"Thanks, Mom. I . . . I'm sorry."
Mom shakes her head and kisses me on the forehead, like she did when I was little and she was comforting me after a boo-boo. "You don't have to apologize for anything, honey. I love you with all my heart."
Chapter 10
Troy
I thought the days before my first date with Whitney were hard, but they're nothing compared to the past week and a half. Coach not only kept me on the bench for the game against Hartsville, but he didn't even let me dress. I had to sit in my jeans and jersey watching as Roberts tried his best at QB, and Gabe pulled double duty, trying to fill in as linebacker, but it didn't matter. Hartsville's the sort of town that breeds one thing: nasty, tough as nails country boys who scrap and fight. They mauled the team and sent us to our first loss of the season. With only two weeks left in the season, we're now tied for first place.
The season comes down to this next game. The Sounders are the biggest school in our conference, only kept in our level of play because of geography. They routinely field teams that had ten or even twenty more players than the rest of our conference, and we haven't beaten them in years. Now, with one conference loss to our record, it comes down to the the Silver Lake Foxes against the Northern Sounders. If we win, we have the edge in the head-to-head matchup, and win the conference championship, and gain the home field advantage up through the entire playoffs until the state championship. If we lose, we're third, because Hartsville's going to have the edge on us, and we're totally out of the playoffs. Sure, we could blow it in the last week against Carlisle, but so far this year, they haven't won a single game.
So I have stress on me from that. Then there's Dad. The cops booked him on an assault charge, and he's being kept without bail in the county jail. He's not fighting it so far. I think he wants the free food and lodging, but that means I'm on my own. I'm eighteen, so child welfare doesn't concern itself with me, and with all the attention on me, I can't work my after school job either. The owner gave me a call and explained himself, but basically, he said until the season is over, I'm out of work. At least the landlord of the house came by, and he said not to worry about rent. Still, I don't know what's going to happen there.
Then there's Whitney. After my comments the week of the Hartsville game, I've tried over and over to make it up to her, but things are strained. It's painful, even more painful than my slowly healing legs, to be barely speaking to each other. We still eat lunch together, but there's a tension there that we didn't have before, and I don't know why. I try to talk to her, but it's just a series of short questions and answers until the lunch period ends, and then we're off on our different schedules.
Now, it's Thursday night, and I'm back where I am every Thursday before a home game, sitting in the stands and looking over my sanctuary. Cory's sitting with me after everyone else has gone for the night. The air's chilly, and it won't be long before we start wearing tights under our uniforms for these night games.
"You're pretty quiet, bro."
I nod and pick at the concrete under my bleacher. "Yeah. Just getting my head right. It's harder this week, with all that's going on."
"Yeah, I guess it would be," Cory says, leaning back. "The guys are worried about it. I mean, we know why you've been a step slow in practice—you still look pretty ugly. Not that you didn't before, you know, just it's a more multicolored ugly now."
I laugh lightly, not because I'm actually amused but because I know Cory expects something. Still, he can hear it, and he falls quiet too. "Just . . . I don't know, man, maybe I am whipped. It hurts, that's all."
Cory nods. "You wanna know a secret? I've spent the past seven weeks jealous of you, actually. I mean, it's fun getting more ass than a toilet seat, but to see what you and Whitney have . . . it gets a guy to start thinking that maybe I need to look at changing."
“Really? I guess I should call you full of shit, but then again, I would’ve said the same thing about me not too long ago."
"Now, I'm not saying that I'm going to stop enjoying myself," Cory says with a laugh, "but I’m saying that if a girl I really like comes my way, well, I can see why you've changed, that's all. But tomorrow night, I hope that the Troy I saw at Homecoming shows up. Hey, change of subject—you hear from any schools yet? Rumor going around is Clement's interested in you.”
"That's what they said, but they didn't call last week like they said they would. Maybe because of me being hurt, maybe because they had a tough game with late TV, I don't know. I’ve just gotta step up tomorrow."
Cory slaps the stands powerfully, happy. "That's the Troy I know. I remember what my dad told me one time, right after my grandfather died. He put in a DVD of Bruce Lee's old movie, Enter The Dragon. You seen it?"