My Mother, My Attacker

My NFL dream was within reach, a scholarship to A&M, a future as a star quarterback. Life felt perfect under the Friday night lights. Then, one night, after a showcase game, I was dragged behind the bleachers. Blinding pain ripped through me, a sound like splintering wood from my throwing arm, then blackness. I woke up in the hospital, my body broken. But the true nightmare began when I overheard my mom and sister, supposedly my heartbroken family, plotting. They had hired the thugs who attacked me. It was all to "slow me down," to "clear the path" for my half-brother, Caleb. They wanted me to miss the combine, to make sure Caleb got his shot. My own mother engineered my brutal assault. Caleb even came to my hospital room and staged a pathetic fake attack, making me look like the monster. The perfect family, the supportive mother, the caring sister-all a grotesque, suffocating lie. My entire future, my identity, shattered by the very people who claimed to love me. How could they do this? Lying there, crippled and utterly betrayed, a desperate memory resurfaced: a crumpled note from my deceased father, a number for a grandfather, an oil baron I'd never met. With trembling fingers, I reached for my phone. It was my only hope.