had one of our tattoos too and he wasn't even there when we got them. I guess he was supposed to be my replacement both on the team and in other ways too. I also noticed that Melissa hadn't made either of them use condoms."

"Time sped back up to normal. "Greg, this..."sputtered Melissa."

"Yeah I know," I said. "This isn't what it looks like."

"I was just..." she started. I just looked at her. "Everything is..."

"Over," I finished for her. Then Jerry started.

"Shit, Greg," he said. "She ain't worth it. She's a ball bunny. As soon as you went into the hospital she just started sniffing around all the other players. She was just looking for another player on the team to get close to. She was even going after the other team when we played home games. She's just the type of chick that wants to ride some player's dick. Just like the ones in high school or college. Nobody on the team was going to take her seriously or have any kind of relationship with her. We wouldn't do that to you. But man pussy is pussy and she was giving it away..."