Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 90217 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 451(@200wpm)___ 361(@250wpm)___ 301(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90217 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 451(@200wpm)___ 361(@250wpm)___ 301(@300wpm)
The mojo was off.
And as the fourth quarter started, with us still down, panic started to rise in me. We made another play where I cut right, zagged a little, then tried to go in hard. One of their linebackers clocked it easily, and before I knew it I was met with six-foot-five of muscle that felt more like brick, as he tackled me to the ground hard and swift.
Pain split through my side, white-hot and searing. There was a rushing in my ears, like the sound of the ocean. Peaceful, almost. For a moment I forgot everything around me. I’d had my fair share of injuries on the field, ranging from minor to slightly serious, but never anything awful.
This was… strange. I felt like I was outside of my body for a moment, the breath totally knocked out of me, and briefly I worried I wouldn’t be able to get up and walk again.
Then, slowly, everything started coming back to me.
The faint smell of the grass around me. My teammates, running up next to me. Somebody grabbing my leg and moving it.
Hey.
That was good.
I could definitely still feel my leg.
“Bryant,” Coach Baylin was saying from somewhere beside me. “Tell us you’re all right.”
I sucked in air, needing a few big breaths before I spoke. “I’m all right,” I said. I moved my legs, then my arms. The side of my body still felt strange, something between pain and numbness, then some pins and needles as reality came back to me.
I put one foot on the ground, then pushed myself up, leaning forward to crouch. I was woozy, and something definitely hurt in the left side of my body. But otherwise, I was pretty sure I felt normal.
They put a blood pressure cuff on me and somebody checked my oxygen on my free finger. A water bottle was shoved in my face and I took a long sip, the icy-cold water feeling like an elixir in my throat.
“Good. I’m good,” I muttered. “I’m good.”
“Fuck yeah, buddy,” Vance whispered, and I turned to see him reaching out to fist bump me.
I slowly stood up, the dizziness finally leaving. I gave Vance his fist bump, then took a huge breath in.
“He’s okay,” somebody called out near me on the field.
That’s when I heard it, just faintly at first, from the stands.
Bryant, Bryant, Bryant. Let’s go!
I squinted as I looked over at the crowd in the general direction of the sound. And I saw one thing, very clearly, as I looked over past the big lights.
Logan was there. Right at the center of the chanting. He was standing up, waving around his green scarf like it was a victory flag, cheering my name for no other reason than to hype me up. Roman was there next to him, standing up and doing the same, looking down at me like he believed in me, even if I couldn’t always believe in myself. And the rest of the crowd was beginning to join in.
A smile broke out over my face for the first time all night. Something on my side still felt pretty bad, but it was nothing I couldn’t work with.
A little bit of pain. Not even the worst I’d ever felt.
Seeing Logan there cheering me on was better fuel to me than anything else could have been.
As the crowd kept chanting my name, I nodded at Coach Baylin and Vance. “Let’s do this!” I shouted, ignoring the little spike in pain that it caused. We huddled together, reassessing our strategy. This time, we needed to go for something different. Time was running out in the fourth quarter, and even though the score was a little tighter than it had been before, we still had to make up for lost time.
We had a chance, now. And that was all I needed.
If it were just for me, I wasn’t sure if I’d have been able to do it. The pain sucked, and my own emotions about it being the last real game still hovered at the corners of my mind.
But I wasn’t just doing it for me.
I had the whole crowd behind me, cheering me on.
I had Coach.
I had all of my teammates, guys who never once gave a shit that I was out and proud. Never once were anything but supportive of me being different, and totally outspoken about it.
I had Mike and Vance, who’d been two of the best friends I’d ever had. Even when we sometimes got pissed at each other. Even when we gave each other shit.
I knew Roman was out there. My big brother. A brother who’d been like the father I never really had, standing in the crowd even though he had to use precious time off to be here.
And there was Logan.
I’d never understood it when people called their partners their “rocks.” It didn’t make sense to me, because I’d never known what it had really felt like, before. Most of my relationships had been more like fireflies, brief and bright, floating away and gone almost as soon as they came. Even the good ones in the past had never really felt like true stability, to me.