Let’s start over.
I hope you didn’t take offense to my last letter.
I think you caught me on a bad day, and I’d never want you to think that I was mad about anything you said.
Are you happy with your life?
Other than a few problems here and there, I’m happy with my life—ish.
There are definitely things I would change, but through that change, I might not have my son. So, it’s definitely a catch-22.
One day, I hope to fix the things that I’ve broken.
One day, I hope you fix your broken, too.
Life’s too short to be unhappy.
At least that’s what my grandmother always said to me.
Hope you have a good day.
Rome.
P.S. If you could change one thing, what would it be?
Chapter 3
There is no quiet anymore. There is only How to Train Your Dragon. This is your life now.
-Things Rome says to himself every morning
Rome
I’m not sure how the hell I ended up actually writing a goddamn letter to one of my fans, but I’ll be damned if that letter didn’t change my life.
This woman—a woman I didn’t know in real life—knew everything there was to know about me.
She knew my secrets, my fears, my woes and my doubts. She knew about my best friend, Tyler. She knew about Tara and Matias.
Hell, she even knew that I didn’t like blueberries.
It’d all started out fairly innocent. Just a fan letter that my publicist, who usually handled my fan mail, thought I’d like to read.
I did that on occasion, but I hadn’t read any fan mail since I’d left the game because there wasn’t any. Everyone was pissed at me.
The last day that I was still technically an NFL player, I got tons of fan mail. At least fifty letters, if not more, a day.
Then after suddenly announcing my retirement—without really giving a reason—that fan mail had turned to hate mail in the blink of an eye.
But the letter my publicist sent me didn’t have any hate in it at all.
I carried that letter around with me everywhere I went, and when I got down or felt discouraged, I’d read it to remind myself that my life wasn’t as bad as it could be.
Pausing in the middle of the letter I was writing, I pulled it out and started at the beginning—admiring the way my name was spelled in pretty cursive writing.
Rome,
I know that you’re probably not going to read this, but I had to try.
Everyone hates that you left the game…I applaud you.
Though it hurts that you won’t be out there playing anymore, I know that you had to have had an important reason for leaving. Probably something much bigger than the excuse that your publicist gave about a recurring injury that everyone—including someone like me who only watches football when you’re playing—knows you’ve played through before.
Anyway, long story short, I wanted to tell you about me.
I wanted you to know that despite cutting your career short, you gave me hope just knowing that there were kind men out there. You changed the way that I thought about life.
You made me believe.
When I was twelve, my father beat the absolute crap out of me because I dared to look at a boy. I suffered a fractured orbital socket and a dislocated jaw, along with a new understanding when it came to boys.
They were no good—not my father, and not any of those boys who I had crushes on.
At age sixteen, I got pregnant. At seventeen, I delivered my baby stillborn.
At seventeen, two days after I delivered my baby, I was thrown out of my house and forced to move into a halfway house for teens until my eighteenth birthday.
At age eighteen, I graduated from high school, joined the army, and then was medically discharged a year into my service because I’d suffered pelvic stress fractures after a male officer threw me off an obstacle course climb.
At nineteen, I was back home and forced to work for my parents because I had no experience doing anything but cleaning, and they offered for me to move in with them to recuperate as long as I agreed to work for them for three years.
During year two of my indentured servitude to my parents, I met a man who I thought was my everything.
When I was twenty, my brother went to jail for killing the man that killed his partner—he’s a police officer. His partner also happened to be his girlfriend whom he couldn’t bring around our parents because they’re so freakin’ biased in their opinions about what they would consider proper women for their sons—and white American girls weren’t it.
At twenty-three, two years after meeting the man I thought I’d spend the rest of my life with, I left him at the altar and tried to run.
I got far enough away that nobody would hear me scream, but not far enough to escape him. Needless to say, he showed me what he thought about me running away, and I realized that I’d almost married my father reincarnated.
While he was beating me, you were on the screen.
Your face, and those eyes, were all I could see, and I was staring at you while he kicked me repeatedly in the head, stomach, and ribs—anywhere he could get to.
You got me through, and you didn’t even know it.
After…well, after I was healthy once again, I continued to watch your career. Your eyes haunted my dreams, waking and asleep. I realized, the more I watched interviews and saw you playing the game, that you were one of the good ones. A man with eyes so gentle looking would never treat a woman poorly.
You got me through my all-time low, and then you got me through some highs.
I just wanted you to know that you impacted my life.
Regards,
RP’s Biggest Fan
The letter still made my heart ache whenever I read it.
I hadn’t been able to stop myself from writing her back.
Surprisingly, she’d written me back, too.
And that was how the weird pen pal relationship that we now had started.
She knew my hopes and dreams, my fears. Everything there was to know, she knew it.
I hadn’t spared a single detail from her. I wanted her to know that she wasn’t the only one out there with a shitty life.
“Daddy?”
I looked down at my son, whose head was resting on my thigh. We were vegging out on the couch, and I had a pad and pencil resting on the arm of the couch.
“Yeah, buddy?” I asked.
“Is Uncle Tyler coming over tomorrow?” he questioned.
I felt my stomach warm. “Yeah, he said he was. He’s bringing Reagan, too. They’re going to sit with you for a couple of hours while I go get groceries.”
Matias smiled. “Will you get me some of Izzy’s cookies?”
I thought about that. “I can try. I’m not sure I know where to get them, though. She said something about a bakery her grandmother owns, but I have no idea where it is. If I can find out from her, and they’re open tomorrow when I go out, of course I will.”
I’d do anything for you.
“Cool,” Matias breathed. “Do you think Hiccup is a good name? I want to get a box tortoise and name him that. Or maybe a dog. What do you think?”
I thought that dogs were a pain in the ass, and I really, really didn’t want one.
“Uhh,” I hesitated. “Box tortoises are okay, but I read at the pet store when we went last year that they live for like a hundred and fifty years. That’s going to be a lot longer than both you and I combined…”
“You can give it to your grandbabies,” he said. “You can leave him to the nicest one in your will.”
I felt my heart palpitate at the knowledge that my baby still had such hope even when I did not. “I think they’d probably like that.”
“Or.” He paused. “You can go get one that’s already old. One that’s like a hundred, and we can put him in the backyard like a big dog. We can feed him entire heads of lettuce.”
I’d do anything for you, even find a hundred-year-old box tortoise.
“I’ll see what I can do,” I promised him. “I’m not sure how easy it’ll be to find a hundred-year-old box tortoise…but I’ll do my best.”
Matias’ face was serene after that, and what he said next, after a few long minutes of watching his show, shattered my heart.
I hope you didn’t take offense to my last letter.
I think you caught me on a bad day, and I’d never want you to think that I was mad about anything you said.
Are you happy with your life?
Other than a few problems here and there, I’m happy with my life—ish.
There are definitely things I would change, but through that change, I might not have my son. So, it’s definitely a catch-22.
One day, I hope to fix the things that I’ve broken.
One day, I hope you fix your broken, too.
Life’s too short to be unhappy.
At least that’s what my grandmother always said to me.
Hope you have a good day.
Rome.
P.S. If you could change one thing, what would it be?
Chapter 3
There is no quiet anymore. There is only How to Train Your Dragon. This is your life now.
-Things Rome says to himself every morning
Rome
I’m not sure how the hell I ended up actually writing a goddamn letter to one of my fans, but I’ll be damned if that letter didn’t change my life.
This woman—a woman I didn’t know in real life—knew everything there was to know about me.
She knew my secrets, my fears, my woes and my doubts. She knew about my best friend, Tyler. She knew about Tara and Matias.
Hell, she even knew that I didn’t like blueberries.
It’d all started out fairly innocent. Just a fan letter that my publicist, who usually handled my fan mail, thought I’d like to read.
I did that on occasion, but I hadn’t read any fan mail since I’d left the game because there wasn’t any. Everyone was pissed at me.
The last day that I was still technically an NFL player, I got tons of fan mail. At least fifty letters, if not more, a day.
Then after suddenly announcing my retirement—without really giving a reason—that fan mail had turned to hate mail in the blink of an eye.
But the letter my publicist sent me didn’t have any hate in it at all.
I carried that letter around with me everywhere I went, and when I got down or felt discouraged, I’d read it to remind myself that my life wasn’t as bad as it could be.
Pausing in the middle of the letter I was writing, I pulled it out and started at the beginning—admiring the way my name was spelled in pretty cursive writing.
Rome,
I know that you’re probably not going to read this, but I had to try.
Everyone hates that you left the game…I applaud you.
Though it hurts that you won’t be out there playing anymore, I know that you had to have had an important reason for leaving. Probably something much bigger than the excuse that your publicist gave about a recurring injury that everyone—including someone like me who only watches football when you’re playing—knows you’ve played through before.
Anyway, long story short, I wanted to tell you about me.
I wanted you to know that despite cutting your career short, you gave me hope just knowing that there were kind men out there. You changed the way that I thought about life.
You made me believe.
When I was twelve, my father beat the absolute crap out of me because I dared to look at a boy. I suffered a fractured orbital socket and a dislocated jaw, along with a new understanding when it came to boys.
They were no good—not my father, and not any of those boys who I had crushes on.
At age sixteen, I got pregnant. At seventeen, I delivered my baby stillborn.
At seventeen, two days after I delivered my baby, I was thrown out of my house and forced to move into a halfway house for teens until my eighteenth birthday.
At age eighteen, I graduated from high school, joined the army, and then was medically discharged a year into my service because I’d suffered pelvic stress fractures after a male officer threw me off an obstacle course climb.
At nineteen, I was back home and forced to work for my parents because I had no experience doing anything but cleaning, and they offered for me to move in with them to recuperate as long as I agreed to work for them for three years.
During year two of my indentured servitude to my parents, I met a man who I thought was my everything.
When I was twenty, my brother went to jail for killing the man that killed his partner—he’s a police officer. His partner also happened to be his girlfriend whom he couldn’t bring around our parents because they’re so freakin’ biased in their opinions about what they would consider proper women for their sons—and white American girls weren’t it.
At twenty-three, two years after meeting the man I thought I’d spend the rest of my life with, I left him at the altar and tried to run.
I got far enough away that nobody would hear me scream, but not far enough to escape him. Needless to say, he showed me what he thought about me running away, and I realized that I’d almost married my father reincarnated.
While he was beating me, you were on the screen.
Your face, and those eyes, were all I could see, and I was staring at you while he kicked me repeatedly in the head, stomach, and ribs—anywhere he could get to.
You got me through, and you didn’t even know it.
After…well, after I was healthy once again, I continued to watch your career. Your eyes haunted my dreams, waking and asleep. I realized, the more I watched interviews and saw you playing the game, that you were one of the good ones. A man with eyes so gentle looking would never treat a woman poorly.
You got me through my all-time low, and then you got me through some highs.
I just wanted you to know that you impacted my life.
Regards,
RP’s Biggest Fan
The letter still made my heart ache whenever I read it.
I hadn’t been able to stop myself from writing her back.
Surprisingly, she’d written me back, too.
And that was how the weird pen pal relationship that we now had started.
She knew my hopes and dreams, my fears. Everything there was to know, she knew it.
I hadn’t spared a single detail from her. I wanted her to know that she wasn’t the only one out there with a shitty life.
“Daddy?”
I looked down at my son, whose head was resting on my thigh. We were vegging out on the couch, and I had a pad and pencil resting on the arm of the couch.
“Yeah, buddy?” I asked.
“Is Uncle Tyler coming over tomorrow?” he questioned.
I felt my stomach warm. “Yeah, he said he was. He’s bringing Reagan, too. They’re going to sit with you for a couple of hours while I go get groceries.”
Matias smiled. “Will you get me some of Izzy’s cookies?”
I thought about that. “I can try. I’m not sure I know where to get them, though. She said something about a bakery her grandmother owns, but I have no idea where it is. If I can find out from her, and they’re open tomorrow when I go out, of course I will.”
I’d do anything for you.
“Cool,” Matias breathed. “Do you think Hiccup is a good name? I want to get a box tortoise and name him that. Or maybe a dog. What do you think?”
I thought that dogs were a pain in the ass, and I really, really didn’t want one.
“Uhh,” I hesitated. “Box tortoises are okay, but I read at the pet store when we went last year that they live for like a hundred and fifty years. That’s going to be a lot longer than both you and I combined…”
“You can give it to your grandbabies,” he said. “You can leave him to the nicest one in your will.”
I felt my heart palpitate at the knowledge that my baby still had such hope even when I did not. “I think they’d probably like that.”
“Or.” He paused. “You can go get one that’s already old. One that’s like a hundred, and we can put him in the backyard like a big dog. We can feed him entire heads of lettuce.”
I’d do anything for you, even find a hundred-year-old box tortoise.
“I’ll see what I can do,” I promised him. “I’m not sure how easy it’ll be to find a hundred-year-old box tortoise…but I’ll do my best.”
Matias’ face was serene after that, and what he said next, after a few long minutes of watching his show, shattered my heart.
