The ball hits his hands, and he keeps running until he crosses the goal line made of our extra hats and jackets. My friend never spikes the ball, but instead makes a wide turn, his speed still up as he runs back to me, his mouth an O shape with the scream he’s belting.
I jump to my feet and brush away the grass from my chest just as his body hits mine, and he lifts me up and carries me several steps. I laugh as Jacob and Thomas run over to join us, and we take turns bumping our chests together and pounding our fists.
Sasha grabs my hand in one of his, then slams the ball down in my palm, lifting my hand up in the air in celebration.
“State champs, baby! State champs!” he screams. I join him, and we let our chant echo into the night while the sixth graders pick up their bikes and begin to pedal home.
“I will never not trust you again, Nico Medina! You’re my boy, you hear that? You…me and you, Nico. Every time!”
I jump up on my friend’s back and squeeze him, my palm pounding against his chest.
“One day, Sasha—we’re going to win it all for real,” I say in his ear. “I promise.”
I have been standing with my mom and dad, Linda, Valerie, Alyssa, and Uncle Danny in the first row at the fifty-yard line for the entire second half. This game would have been a nightmare if my father were still the coach. The bracket just worked this way, but it also felt a little bit like karma was at play to line us up in the championship against Great Vista again—the school that knocked us out last year.
We ended the first half in a tie—seven to seven—but ever since The Tradition has come back out, they’ve been flat. Nico’s runs aren’t working. They’re tying up Travis and Sasha. Our running game, which has never been strong, is losing yardage. We can’t seem to get a break, and with less than a minute left, Great Vista is sitting on the thirty-yard line in need of nothing but a field goal.
I reach to both sides, grabbing my parents’ hands, grateful for once to be free of my camera and with them through this. My press pass gave me access to the media booth, but not the field. I set my camera up to capture the game, but win or lose—it’s the interview after that really matters to me. I won’t need a press pass for that.
“Look at that,” my mom says, nudging me and leaning her head to the left so I look down our row to Tori O’Donahue. The woman is holding her fists to her mouth, her thumbnails in her teeth, probably being gnawed to the bone. She’s rocking on her feet, the rhythm picking up speed with every single tick of the clock.
My mom has been that woman. She was that woman only a few months ago. Since my dad was let go and she was kicked out of the social committee, her hair has started to look healthier, her skin full of color—the dark circles around her eyes requiring less concealer. And the wine, while she still likes it, seems to be lasting a little longer in our house.
“That poor woman; I feel so bad,” she says, staring at Tori.
I open my mouth, about to tell her how big of her that is, when she blows it as only my mom can, turning and looking me right in the eyes. “I’m over it,” she says, her mouth curving quickly. She’s unable to disguise her malicious laugh.
“Mom,” I say, my head falling to the side. My eyes scanning back to the boosters, to Tori and the women who were so awful when it was my mom in that position. “Nah, you’re right. I’m over it, too.”
We both laugh about it, giddy with ourselves and our catty behavior when suddenly the crowd begins to boo over a call on the field.
“Wait, what happened?” I ask my dad, the Great Vista team moving five yards closer from a penalty, and their top-notch kicker jogging onto the field with less than twenty seconds on the clock.
“They ran a hard count, and our boys jumped right-the-hell offsides!” my dad yells, tearing his hat from his head and throwing it down in front of him. You can take the coach out of his position, but you can’t remove his spirit for the game—or love for the team.
“How? Of all teams, we should know how to anticipate that…how?” I ask, looking down the row to Nico’s uncle.
“Your boy is pissed,” Uncle Danny says, shaking his head.
I turn my attention back to the field, where Nico is running down the sideline, livid and on edge. He waves his arms, calling for the rest of the team to rush down the field with him, and they all shout and hold their helmets over their heads, trying to be a distraction as best they can from the sidelines.
It’s no use. Great Vista’s kicker is the best in the state. My dad knows the kid’s name, Connor Pruitt, and while we watch his ball sail easily through the uprights, with another twenty yards to give if he needed it, the Cornwall crowd grows hushed.