Chapter 20

Before I get back to the football field, though, I have two stops to make.

The first is school.

It’s Saturday, so I’m worried the school will be locked up. Luckily, a teacher or a janitor must be working today, because the front door is open. When I get inside, I head straight for a wall.

There’s one reason and one reason only that I’m here. I grab one of the streak! posters and tear it off the wall. Then I grab another, and another. The plan is to keep tearing until the walls are bare.

“Good idea, dude.”

Lance is twenty feet away from me. I texted him earlier this morning and told him to meet me here.

“We need to come up with a brand-new campaign. Maybe something about you making an epic comeback. People love comeback stories.” The words are typical Lance. But they lack his usual vigor. He sounds more sincere than I’ve heard him be in a long time.

“I don’t think even you could sell that story, Lance.”

He thinks about it, nods. “You’re probably right. Can I ask you something?”

I tear off another poster. “Sure.”

“You never wanted to be a star, did you?”

“Not really,” I admit.

“That’s what I thought. Not sure how I missed that all this time.”

“Not your fault,” I say, ripping away another poster. “I didn’t tell you.”

“Why not?”

“Because you quit the team for me, Lance. I didn’t want you to think it was all for nothing.”

Lance doesn’t say anything for a while. The only sound is me tearing up posters.

“I didn’t quit, dude.”

I let go of a poster and turn around.

“What?” I ask him.

“I didn’t quit. Coach Cole kicked me off the team. I went into his office and demanded that he start you over Curt. He said he’d had enough of me—that no player is bigger than the team.”

“Why’d you say you quit?”

“I was too ashamed, dude. Saying I’d boycotted the team sounded way better than admitting I was kicked to the curb. What I could never figure out is why Coach Cole never corrected my story.”

“He’s weird like that,” I agree.

We don’t say anything else because there doesn’t seem to be anything left to say.

Lance steps up to the wall. Together the two of us remove all traces of the Jordan Bailey that Lance spent the last year creating.