Being able to work with his players for the next 2 hours helped Brandon calm down and relax. After they left, he squeezed in a workout of his own with one of his assistants and then headed home. After he prepped dinner and ate while watching the evening news, he picked up his phone and called Sarah.
After three rings, she picked up, “Hi, are you okay?”
After a pause, he said, “Hey, I’ve been better for sure. How are you?”
“I’m okay, there are a lot of questions coming in, lots of requests for comments. We are handling it though, how are you.”
Over the next five minutes Brandon vented about his day, all of the issues and how he blew up at his class. Sarah let him talk, occasionally saying things to let Brandon know that she was listening. Finally Brandon stopped and said, “Sorry I unloaded like that.”
“No, no, don’t apologize, you have this situation rougher than I do, I just want to help in any way I can. Would it be easier if we just stopped us? I would totally…”
Before Sarah could continue, Brandon cut her off, “Stop that. I’m not going to let stupid people come between us. I knew this was going to eventually happen, maybe not so soon, but it was going to happen. We couldn’t hide forever.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive, we are us, and that’s between us. So what if people are constantly taking pictures, it just means I can’t get fat and have to keep working out.”
For the first time all day, Sarah laughed, and hearing Brandon laugh made her feel better about everything. They chatted a little bit more, and for the first time, Brandon said, “I miss you.”
Sarah paused in what she was talking about and smiled before saying, “I miss you too, I can’t wait until next week.”
They continued talking for another half hour before Brandon showered, then they switched to zoom and talked for another hour and a half while watching 2 episodes of Fixer Upper on HGTV. Finally as they said goodbye, Sarah said, “10 Days then we see each other.”
Brandon smiled, “I can’t wait, it needs to hurry up.”
Ch. 4-Tuesday
Brandon woke up to head to school like normal, as he was halfway there, his phone rang, displaying Morgan’s name on the truck screen. “Hey, what’s up?”
“You’re in a lot better mood than I expected. Sarah said you had a pretty rough day yesterday.”
“Yeah, it was pretty annoying, hopefully it’ll even out, I just gotta make it to Friday then Thanksgiving break is here.”
“Well that’s good. Not that it means much, but sorry you’re dealing with this.”
As Brandon got ready to respond, he pulled into his spot and noticed the same two guys from the day before. “Morgan, hold up, I gotta deal with something.” He rolled down his window, “Guys, I told you to leave me alone, if you don’t leave, I’ll call the security guards and have you escorted from campus.”
“Come on man, can you just confirm it for us?”
“You’re smart guys, figure it out.”
The reporters got into their cars and left as Brandon went back to his call, “Okay, Sorry about that.”
“No big deal, you handled that really well. I called to check on you and try to figure out when you were flying down?”
“Well right now, the plan is to fly down on Thanksgiving night and then back home Sunday. At least that’s when I bought my tickets for. I bought the expensive ones so I can change them when I want.”
“Oh…okay.”
“Problem?”
Morgan paused for a second, then said, “No not a problem, I just thought you might come down and catch the final tour stop.”
“Oh, I hadn’t planned on it, Should I be?”
“I’m not trying to pressure you, I just know that the last few days have weighed on Sarah since the media identified you.”
As Brandon walked into his classroom, he thought and said, “You know, let me talk to my parents about Thanksgiving, look at changing tickets, and I’ll get back to you. Let’s keep this quiet from Sarah, I wouldn’t want to get her hopes up.”
“Okay, that sounds good, maybe you can surprise her.”
Brandon hung up the phone and prepped for his day. His first 4 periods were much more productive than the prior day, apparently his blowup with 6th period had gotten through to everyone. As he reached lunch, he found himself back in the lounge looking for new airline tickets. He called and talked to his dad, filling him in on the whole situation. His dad informed him of the plans for Thanksgiving and Brandon decided that he would just flop his vacation and fly to Mississippi on Friday after work, catch the show, get a hotel room so as not to intrude on Sarah’s family, then fly back home, then drive home to Pennsylvania on Wednesday night.
When the day wound down, Brandon texted Morgan and filled her in on his plans. The closest flight he could find left Newark at 4:45 on Friday and landed in New Orleans at 6:55 central time. He would then have to rent a car and drive the hour and a half to Biloxi where the show was at the Coast Coliseum. If everything went according to plan, he would get to the show about 8:45, missing the beginning, but being there for the end. He would then fly back out of New Orleans on Wednesday afternoon, getting into Newark, then making the five hour drive to his childhood home in the northern part of the state.
Morgan texted back, “That is perfect! I’ll get you a parking pass and get you credentials and have them left with the security guard in the back. Now I just have to keep this a secret from Sarah.”
Ch. 5-Friday
Brandon made it through the rest of the week pretty well. There were still mumbling about him from the students but the reporters had seemingly died down. He did find himself checking websites that covered celebrities a couple times a day to see if there had been any other things that he needed to be aware of. Other than the local paper tying them together and that being picked up by TMZ as an update to their earlier story, things had pretty much been quiet. Now as Brandon wrapped up his day, he was focused on getting to Newark and getting to New Orleans so he could catch as much of the show as he could. After a quick change of clothes in the staff restroom, out the door he went.