The-Spanish-Love-Deception-www.indianpdf

“And did you?”
“Yes, and no.” Had what I found changed the image I had of Aaron? I
didn’t think I could answer that. “I probably scrolled down photos upon
photos of you until Google had nothing else to show me.”
“That’s a lot of scrolling.”
“I guess.” I shrugged my shoulders. “Do you want to hear about what I
found?”
He didn’t answer, so I told him anyway, “There was this one image of
you in the middle of the field; your back was to the camera, and you had your
golden helmet hanging off your hand. I couldn’t see more than your back, but
I swear I could tell what your face looked like. I could picture in my head
how your eyebrows were wrinkled on your forehead and how your jaw was
bunched up—the way you do when you are upset but you don’t want to show
you are.”
Aaron had gone quiet, so I stole a glance at him. He was looking at me,
and there was something that looked a lot like shock in his expression.
But I was no-filter Lina tonight, and I didn’t seem to care about talking or
revealing too much. “Then, there were the articles,” I went on. “There were
more than a few, and they all praised you as a player. As an NFL promise.
But then it all stopped. It was as if you had dropped off the face of the earth.”
Aaron’s eyes looked vacant, as if he were no longer there with me, sitting
on the sidewalk in the Spanish town that had seen me grow up.
I continued, not because I wanted to press him for details, but because I
somehow couldn’t stop from explaining myself, “I don’t think there are many
football promises who hang the helmet for the not-so-glamorous life we lead
as engineers for a medium-sized technology company.” I didn’t know much
about how college football worked, but the little I had read during my
Googling session told me I wasn’t wrong. “Ever since you told me about it, I
have been wondering what could have possibly led you to make such a
decision. An injury? Burnout? How does someone jump from one side to the
other?”
I brushed my fingers across his forearm. I thought it would startle him,
but it didn’t. Instead, his other hand wrapped around mine, and then he
placed our interlaced fingers on his thigh.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it.” I squeezed his hand. It was
really okay, but that didn’t mean I didn’t feel somehow disappointed. “If you
don’t want to tell me.”