The rest of us have enough sense to block Coach’s view. He doesn’t need to see the mess we just made out of a simple play. Two players down. Head-on collision.
“Sorry, man, sorry,” Junior says slowly as he stands up. He reaches down to help Anton up, but Anton is still out of it. He’s sitting, but he’s not ready to stand.
“You really hit him, Junior,” someone says.
“What were you thinking?” I growl at Junior.
“I broke through the line. That’s what I was supposed to do. Break through fast and hard.”
“You just smashed into our quarterback,” I say. “Our starting quarterback. The guy on our team who puts points on the board.”
“It was an accident,” he says, turning around and looking back at Coach who is still talking to Joe over on the bench. “I wasn’t trying to crash into him. Don’t say anything to Coach. He’ll bench me.”
I glare at Junior, but we both know I won’t say anything. We can’t afford to lose Junior at our game on Friday. I turn to Anton. “Are you okay?” I ask, helping him up.
Anton gives me a nod, but I can tell he’s hurting.
“What’s going on?” Coach bellows when he finally looks up and notices that we are at a standstill out on the field. We scramble to get back into position and start the play again.
This time, when the ball is hiked to Anton, he fumbles it.
Coach blows his whistle.
We run the play five times before we get it right. Anton keeps making mistakes. It isn’t like him to play sloppy and miss his mark.
“You aren’t focused! If you play like this on Friday night, this team is going to lose. What do you need to do to win?”
“Play focused. Play fast. Play efficient!” we all shout.
“Then start again. From the beginning. We run these plays until they’re flawless. No mistakes.”
Anton’s face is pale, but he pushes through like always.
After an extra hour of practice, Coach finally tells us to go home. The blue sky above us has turned dark and gray. Storm clouds have moved in, and there is now a damp October chill in the air.
When we leave the locker room, Anton hands me the keys to his truck. At first I laugh, thinking he’s joking. Anton has never let me drive his truck; he doesn’t even let me eat or drink in it—not a sip of soda, not one chip. He worked overtime on a road construction crew over the last two summers to save up enough money to buy the truck from his neighbor. But when I look over I can tell Anton is serious.
“That bad?” I ask.
“Just drive,” he says. “My head is killing me.”
We climb in and I look over at him. I didn’t think the hit was that bad. He seemed to be fine. I’ve taken my fair share of hits. You’ve just got to shake it off and push through—everybody on the team does. Usually Anton doesn’t put on such a show about it, but I guess he’s probably nervous about the big game.
As I pull out of the parking spot, I see Ciara heading to her car after soccer practice. I drive slowly past her and wave. She smiles and waves back.
“Two hands on the wheel,” Anton says, smirking at me, then grimacing. “Do not crash this truck.”
As I turn out of the school parking lot, the rain starts to fall. It is hard and fast and sounds like someone is tapping their knuckles against the roof.