It was a concussion. I knew without having to hear it confirmed.
Our training staff helped him up and he walked off the field, all the way back through the tunnel to the locker room. We knew he wasn’t coming back.
And now, we were down our best tight end.
The momentum shifted to South Hartford, and they scored on their next drive before picking off Blake and getting a defensive touchdown, too.
It went on like this, back and forth, both teams grinding like it was the championship game right now instead of a rivalry. We were all beat up when we limped into the locker room at halftime, and we were down by ten.
I expected Blake to feel defeated already. He’d been picked off twice. He surprised me in the locker room, though, huddling the team together and reminding us what we were fighting for.
With us having first possession of the second half, we drove down strong and steady for a touchdown.
And still, Mary wasn’t in the stands.
Defense was battling, trying to hold South Hartford to a kick when Zeke came and put a hand on my shoulder on the sideline.
“You okay, man?”
I nodded, but couldn’t verbally assure him or myself. I was here. I was locked into the game.
But I also wasn’t here, not really.
My head was wherever she was.
“It’s not over,” he said, a bit lower this time. “Maybe she just needs more time.”
I tried with everything in me not to break down and cry when he said it.
With another nod, I faced him. “Let’s just win this game.”
“Damn right,” he said, slapping my helmet before he jogged over to Riley.
The longer the game went, the more grueling it became, and the crowd was so alive with energy it was impossible not to buzz right along with them. I was having a monster game, and everything was going right for us — but we were still down by six by the time we got the ball back in the fourth quarter.
There was just over two minutes left.
It was do or die.
I pulled my helmet on, jogging out onto the field after Zeke got us the best return he could. Even with it, we still had sixty-three yards to drive down the field for a touchdown. A kick wouldn’t win or even tie. It had to be a touchdown.
As I huddled with Blake and the rest of the offense, listening to him call our first play, I felt an all-encompassing Zen wash over me. It was like all the noise cleared out, the cheers falling mute, my breaths steadying, and even Blake sounded like he was whispering instead of shouting over the noise of the fans.
We have this, I said to myself, and I felt it deep down in my fucking soul.
Without thinking, I looked up over Blake’s head to the empty seat in the stands.
But it wasn’t empty anymore.
Mary was there now, her long blonde hair shining in the last bit of sunlight and giving her away. When she realized I was looking at her, she climbed up to stand in her seat, taller than the sea of fans around her.
She was wearing my jersey.
Even from the distance, I could make out her smile, and it made my heart skip a beat before it kicked back to life and raced like a motherfucking horse.
Slowly, her hands lifted over her head, holding a large white sign with black marker lettering.
Dibs on #13.
I couldn’t contain it. A laugh that was something more of a cry rushed out of me, and Blake paused where he’d been calling the play. He followed my gaze over his shoulder, and then gave me a knowing grin when he turned back to the group.
“Let’s win this,” he said to us, and then he nodded his head at me. “Some of us have a girl to impress.”
A few of the guys thumped me on the helmet, making smart-ass remarks that I took with the goofiest grin I’d ever worn stretching my face. They could hound on me all they wanted to. Nothing could get to me, not now that she was here.
We clapped our hands and sprinted to our spots on the line with seven seconds left on the play clock.
Just before the ball was snapped, I looked back up to Mary in the stands.
She had my number on her chest.
And my heart in her hands.
Mary
I was so out of breath by the time I made it to my seat in the stadium that I was seeing black spots at the edges of my vision. After being stuck on the highway due to an accident that shut down all three lanes, I’d spent the last two hours cursing and praying and then speeding to get here with literally two minutes left in the game.
That didn’t stop me from standing on my chair and making sure Leo saw that I was here.
I collapsed back down into my seat just in time for their first play of the drive. Before this season, I knew absolutely nothing about football — mostly because I’d avoided it at all costs, thanks to Leo. But after playing Madden with the guys and going to a few games now, I was picking it up.
It was the penalties that always confused me.
That’s why when the whistle blew after Leo picked up an impressive nineteen yards and they called holding on the offense, I was confused, watching them move fifteen yards back instead of the nineteen yards Leo had moved them forward.
I cursed under my breath, looking at the time on the clock and the score with a pit in my stomach.
Maybe I was bad luck.
It would be the first rivalry game I attend that they lose.
“God, Leo Hernandez is so fucking hot.”
I blinked, finding the source of the comment that snapped me out of my daze belonging to a girl sitting in the seat in front of me. She shook her head, her red ponytail swinging a bit as she nudged her friend. She was wearing Leo’s jersey, too, but hers was an older version.
“We made out after the rivalry game last year,” she said proudly. “Think lightning can strike twice?”
Her friend snorted. “I’ll pray for you. I’m still in mourning that Clay Johnson is off the market.”
The first girl sighed with her. “Yeah. That jagged pill will never be easy to swallow.”
I couldn’t bite back the smile that stretched on my face. I also couldn’t wait to tell Giana. But more than anything, I couldn’t wait to show that first girl just how wrong she was about where Leo would be after the game.
The ball was hiked, and Blake was sacked.
The crowd was a mixture of ohhs from our fans and cheers from South Hartford. I grimaced, looking at how we now had twenty-one yards to go on a second down with just over a minute left to play. SHU fans were already getting ready to celebrate their win, blowing air horns and pops of confetti. Neither were allowed at NBU, and now that I realized how annoying they were, I understood why.
I kept my eyes on the field, on Leo, biting my thumbnail and chanting a silent prayer.
Come on, come on.
The ball was snapped, and this time, Blake found a receiver — but they were still eight yards short of the first down.
And now, it was third down.
“Fuck,” someone yelled beside me.
“We’re toast,” someone else said.
“Nah, we got this. We’ll get the first here.”
“There’s less than a minute to play. We have the whole fucking field to go.”
“God, walking out of here is going to suck if we lose.”
The chatter was too loud to ignore, and when Coach Lee called a timeout from the sidelines, I let out as much of an exhale as I could, stretching out my fingers I didn’t realize I’d been wringing together.