I'd been marinating in anxiety since we got back from New York.

It had been a week since the Heisman ceremony and Reid's victory, and the energy in the football complex was dynamic, feeding off of his confidence and his well-earned swagger. He was all smiles, all energy, all the time. But I was emotionally lethargic, and I didn't want to become one of those energy vampires that sucked all the good and fun out of something that should be good and fun. So the solution was to avoid it - and him - altogether.

I'd sequestered myself in my office, busying myself with projects and content planning for the playoffs. By Friday, most people were getting ready to go home for Christmas break until we all reconvened before New Years and the first round of the playoffs.

"You sure you don't need anything before I go?" Mara asked, her shoulder bag hanging off of her arm as she leaned in the doorway of my office.

"Nope." I shook my head without looking up at her, my focus zeroed in on my content calendar on my laptop screen.

Mara huffed out a sigh. "You know I say this with love, but...you've been acting really weird this week. Are you sure everything's okay?"

"I'm fine, don't worry," I blurted out. I took a breath and finally looked up at her, and she offered me a soft, albeit wary smile. She didn't believe me, but she didn't press me either.

"Okay," she nodded. "Merry Christmas, Jo."

"Merry Christmas, Mara."

The moment she shut my office door behind her, I let out a groan as I leaned back into my chair, feeling my stomach start to tie itself into knots.

I couldn't focus, and every time I tried to look at my laptop screen, my vision went blurry. It felt like I'd been injected with a poison - something slow moving and made of Cade Martello's venomous words, infecting me with the threat of knowing something terrible. Something I wasn't sure I could undo.

Upon the conclusion of the football season, my work study internship was technically over. At that point, it was up to me to start looking for a real job and hope that someone like Mariah Roe would give me a recommendation for a job at ESPN based on merit, and not who I was...involved with.

My spiraling was interrupted by a text from my sister Beth, who never texted me out of the blue. I figured it had something to do with Christmas since we'd all be home, and I opened it expecting maybe some form of temporary distraction.

BETH: UM HELLO is this you???

BETH: some guys at the office were talking about it. Then realized you and I have the same last name and all came scrambling in ASKING ME IF I WAS RELATED TO YOU!

The next text was a link to an article on Barstool Sports, with the headline EVERYTHING WE FIGURED OUT ABOUT HEISMAN WINNER REID DONAHUE'S SMOKESHOW POTENTIAL GIRLFRIEND.

Despite being considered a pretty reputable sports news outlet in some circles, this was still typical Barstool (they did after all rise to frat house prominence for their initial Barstool Smokeshows bit), but being on the receiving end of it was nowhere near as flattering as anybody made it out to be. Maybe in another universe my ego would have exploded from being called a smokeshow but in this universe, I'd just been sucked into a black hole.

It didn't take cameras long to find soon-to-be Heisman winner Reid Donahue's supposed girlfriend in the audience sitting with his family, and once they found her, they stuck with her, reminding us all too well of AJ McCarron's girlfriend in that 2009 Alabama national championship game. None of us are shocked that a guy like Donahue with the looks AND the talent bagged a girl like that, but because being chronically online has made us overly nosy, we want to know WHO this girl is.

Our FBI-level sleuths found her pretty quickly, maybe because she was looking to be found. As it turns out, Josephine Lawrence wrote a series of articles on Reid this season directly for ESPN's college football division. Sex and football is like a rom-com writing itself. One that we would undoubtedly tune into.

Whether the sex or the football came first is irrelevant, because this girl is about to be set for life. Why bother writing for ESPN when you're going to soon be sitting pretty in a massive Hoboken townhouse while your man balls out in the NFL? We know what we'd pick.

The spiraling had become full blown psychosis, and I left Beth's text unanswered.

I tasted metal in my mouth as I scrambled to gather my shit and bolt out of there like the building was on fire. I needed to go home, where I could bake 10 variations of brownies in peace and while blasting Phoebe Bridgers, not eat any of them, and then scream into my pillow because I felt like no matter what I did or could do, it was wrong.

The lobby of the football complex had been decorated for the holidays, with holographic snowflake decals pressed to the windows, and orange and purple tinsel wrapping the lights that hung from the ceiling. There was a big tree in the corner by the door, where everyone on the team had made their own ornament and hung it last week. I wished I could have admired it more, since I knew how to pick Reid's ornament out without even having to look.

I threw myself against the door and had barely tasted the winter air when I heard him call after me. I should have known better. I had Reid Radar, but he also had Jo Radar. It was almost cute.

I made it to my car before he finally caught up to me, huffing out smoky breaths in the cold air.

"I called your name like five times. Where you going?" he asked. I could barely bring myself to look at him, but I noticed he had his backpack on, like he was ready to go wherever I asked him to.

"I just...I don't feel well," I choked out. "I'm going home."

"Oh, okay, I'll come with you."

"It's fine." I shook my head. "I just need to lay down, that's all. I've been staring at screens all day."

"Is that it?" Reid placed a delicate hand on my arm, and I wanted to melt. "It kind of feels like you've been avoiding me all week."

"I'm just giving you space. You've got a playoff game to prepare for," I told him plainly.

"I didn't really ask for space," he mumbled, taking his hand off my arm.

"We don't have to be attached at the hip, Reid." I heard the edge creeping up in my voice. "I've got my own stuff going on, just like you do."

I went to open my car door, and he pushed it shut.

"Jo, wait. Have I done something wrong?" He looked down at me, nervously running his tongue along his bottom lip, like he was starting to sense something was amiss. "I know I'm new at this relationship stuff, but-"

"Are we in a relationship?"

The words left my mouth before I could stop them. Maybe if he thought we weren't this might have been easier.

"I...uh...I kind of thought so?" He gulped. "Unless...you don't think so."

I'd hoped maybe I could delay this until after Christmas, but looking up at him now, his brilliant brown eyes glossed over with something sad and troubled that was tearing me in two. This conversation was happening now whether I wanted it to or not.

He rubbed the back of his neck, his cheeks starting to turn red, maybe from the cold or maybe from something else. "Your hesitation is...kind of making it obvious."

I let out a tense breath, desperately trying to slow my racing heart. "You really don't get it do you? It's not about you. It's never been about you."

"Then what's it about?" He didn't even sound mad. He sounded like he'd already given up.

I didn't bother showing him the article. There was no point in riling him up and making him angry or guilty or both when none of this was actually his fault. This was about me. It always had been.

"Reid, no matter what happens to us, nothing is going to happen to you. You are going to have a glorious NFL career with or without me. But me?" I placed a hand to my chest. "I am always going to be the girl that slept with you for career advancements and opportunities. It wouldn't matter that I got my internship first or earned anything that I'd been given. The fact that I was involved with you is all anyone would ever see, and it would follow me forever."

Reid took a step back, nodding slowly as if to process that everything I was saying was real and not just the wind playing tricks on him. It was cold now as the sun began setting behind the stadium, turning the sky a burning, flaming orange.

"So that's it?" he choked out. "I...I can't change your mind?"

I shook my head, blinking away tears that I was convinced were just from the chilly air. "You are always going to be somebody, Reid. But I want to be somebody too, and I can't if you are attached to everything I do."

He took another breath, and something changed in him. I'd seen it a few times in games, when he was worked up or overwhelmed and things weren't going his way. He'd shut himself down emotionally so he could do the difficult stuff, like winning a game in crunch time, or letting me walk away.

"Okay," he finally said, his tone flat. "If that's what you want." He paused again, and that one moment felt like a lifetime under his gaze. "I...I love you."

And all I could manage in return was, "I'm sorry."

Reid sighed and turned on his heel, and it felt like slow motion watching him walk back across the parking lot and into the football complex. I wasn't sure why I thought he'd turn around. I'd given him every reason not to, and yet that other half of me - the clean, unpoisoned part - thought that if he did, I'd somehow change my mind.

Instead, I got in my car, blasted the heat and Phoebe Bridgers, and screamed. 

━━━━━━

i know y'all hated this and i know this is not what you wanted, but this was important for me and an important part of jo's character, because this is reality.

this is something that women in sports deal with constantly. we aren't always valued by our knowledge or what we've done to earn our place. sometimes none of what we say matters, and instead it's "why would she wear that on national television" or "i wonder whose dick she had to suck to get that job." and the objectifying? don't even get me started. i will NEVER forget that 2009 national championship when the cameras WOULD NOT STOP showing aj mccaron's girlfriend in the stands and saying gross things about her instead of actually showing us the game. it's only gotten worse nowadays, because we are in fact chronically online and obsessed with making things viral, usually for the wrong reasons (the hawk tua girl...need i say more?). your 10 second misstep or mistake now follows you forever, and it's about 100 times worse for women, especially in a space like sports.

i did not intend to get on my soapbox for this but alas, these things happen. thank you for all the love and support so far, 4 more to go <3