Cora Carmack - All Lined Up

It hasn’t been easy. In my imagination, I was stronger and more flexible. But I’ve almost got it down. And when I do, I think I’m going to show it to Carson. He’s been bugging me to dance for him, and that piece was inadvertently inspired by him.

Between thoughts of dance and Stella, I manage to keep from texting Carson before kickoff.

The Dragons win the coin flip, and they choose to receive first. As the guys line up, everyone in the student section raises their right hand, shaped like a claw for our mascot, the wildcats. They shout and scream and go wild, and the sound races around the stadium, filling up the entire space with noise. I pick out Carson on the sidelines, number twelve. He’s bouncing back and forth on his toes, shaking out his arms, trying to stay loose.

If the first run of the game is any indication, we’re in for a world of hurt.

The opposing team breaks through our defenses, finding every hole and returning the opening kick sixty-eight yards all the way to our thirty-yard line. I squeeze my fist tight and press the back of my hand against my mouth. They get two first downs in a row, and then score on the third play. The kicker makes good on the extra point, and just like that Carson’s going in, and we’re already down by seven.

Stella holds my hand, and I resist the urge to close my eyes.

He can do this. He works so hard. He’s got it.

He takes the snap, looking to hand off to Silas. But when the defensive end crashes down on him, Carson keeps the ball and makes a break through the gap, surprising everyone with his speed. The safety takes him down with a hard hit that makes me grip Stella’s hand a little tighter, but not before Carson’s pulled in a twelve-yard gain.

I breathe a little easier.

On the next play, the defense has wised up to the fact that he can run, and they’re more conservative in the options they give him. He gets a decent look with one of his receivers, but the pass goes a little too far left and ends up incomplete. He shakes it off and follows it up with a handoff to Silas that gets a small gain. It’s third down, five yards to go. When he drops back, he doesn’t have more than a second to scan the field before a Dragon player breaks through the line like it’s nothing. He slams into Carson from behind, and he hits the ground so hard I gasp.

He gets up and he has held on to the ball, which is something, but I can tell from the way that he holds his body that he felt that one. And we lost ground on the play, too.

It’s fourth and twelve, and we’re still deep in our own territory.

Dad opts for the punt, trying to get the ball as far away from our end zone as possible.

On the sideline, Dad looks like he’s tearing the offensive line apart. His arms are waving so wildly that no one has to hear him to know he’s pissed. Carson is farther down the field, bouncing on his toes just like he was at the beginning.

Please don’t let this affect you. It wasn’t your fault. You’ve got this.

While the band blares away beside us, the Dragons score again. The crowd around us grows restless. I hear Levi’s name a few times, and my stomach clenches.

Before Carson takes the field again, Dad stops him with a hand on his helmet. He leans close, talking to him for a few seconds, and I hope Dad knows what he’s doing. I hope he’s as good as people have always said he is.

“Go Carson!” I scream.

I know he can’t hear me, but it’s more for me anyway. I just want to feel like I’m doing something.

Whatever Dad said, it works.

Right out of the gate, Carson hits one of his receivers for a forty-yard gain, putting us in Dragon territory for the first time. He follows it up with his own carry for fifteen, and all the douche-bags who’ve been grumbling around me are cheering.

Next, he hands off to Silas, who skirts two, three, four defenders before he finally gets dragged down by two guys on the fifteen-yard line.

The screaming around me is so loud, I swear I can feel it vibrating the metal bleachers. The student section starts chanting “Go Red. Fight Red. Bleed Red.” And even though it’s morbid, I scream along with them.

And when we score with a reverse pitch to Torres, a wide receiver, the sound is deafening. The band immediately picks up with the RU fight song, and for a few seconds, I remember what it was like to love football. Before Dad and I fought so much and before Levi ruined me more than I already was, there had been something special about the game for me. I loved the way one person could start a chant, and soon a stadium of thousands had picked it up and were screaming in unison. I loved that kids who didn’t give a crap about school were suddenly belting the school song from the top of their lungs. I loved those tense moments before the start of a play when everyone is wishing and hoping exactly the same thing, and the whole stadium holds its breath.

Even now . . . I can admit that there’s something a little bit magical about it.

And I get why Dad does it. Not just football, but his whole thing. To take a team and a town that doesn’t believe and bring them together, I can see how that would fill him up, to the brim, just like dance does for me.

I taste blood from a busted lip. Nausea rolls in my stomach. Every part of me aches . . . inside and out.

Because we lost.

I know we all went into this expecting it, but . . . I still hoped. And now all that hope sits rock hard in my stomach, rotting and gnawing at me, asking, What if?

What if Levi had been here? Would we still have lost?

I sit at my cubby, a towel over my head, while sweat drips down from my forehead and stings my eyes. I hear a pair of pads crash into the wall, and guess that it’s Silas, but I don’t know for sure.

“Listen up.” It’s Coach’s voice, and even though I want to stay huddled beneath my towel so I don’t have to see my teammates’ faces, I know I can’t. I push the towel back around my neck, but stay leaning on my knees. Coach is silent for too long, and when I glance up, I realize he’s been waiting for my eyes. I sit up a little straighter.

“I’ve been here before,” he says. “Which is how I know that none of you are in the mood to listen, but you need to. So put aside what you’re feeling for just a few minutes, and hear me out. No one was expecting you to win this game.” I wince. We’d all been thinking it, but it was worse hearing it out loud. “No one was expecting you to come out and rush two hundred yards and pass two hundred and fifty, which for those of you paying attention is the most this team has had in any one game in over two years. It also happens to be more yards than your competitor put up tonight. That scoreboard might have had us losing by three tonight, but one look at the stats proves that you fought harder, played stronger, worked better than you ever have before. No one was expecting you to give that team a fight, but I promise you that people will sit up and pay attention now.”

He pauses and moves toward the wall where he lays a hand against the painted wildcat, beside which it reads, “Bleed Rusk Red.”

“You know, a few weeks ago, I stayed at the office late. And when I went to leave, I didn’t expect to see a player sitting in the film room, still hard at work hours after practice had let out. I asked why he hadn’t gone home for the night, and do you remember what you said, Carson?”

I know what night he’s talking about—the night he fought with Dallas—but all I can remember is thinking about her, wanting to go to her.

“You told me that there are no easy days. And I’ve been thinking about it ever since. Today was not an easy day. This week was not an easy week. But every single one of you fought through it. I’ve coached and played against every kind of team, and I’m telling you now, this team will be the kind that takes no easy days. This team will be the kind that fights every last second for every last yard until we see that win on the board. And for days like today, when we lose, I promise it will be the hardest damn win that other team has ever had. That’s the kind of team we will be. It’s the kind of team we are as of tonight. And I tell you, I’m damn proud to be your coach.”

No one is slumping or frowning anymore. Everyone looks deadly serious, like we’d go out and play another game right now if we could.

“No easy days?” Coach says.

And together we repeat, “No easy days.”

He tells us to hit the showers, and before we do, I feel a hand on my shoulder. It’s Silas, and he nods at me once before walking away. Torres does the same, followed by Brookes. I lose track, but it must be at least twenty players who throw me a nod before they strip and head to the showers.

As I stand to do the same, I see Coach is still standing at the edge of the room. His eyes meet mine, and I get one final nod before he turns and disappears in the direction of his office.

DALLAS IS WAITING at my apartment like she promised when I pull up later that night. She slips off the hood of her car, where she was lying staring up at the sky, and comes over to me.

She kisses me. Firm and sweet, and I notice she’s wearing a Rusk Wildcats shirt. I grin.

“Never thought I’d see the day.”

“Yeah, well, only for you. I might have something else you’ve been wanting to see, too.”

That definitely piques my interest, and I raise my brows.

She laughs, and the sound is so light and perfect that I could listen to it all day long. “Not that. Well, at least not right now anyway.”