Second Down
Copyright© 2025 by Lumpy
Chapter 33
It was weird, opening my eyes, waking up with the dark sky and stadium lights above me. It took me a second to even remember where I was, let alone why I was lying on the ground.
The world returned in stages, starting with bits of sound that slowly separated into distinct voices. Then feeling. My helmet felt tight, pressing against my temples, like it was trying to squeeze my skull. I’m not sure who, but someone thankfully slipped it off, taking away a little of the pressure.
“Blake? Blake, can you hear me?” Coach Holloway’s face swam into focus above me as vision returned next.
“Yeah,” I managed, though my voice came out raspier than intended. “Yeah. I think so. What happened?”
Nobody answered right away. Just looked at each other. Aside from Coach Holloway, Mr. Lassiter, the head trainer, and Coach Easley, I could see Mickey and Joe just on the edges of the circle that formed around me. Mr. Lassiter knelt down next to me and held up a small penlight, shining it in my eyes. I blinked a little against the harsh light as he had me follow it back and forth, before putting it away and feeling carefully along my neck.
“Any pain here?” he asked, pressing gently at the base of my skull.
“No, it doesn’t hurt. I’m fine,” I said, starting to push myself up, but the world tilted sideways.
Coach Holloway and Coach Easley both reached down and steadied me and, when they saw that I was determined to stand, grabbed me under the arms and helped me to my feet.
“Let’s get you to the locker room,” Mr. Lassiter said.
As soon as I was up, I pushed away from them to stand on my own. It was a little shaky, but I didn’t want to be carried out on a stretcher. I looked around at the stands, where people had started cheering as soon as I was vertical. I couldn’t help but notice the scoreboard which read Midland 36, Wheaton 28.
The clock read zero. The game was over, but as I walked off, I saw that Midland’s special team was headed onto the field.
“What happened?” I asked again, pulling Mickey and Joe in to help me walk off the field.
“Andre slipped on the turf,” Mickey said. “The whole line just ... collapsed. Their defensive end came through completely unblocked.”
“You were stepping back to throw,” Joe added. “The ball went flying when you got hit. One of their linebackers snagged it and took it all the way for six.”
“Shit.” I rubbed my face, trying to clear the fog. “Why didn’t anyone yell out a warning? I could’ve at least braced for it.”
“I think we were all just shocked when we saw him coming through. It happened so fast...” Mickey said before he was interrupted by a cheer from the opposite stands as they kicked the extra point, bringing our loss to 37-28.
We’d been so close.
“We’ve got to be ready for that,” I said, frustrated and a little angry looking at the scoreboard. “A heads up and I could’ve tried to run it in. Worst case, thrown it away and we could have kicked for a field goal. Instead...”
“Blake!” Melanie yelled, running up to me and then stopping, clearly unsure if she should hug me or not. “Are you alright?”
I pulled away from Mickey and Joe, taking an unsteady step on my own, pulling her into my arms. “Yeah, just stiff.”
She wrapped her arms around me and I could feel her trembling slightly. Over her shoulder, I could see Mr. Lassiter glowering at me, clearly wanting me to continue on to the training room.
“The trainers want to check me out in the locker room before we head back,” I said, carefully extracting myself. “I’ll find you at the bus?”
“Promise?” Her eyes searched my face.
“Promise.” I managed a smile I didn’t quite feel. “Just need to get cleared first.”
I shooed her along, but she kept looking over her shoulder as she walked back toward the rest of the cheerleaders. I tried to give her a reassuring smile, in spite of what I was feeling inside. We had fought so hard to get back in the game and were within inches of winning the game, and one hit had erased it all.
“Let’s get you checked out properly,” Mr. Lassiter said, putting a hand on my shoulder.
Ten minutes of poking and prodding later, the trainers released me to go get changed for the bus ride home, declaring me not permanently broken. Although, Mr. Lassiter did say if I felt dizzy or nauseous in the morning to go see my doctor.
Everyone was in the locker room getting changed when I got there and the whole place felt like a funeral. No one was joking or laughing or really even talking. It was a big change from how things had been even when I’d first come on board and the team was losing. I think being that close to beating Midland and then having it all fall apart had hit them hard.
None more so than Andre. He was sitting on the bench in front of the locker he’d put his stuff in, still in his pads, staring at the floor. Other than me, he was the only one who hadn’t changed clothes.
“Hey.” I dropped onto the bench next to him. “You okay?”
Andre didn’t look up. “I should be asking you the same thing. I screwed up. Bad. I cost us the game.”
“It happens,” I said, but he didn’t look like he was buying it.
“No, it doesn’t happen,” Mickey said one bench over, angry. “He’s right, he cost us the game. We were right there. We could have beaten them, and that amateur shit cost us the game.”
“Back off,” Terry cut in, stepping between them. “Like you’ve never messed up before?”
“Not when it counted like that!” Mickey shot back.
“Really? ‘Cause I remember you dropping a pass in the third that could have been a touchdown,” Terry said. “How is that any different?”
“That was different...”
“How?” Joe demanded. “We would have already been up if you’d caught that ball!”
“It’s different because Blake got hurt!” Mickey shoved past Terry. “Do you want to go back to how we were at the beginning of the season, when we couldn’t win a game to save our life?”
While he wasn’t wrong about the beginning of the season record, Jorden was still on the team and in the room with us, and he’d definitely heard Mickey, turning red and glaring at me, like I’d done something to make him say that.
Things started to go downhill from there, with more guys taking sides, the shouting ramping up. My head throbbed from the noise. I pushed myself to my feet, swaying slightly.
“Hey!” I said, trying to project my voice to cut through the noise, but nobody heard me. “SHUT UP!”
As if to make my point, I slammed my palm into one of the locker doors, banging it closed with a loud clang. That did the trick. The room went quiet.
“This stops now,” I said. “You want to talk about mistakes? Fine. I overthrew a bunch of passes tonight. Mickey dropped a big pass. Andre missed a block. We had that bad snap on the punt that kind of screwed us. We all made mistakes. We’ll keep making mistakes. This isn’t a scrimmage, we’re playing against guys who want to win just as much as we do, and shit doesn’t even go right in practice every time.”
“But we could’ve,” Mickey started.
“Could’ve what?” I said, cutting him off. “Could’ve won? Yeah, maybe. But we also could’ve gotten blown out. Do you remember how things were at the end of the third quarter? Midland’s undefeated for a reason. Instead, we had them scared and were close to winning.”
I paused and looked around the room, making eye contact with each guy I could see, making sure they were paying attention. “No one person is responsible for how we do. We win as a team. We lose as a team. And we are going to lose games. Hardly anyone gets an undefeated season. What matters is what we do when we lose. Do we give up and go for each other’s throats, or do we learn from it and get better for the next time.”
For a minute, no one said anything. I think they knew I was right and just needed someone to say it. They all looked like kids who’d just been busted with their hand in the cookie jar.
“Alright, I don’t know about you guys, but I’m ready to get the hell out of here. Let’s pack up and get to the bus.”
That broke the spell. It was quieter than before, and there still wasn’t a lot of laughing and joking around, but they did start talking again.
Mickey looked at me and then walked over to Andre and said, “Sorry, man. I was being a dick.”
“I would have, too, in your place. We’re good,” Andre said, whacking him on the shoulder.
I reached down and grabbed my bag, dropping it on the bench so I could start shoving my crap in it. I really was ready to head home. As I unzipped it, I looked up and saw Coach Holloway, standing in the back of the room, watching us. When he saw me look at him, he gave me the briefest of nods and then left without a word, headed to the bus.
“Come on,” Joe said as I threw the last of my stuff in my bag. “Melanie’s probably worried sick by now.”
“Yeah,” I said, zipping it up. “Let’s not keep her waiting.”
When I woke up the next morning, the headache was still there. It wasn’t exactly the same, having moved from the front of my head to the back of my skull, a steady, dull drumming that didn’t seem like it would ever go away. After about thirty minutes of lying there, staring at the ceiling and praying I could just pass out again, I finally gave up and decided to head downstairs, hoping some coffee or breakfast might do something to take the edge off, at least a little.
When I stumbled downstairs, I found Dad leaning against the kitchen counter with his coffee cup in hand. He was already in his uniform and clearly about to head out to drive to work. I looked at the clock on the wall. He was either going to be late for his early shift or crazy early if he was working this afternoon.
I could also tell that something was wrong. He was doing that thing where he was trying to have a stoic non-expression while he stewed about something. It might have worked for people who didn’t know him, but I did. He was seriously annoyed.
I also knew he hated to be pestered when he was like this.
“Morning,” was all I said instead.
He closed his eyes for a second, took a deep breath, and when he opened them again, he seemed a little calmer. While I would always be impressed with how well the man controlled his emotions, being able to just shut them off like that, I would have preferred he shared with me what was going on inside his head.
Having lost him in the dream life, I really did not want to waste any time in this life hiding what we were thinking and feeling from each other.
“You got in late last night,” he said, his voice completely neutral. Gentle even.
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