Chapter 10

Tomorrow was game day, and Coach had okayed us to use a few audibles in the game. I hoped it wouldn’t be needed, and Elijah wouldn’t be an idiot and try to sabotage the team again, but I knew that was wishful thinking. I knew Elijah from our past and from our future in the dream, and he’d always been petty and overly concerned with being humiliated and made to feel less than he thought he should be.

Elijah didn’t think about the future and never thought about the consequences of his actions. He only thought about getting the respect he thought he was owed. It’s why he kept ending up in trouble in high school and why he’d ended up in prison, just before he was ready to head off to college, for getting into a fight and breaking some guy’s back to the point of paralyzing him. He’d done three years for assault and ruined his chances of ever playing ball again. All because the guy had disrespected him.

I wanted this life to be different than my dream one, with my family whole and happy and with me in the NFL, and I wasn’t going to let someone like him get in the way of that. But I also couldn’t be like Elijah. Stupid and short-sighted. I couldn’t let him take me down with him.

I got to the locker room and started putting my stuff in the locker, and was about to get changed for practice when Coach Heidemann walked up to me and said, “Blake, come with me.”

The way he said it, this wasn’t a friendly visit. Not angry exactly, but serious in a way that had me wondering what I’d done wrong. Worse, we weren’t headed to his office. He led me out of the field house and over to the school, toward the offices, which was ... bad. He didn’t say anything else as we walked, keeping a brisk pace through the halls while students rushed past us heading home.

We walked past the secretary without another word between us and into the vice principal’s office.

“Have a seat and stay quiet,” he said, moving to lean against the far wall.

The chair squeaked as I sat down. I’d been in here a lot of times ... in my dream life. Everything about the office was exactly as I remembered from my dream life, the potted plant by the window, the framed diplomas, even the little ceramic apple paperweight. Back then, I’d been in this office plenty of times, usually for pulling stupid pranks, bullying other students. Mrs. Ford had watched me like a hawk those first two years, before I dropped out.

But this time was different. I hadn’t done any of that stuff. No sneaking around to stuff the mascot head with shaving cream. No beating up kids for standing up to me or stealing their shit because I thought everyone else would find it funny. No targeting the quiet kids just because I could. I’d been keeping my head down, focusing on football and actually trying in my classes.

So why was I here?

Coach was making it very clear from his body language that he wasn’t going to tell me, arms crossed, staring at the desk, looking annoyed. I avoided looking at him, to keep him from glaring at me, looking at the floor tiles instead, counting the speckles. Anything to keep myself from fidgeting.

When the door finally opened and Vice Principal Ford stepped in, it was almost a relief. A brief one as Mr. Walsh walked in behind her. I don’t know what his problem with athletes was, but he had one and he’d decided I was the focus of it.

“Thank you for coming, Mr. Sims,” she said, circling around her desk and sitting in her chair while Mr. Walsh stopped to stand next to it.

“Mr. Sims, do you remember signing the student handbook on the first day of school?” Mrs. Ford asked.

I wasn’t sure what I’d expected her to say, but that wasn’t it.

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“And do you remember that pledge including a commitment to academic integrity, which included not cheating on any schoolwork, tests, or quizzes?”

“I haven’t cheated on anything.”

“He absolutely...” Mr. Walsh said, before I could say anything.

Mrs. Ford held up her hand, cutting him off.

“I didn’t ask if you cheated. I asked if you remembered that part of the handbook that you signed, saying you agreed to it.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” I said.

“Good. There has been an allegation that you cheated on your recent quiz in science.”

“That’s a lie,” I said, the words coming out before I could stop them. “I know Mr. Walsh doesn’t like me, but...”

“Teaching students doesn’t have anything to do with liking them or not, and none of our instructors would allow personal feelings to dictate how they give their instruction. And I did not say Mr. Walsh was the one who originated the allegations.”

I looked to Mr. Walsh, who still looked a little furious at being cut off like he had been, although he was glaring at me and not Mrs. Ford. It suggested he blamed me for it, like I’d done anything. That wasn’t my only problem, although one I’d have to deal with eventually.

It wasn’t hard to figure out where the accusation came from, if it didn’t come from Mr. Walsh. Elijah hadn’t had any luck getting me kicked off the team by throwing last week’s game, and had caught a fair amount of blame from it, so he’d switched to another tactic. He’d been smart to pick Mr. Walsh, although why Mr. Walsh would listen to another football player didn’t make sense to me. Maybe he just saw a chance to deal a blow to one of us to feed whatever his hatred for us was, and he didn’t care where the source started.

“Ma’am. There are some students who ... they’re upset with me because I wouldn’t go along with some things they wanted to do. Are you really going to take this seriously without knowing the full story? Can I at least know who accused me?”

“No, that’s against school policy,” Mrs. Ford said. “And if it was just an accusation from another student, you wouldn’t be in here. Mr. Walsh has expressed doubts about the grades you’ve been earning in your class. He believes it would be ... unlikely for you to achieve such results without outside assistance.”

“With all due respect, that’s garbage,” I said.

“What’s garbage is you trying to get us to believe you would get the grades you’ve been getting without cheating. I’ve been teaching at this school for fifteen years. Never in my experience has an athlete in remedial classes received a perfect score on their first quiz and all of their assignments without outside assistance.”

“Mr. Walsh...” Mrs. Ford started.

“I know this school worships football,” he continued, “but I will not accept cheating in my classroom.”

“Gail,” Coach Heidemann said, looking from Mr. Walsh to her.

“Alan, please,” Mrs. Ford said. “This is about a specific allegation, not your personal opinions about student-athletes.”

“And it’s not true,” I said. “I’ve been studying hard every day. Ask Mrs. Mace and Ms. White; they’ve both been giving me extra work to help me get on level and out of remedial classes. They can tell you I’ve been doing the work. They’ve seen my progress.”

“Preposterous,” Mr. Walsh scoffed. “I know what people like you...”

“That’s enough,” Mrs. Ford cut him off sharply. “I’ll speak with your other teachers, Blake. I hope you’re being truthful with me.”

“I am,” I said. “I made a promise to Ms. White that I’d do whatever it takes to graduate. Not just graduate, but do well enough to get into college without relying on a sports scholarship. Even though I want to play football in college, I don’t want to rely on football.”

Mrs. Ford studied me for a long moment, clearly sizing me up. I looked back at her levelly, trying to show her I meant it.

“I hope that’s true. You can go with Coach Heidemann now.”

“Let’s go, Blake,” Coach said quietly.

My stomach churned as we walked out. This wasn’t over - not by a long shot. Mr. Walsh had decided I was everything he hated about student-athletes and Elijah was stepping things up. I didn’t say anything though. I kept my mouth shut until we were back in the hallway.

“Don’t worry about this,” Coach said. “I know you’ve been putting in the work. The other teachers will back that up.”

“It was Elijah. He told them I was cheating. He hates me now and he’s trying to get me in trouble since he couldn’t get me kicked off the team. This is what I was talking about after last week’s game.”

“Focus on yourself,” Coach said. “Don’t worry about what other people are doing. If you’re doing your best, it doesn’t matter what other people do.”

I didn’t know if he was just trying to get me to shut up or what, but he really couldn’t be naive enough to believe that. I wasn’t.

This situation with Elijah was going to come to a head, whether I wanted it to or not. The question was when - and how bad it would be when it did.

Thursday night we were back on the field for our second game, and I was feeling a little more ready for this one. While I felt good having the audibles in case we needed them, I was still a little concerned with what Elijah was going to do. He’d been in on all the practices this week, of course, and knew that we’d been working on them, so he’d naturally have a plan for getting around that, too.

I felt stupid not thinking about it until Wednesday’s practice, mostly spurred on by his reporting me for cheating, which was an annoying reminder that he wasn’t done trying to get to me. I’d pulled the guys together after practice and we’d hung around the field, talking about how to deal with that. We had come up with the idea of a mid-play audible. It only worked on running plays, but if Jake blew his assignment again or Hunter was going to drop the ball, it gave me a chance to still make something happen. It relied on Miguel, mostly, keeping his situational awareness and knowing that I might still pass to him even though he was running a fake route, since he was the only one of us eligible to receive the ball on a pass.

It should be fine, as it would look like a fake to the refs and the other team, although Coach Heidemann would definitely know the difference and probably be pissed. So I made it clear we wouldn’t do it until they started screwing around. If they played it straight, we’d play it straight. We practiced it for over an hour on Wednesday for Miguel to get the feeling, since he also had some blocking assignments should the run get that far, and he couldn’t screw that up if Elijah’s guys were playing it straight.

It was a risky move, and one we’d save just in case we needed it, but if we were going to lose the ball anyway, and maybe fumble it if a handoff went bad, it was worth a shot. Or at least, I wanted to be able to show up Elijah and make it very clear what they were doing.

Elijah and his group always did their warm-ups away from my friends, so I wasn’t that worried about them overhearing me, but I still kept my voice down as we stretched.

“We’ve got this,” I said. “We’re not going to let them screw us like last week. I know it’s not really fair to you, Miguel, but you’ve got to be ready for it if they start messing around again.”

“I can handle it.”

“You really think they’ll try something?” Jamal asked. “Coach made it pretty clear in the pregame that he wanted everyone to stay on their assignments this time and not have any of the same mistakes from last week.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure. Elijah isn’t done making his moves to get at us. He’s a jackass, but he’s persistent. Just stick to what we worked on and do your best.”

Except for a few dirty looks and a sneer or two from Elijah and his crowd, things were pretty calm during the pregame, and the coin toss. It wasn’t the best return we could have hoped for, getting stopped at the fifteen-yard line, but we got to have the first drive of the game, so I would take it.

I didn’t get any looks from Elijah and the rest, and there weren’t any of those meaningful little glances, so I took a shot that they were going to start off playing everything straight.

Or at least, I hoped they were.

As it was the coaches’ go-to, we started with a running play. I slapped the ball into Hunter’s belly after the snap and, thankfully, he pulled it in tight, not dropping it. He managed to find the hole and got seven yards. Not bad for a first-down run.

“Nice work,” I said as we huddled again. “Let’s keep it rolling. Wing-T 31 on one.”

Another clean play. Five more yards. First down.

We marched methodically down the field, mixing runs and short passes. Even Jake and Elijah executed their assignments properly. By the time we reached the red zone, we had a good rhythm going.

Back in the huddle, Coach had us run another running play, again to Hunter. Again, Hunter hit the hole hard behind his blockers and powered into the end zone for the touchdown. Compared to last week’s team, these guys had a really weak defense and were letting a lot more plays through than I would have thought we’d get.