Page 5 of Running
In contrast, Rawley is not “academically-inclined,” like our high school guidance counselor used to say. He’s following in Landon’s footsteps, heading into the NFL after his junior year, no question. As good as Landon is as a linebacker, Rawley may be even better at his position, wide receiver.
“Let’s head back to the house,” I suggest. “Check on Grover.” We’re dog-sitting Landon’s beagle as part of our duties.
As we walk to the car, Rawley grabs my keys, and I’m happy to be a passenger princess this morning. I stuff down a protein bar while Rawley navigates us through the Orlando suburbs and heads towards Landon’s house.
Landon’s only had two seasons in the NFL, but he’s swimming in endorsement money after becoming a star player in college and then a first-round draft pick.
As a result, his house is four times the size of our childhood home, so there’s plenty of room for all of us to hang out. It’s so big and his life so crazy that he even asked me to act as his part-time personal assistant when I moved here for business school. He pays me an overly-generous salary that lets me rent a condo in a town closer to my school, Winter Haven.
Why not crash at Landon’s full time? I’m sure he would say that’s okay.
But I need my own place to stay sane. Where there are no brothers stomping around, no one needs anything from me, and I can have complete quiet. Ideally with a good book and a chai latte.
No chance of that right now. Between Rawley’s chatty natureand Grover’s need for attention, I’m on call to be social and fully present. Rawley offers to walk Grover so I can take a shower, though, and I smile in response.
“You’re the best,” I tell him, turning on my heel and heading to the bathroom that I use when I’m here.
Thirty minutes later, showered and changed, I head to the kitchen where Rawley is whipping something up. That’s right, my brother may be a fun-loving partier, and allergic to books, but he’s also an incredible chef. Soon after I take a seat on one of the stools, he puts a plate in front of me.
“Teriyaki salmon with rice and sauteed vegetables. Tell me if there’s not enough flavor.”
“I’m sure it’s delicious,” I say as I take a bite. “Oh yeah, this is awesome.”
“Sweet.” He makes his own plate and leans over the kitchen island while he starts to eat. His face wears a look of pleasure with his own first bite.
“I need to make something like this for Gretchen,” he says, chuckling to himself.
“Who’s that?” I ask. I’ve never heard the name before, and that’s unusual since Rawley tends to talk to me about girls he’s interested in.
He grins at me. “A tattoo artist I met last month back at school. I’m currently friend-zoned. Maybe a home-cooked meal will turn the tide.”
Rawley’s notorious for his crushes on women who are unattainable or unavailable in some way, so no surprise there.
“Wait. Did you get a tattoo?”
He shakes his head. “No. The recovery time is too long with football stuff this summer. But in the future, I want a ‘Better Together’ tattoo.”
‘Better Together’ is the motto that us four Battle kids came up with when our parents split up. It represents that we’re stronger when united and have each other’s backs, even when our parents do not.
The pivot in topic carries through to our current conversation.
“Have you talked to Mom or Dad lately?” Rawley asks me.
Our parents are a tough subject to navigate. They split up when we were kids—Landon, fifteen, and me, fourteen, taking on most of the heavy lifting to protect Rawley and Connor from dealing with too much.
It wasn’t amicable. They both had affairs and ended up screaming at each other for about a year before they finally separated.
While us siblings support each other first and foremost, there are differences in our relationships with our parents. Landon basically wrote both of them off after the divorce. Connor and I are more connected to our mom, who we all lived with until we each went to college, and Rawley has the closest contact with our dad.
“Yup, Mom and I talked yesterday,” I answer. “She has a huge case that she’s excited about, a wrongful termination lawsuit against a skeezy local politician, so it’s high profile. I didn’t get too many of the details from her, with attorney-client privilege and all that.”
Rawley nods. “That’s cool. Sounds like something she’d eat up. Was she still bugging you about law school?”
My mom is a prominent civil litigator in Alabama. While she hasn’t made big bucks by taking on tough cases against powerful and wealthy people, her career is something I admire.
I wish the feeling were entirely reciprocal. As proud as she is that I went to Princeton, she’d be even prouder if I became a lawyer and followed in her footsteps.
Instead, I chose to enroll in business school. At Tolliver University, which has the best Masters in Business program in Florida. I just finished my first year, with two more semesters to go.
