My Best Friends Brother

Chapter 22

JOSH’S P.O.V

The match went long, it was a battle but I never doubted this team. I don’t know who was prouder holding the trophy and posing for the picture, Miles or Coach. That man might act like a tough, heartless asshole but he really does love each of those players like the kid he... lost.

I’d managed to keep so busy I hadn’t even realised the time, Coach had drilled them hard before the game, then the scouts had kept them busy after. I’d stayed on to help clear up so they could all go enjoy the fruits of their labour at the dance, or so I kept telling myself.

In truth I was terrified to go back to the room while Milo was still in there getting ready, I just didn’t trust myself with him right now, I couldn’t seem to get a fucking grip on my own mind.

Last night he’d kissed me, and I’d slept with my hand pressed firmly against the back of my neck just to stop the feeling of him escaping my skin. Then when I woke up, a stupid irrational part of me wanted him to be there when I opened my eyes.

This was getting too much, I hadn’t had feelings like this for over a fucking decade and it shouldn’t be with Miles.

But then I held his hand... and suddenly all the pain I’d been dragging with me all that time was lighter. I felt... free. Truly free. He makes it all better.

I haven’t wanted to touch someone like this, kiss someone like this, since the night of the winter formal. No man had made me want to just say fuck it and make a fucking move on them.

He may have touched me first this morning, but it was gentle and innocent, I’m the one that held us together. He looked so fucking happy though, I’m not sure what’s happening in his head right now, he obviously has some stuff to figure out, but in that moment I could see how fucking happy he was.

It was like he was mirroring everything inside me.

Then reality snapped back into place.

He’s nineteen Josh, he’s a fucking nineteen year old. I know it’s stupid to think like that but it’s what people will say isn’t it? I mean, nobody bats an eyelid at Tara and Cole, there’s over ten years between them, but it’s different for people like that. Nobody is going to judge them the way they would me, an older guy being with a younger girl is socially acceptable, being in awe of your best mates little brother, someone you’ve known almost their entire life, isn’t.

I grab the sweeping brush and start to make my way down the court, Coach collecting the last of the equipment and putting it in the storage closet, still riding the high from the win.

“Josh, leave that, they’ll have people come in when we leave tomorrow and do all that stuff. Go get ready, most of the kids will already be at this bloody dance and it’ll take two of us to make sure no-one ends up getting one of the cheerleaders pregnant in the toilets. For twenty years I’ve managed to avoid it and I don’t plan on fucking up now.”

Laughter fills the room as I return the broom to the cupboard. “Especially with little Thompson now single out there, his brother was bad but that boy has so many of those girls charmed I don’t think he even realises it. Don’t get me started on the other one, the red coat is worse than even Chad was at his age.”

I freeze, in the ten years since the shooting I have never once heard Coach even mention Chad’s name. I don’t know what to say, but then a part of me can’t help but wonder if he chose this moment to bring him up, a moment when it’s just the two of us.

“Chad was the best at charming someone into something. My first week after I passed my driving test we were going down to the pizza place in the bay and I got pulled over for speeding. I was so scared I thought I might pass out, Chad was absolutely fine though. This massive guy got out, biggest cop I’ve ever seen in my life and I knew I was fucked. He smacked the window, I rolled it down and waited for the onslaught. Then Chad opened his mouth, I couldn’t even tell you what he said, but five minutes later that cop was holding onto the wing mirror just to stop himself falling over with laughter. He let us go with a warning and I swear I ended up speeding again a minute later just trying to get away before the magic wore off.”

Coach chuckles, sitting down on the bench and keeping his eyes on the court but not stopping my story.

“We got to the pizza place and I asked him how he did that. In typical Chad fashion he gave me a wink, painted on a smirk and said ‘it’s what I do.’ There’s a lot of uncertain things in this world, but one thing I know absolutely. There will never again be a person as charming as Chad Wilson.”

A small tear waves in Coach’s eye but he wipes it away quickly. Attempting to straighten his back but the weight of whatever is sitting on him is keeping him down.

I drop into the seat next to him, resting my hand between his shoulder blades but making sure not to look at him too much. I hadn’t really noticed in all the time I’ve been here how much he’s aged over the years, his think hair and messy beard now more white than brown, he looks like a captain of a ship rather than the coach of a high school basketball team.

“He kept diaries.” The words cut through the silence, but I don’t respond. If he wants to tell me, he can, but I wont force it. He takes a deep breath, peering out at the court and keeping his gaze from me.

“I didn’t know, I didn’t know a lot about him it turns out. Me and Liz didn’t even step in his room for the first year. When I finally did, it was like I was seeing him for the first time. He had books, so many books, books I couldn’t even read but one’s he’d made notes in the margins of. That’s when we found them. A box under his bed with diaries going back until he was seven. I didn’t look, not for a while, but Liz read them every night like a bedtime story.”

The tear falls down his face now but I daren’t move and risk him pulling away.

“She left one on the side one night, she was so upset she couldn’t even tell me what it said, so I read it. It was the last one he’d filled in, most of the pages still blank and waiting for memories he’d never have. There was so much of his life I never took the chance to see, those pages like the writings of a stranger. I knew he liked Aleah, that much was obvious. I didn’t realise how much he loved her though, true love. But he also knew, knew she wasn’t his to keep. He just couldn’t let go.”

My heart breaks, the tear falling down my cheek matching his own. I know how much he loved her, me and Al lived together for three years, she told me everything. Not that I needed to be told, being around the two of them in high school it was obvious to everyone how he felt. I know she puts on a brave face, but deep down, she’ll never forgive herself for what happened to him. Now she tries to pour all the love she had for him into all of us, into her children, into the little boy that looks up at her with eyes so close to Chad’s you’d swear he was touched by that angel.

“That wasn’t the part that got to Liz though, it was the part about me... He put in there that no matter what he did, how hard he tried, he’d never be a good enough son for me. That I’d always wish I had a kid like Jayce instead... I realised too late, I’d never let him feel how much I loved him. He was my son, my only son.... I wasn’t raised by a good man, my father was a drunk that would smack me and my brothers into next week for getting in his way, then he fucked off and left the day my mother died. I wouldn’t have survived if it wasn’t for one person - my basketball coach.”

Coach runs his hand through his hair, falling back against the bench and looking to the ceiling. “He took me in, my brothers too. He was this incredible man, strong and authoritative but with a heart bigger than anyone I’d ever met. I knew when I grew up I wanted to be just like him, be someone all the kids could rely on to support them. So I threw everything I had into this job, everything, so any kid that needed it had a place they could belong and a person that believed in them... I just didn’t realise that the one kid I should’ve made sure felt that, didn’t.”

His voice breaks, the restraint he was using snaps as the sobs ricochet around his body, convulsing as the salty water flows down his face.

“H-He didn’t think w-we loved him. He though I-I was happier being a coach than being his d-dad.” He turns to face me and I don’t hesitate, throwing my arms around his shoulders and pulling his large frame into my hold as he cries into my shoulder. “Being his d-dad. It was the best thing that ever happened to me. I k-know now, I never deserved him, that’s why they took him from me.”

Oh god. “No, no Coach. He was amazing, absolutely amazing and that’s because of how you and Elizabeth raised him. He wouldn’t have been the man he was without you.”

Coach isn’t listening, his sobs drowning me out but I had to say the words. We all feel differently about our parents as we get older, we get to a point where they stop being superheroes or villains and just become flawed people, like everyone else. I know with time, time he was denied, Chad would’ve understood why Coach is the way he is, he would’ve realised he was showing him love the only way he knew how.

He pulls himself back, trying to dry his face with the back of his hand, the inner wall slowly building back up before me. Before the final brick sets he turns to me, the most heart-breaking words I’ve ever heard from a person leaving his lips and tearing me down to my soul.

“When your children die Josh, and you have to go on without them, what do you call yourself? Children without parents are called orphans, but parents without children? We’re called nothing, because that’s how we feel, nothing. I’m not a dad anymore Josh, how can I be a dad without my son?”

Grasping hold of his head, I refuse to let that be how he lets the cement set. That heartbreak, it can never be filled.

“You’ll always be a dad, always. As long as you have love for your son, as long as he lives and smiles in your memories, he’s there. You are his father, wherever he is now, you will always be his father. But your something else too, something that you yourself know means the fucking world. Out there you have twenty two boys and girls who walk into a gym every week, put on their shorts and march out onto a court just to make one person proud, to make one person in a sea of faces smile. You’re not their dad, but for some of us, the role you played is just as fucking important. You’re Coach.”

He stills, the words settling their way into his heart.

“High school is fucking hard, and too many people do it alone, with no-one to turn to. You’ve changed that, you made a place where it didn’t matter what you are: Black or white, guy or girl, gay or straight. You put a ball in our hands and told us to forget the labels, because out there we’re one thing – a team. You don’t understand how many of us owe you everything Coach, how you made some of us a family we didn’t know we needed.”

I’m the man I am today because my team accepted me, supported me. I have no doubts the teachings he drilled into all of us about having each others backs played a major role in that.

I let my hands fall from his face, letting the deep breath he needs hit his lungs. The wall seals, but the pain between the cracks lessens enough to give it some bend.

Music fills the room as the hall next door begins to fill with people ready to dance the night away.

A small smile appears on him for a single moment, before it’s quickly wiped away and I see Coach’s regular glare of indifference replace it.

“Go get a shower and get over there, I’m not taking care of that randy lot by myself.”

I know it’s a bit of a front but it’s Coach, the world would stop spinning if he smiled for too long. Tapping him on the back before getting up, I pass most of the team on my way back to the dorm. Entering my room to find it empty.

I’m not sure if I’m happy or disappointed that Miles has already left now. Something about what Coach said still ringing in my ears.

He didn’t tell someone how he felt about them, and he’s still living with the consequences of that action.

If Miles was here right now, if I’d walked in here to find him sitting on the edge of that bed...

I’m not sure what I would’ve said, but I know one thing....

I need to get over to that dance.

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