I was afraid that if Jill and I went out, I might not be a good boy. That would just invite a shit-storm of trouble. I wouldn’t blame Phil if he never talked to me again, and Brook … I didn’t even want to go there. Besides Hannah Minacci coming and telling me she’d made a huge mistake with that baseball dork, Jill was the only girl I might be tempted to cheat on Brook with. From the look Brook gave me, she knew it too.
“Well, this just sucks,” Brook said when we were finally alone.
“Yeah,” I admitted. “I was hoping we were done with this part of it.”
“Don’t play dumb. What are we going to do about Destiny, Zoe, and Jill?”
I noticed she threw in the ‘we.’
“We could help you get enough signatures to win,” I suggested.
“I’ll never catch them. Besides, they’re out there right now working to get more,” Brook complained.
“Well, you’ll never win with that attitude.”
I sometimes forget that girls need to vent, and your only job was to listen, not poke holes in their logic.
◊◊◊
I met Doc Grog before practice so that he could examine me.
“Did you take it easy this weekend?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Today, I want you to take two laps around the track. Take it easy. I want you to walk,” Doc Grog said.
“Just walk. Got it.”
“Then come back in, and the trainers will stretch you, put you into an ice bath, and give you a massage.”
◊◊◊
Dare was sent to watch me walk around the track. I made him walk with me.
“I want you to know that I realize I was a jerk today.”
“It’s okay. Brook explained it to me,” Dare said.
“She did?” I asked.
“She said that I should take it as a compliment. It meant you thought of me as one of the guys because you were willing to bust my chops. I guess I’m so used to people being mean that I took it wrong.”
“You know I would never really be mean to you. I might goof around, but I like you,” I said.
He stopped, and I turned around to see what was wrong.
“Do you mean that? You’re not just being nice to me because I’m different?”
“Let’s not go too far,” I teased, and then got serious. “Dare, if you’d just talk to people, your life would be so much better. They would get to know the real you.”
“That’s what my mom and Brook say.”
“Do you realize this is the longest conversation we’ve ever had?” I asked.
He just nodded and became quiet. I counted this as a win and didn’t push it.
After the first lap, I was about ready to drop. I kept going because I wanted to speed up the healing process, and this was the first activity I’d been allowed to do since the accident. When I finished the second lap, I’d sweat through my shirt and was breathing as hard as if I’d just completed my usual run. I had Dare run inside and get my crutches.
Becky was totally evil. She refused to give me a pill before she stretched me out. Becky reasoned that she needed to gauge what caused pain and at what level. I told her everything caused pain and at level 11 on her ten-point scale. Becky offered to show me what would hurt more. I took her word for it.
◊◊◊
After practice and my torture were done, Coach Mason wanted to meet with me.
“You look like shit.”
“Becky must hate men and decided to take it out on me today.”
“If I were you, I would sit out the rest of the season and get ready for college,” Coach Mason said, stunning me.
“But …”
“Just hear me out,” he said, holding up a hand. “A hip pointer or cracked ribs by themselves can put you out of action. The combination is not something to joke about.”
“Tell me about it,” I complained.
“You’re destined for bigger things. I worry that you’ll come back too soon and end up doing some permanent damage. You could mess up everything you’ve worked for, for what will frankly be a footnote to your career. No one is going to care whether you won two or three state championships when you’re drafted in the NFL.”
He had a point. The schools on my recruiting list already knew what I could do. If I stepped back from what was right in front of me, my high school teammates and the commitments I’d made, it made sense to take the long-range view. I would have to think about what Coach Mason had just said.
Even some college players had started to skip meaningless bowl games to protect themselves from injuries. Notre Dame’s Jaylon Smith, a top-5 draft prospect, had tumbled to the second round after injuring his knee in the Fiesta Bowl. Instead of a contract in the $23-million range expected for a top-5 draftee, Smith received $4.4 million from the Dallas Cowboys. The worst part was that it took him more than a year to recover and make it onto the playing field.
“I’m not sure I can just walk away, for a lot of reasons. The one that comes to mind is that my team and I have worked hard to win state again. But if I don’t get better soon, I can see your point,” I admitted.
