Carter leans back. “Okay. Fun part. Coach wants to talk to you.”
Coach Pierce’s gaze stays on me, calm and sharp. “I do.”
Carter adds, softer, “And before you say it—no, he’s not here to kidnap you in a black van. Yet.”
“Appreciate that,” I mutter, though my throat is tight.
Pierce’s mouth twitches like he might find Carter funny in another universe. “You are a hard man to get ahold of, but Carter speaks highly of you.”
Carter snorts. “That’s not true.”
Pierce doesn’t look at him. “I didn’t say positively.”
That gets a real laugh out of me—short and surprised, like my body forgot how to do it and just remembered.
Carter points at me. “See? He’s alive.”
Pierce’s attention snaps back to me. “I’ve watched your tape.”
My body goes still.
There’s something about hearing that—I’ve watched your tape—that wakes up an old version of me. The senior-season version. The version that lived for Sundays and film rooms and the clean, simple math of effort equals outcome.
Except now nothing is clean.
Now there’s surgery and rehab and grief and Sloane.
Now there’s the future I’ve been chasing since I was a kid, but it’s no longer an easy decision.
Pierce continues, “You’re fast. Sharp in your breaks. Good hands. High football IQ.”
I force my face to stay blank, like those words aren’t hitting me in the chest.
“Then there’s the injury,” he adds.
There it is.
The thing that always shows up like an unwanted fourth person at the table.
I nod once. “Yeah.”
Pierce doesn’t soften his tone. “Talk to me about where you’re at.”
I take a slow breath. “Four months post-op. Triple tear. Rehab’s been consistent. I’m running straight-line now. Light route work. No full-speed cutting yet.”
Carter watches me like he can see the old me under the new.
Pierce asks, “Pain?”
“Manageable.”
“Swelling?”
“After heavier days. I ice. I do what I’m told.”
Pierce’s eyes flick to my posture, my hands, like he’s clocking all the little tells: guarded movement, protective habits, the way I still carry my body like I’m waiting for it to betray me.
He nods slowly. “You know how many guys I’ve watched who say they’re fine and mean ‘I’m terrified’?”
