“Not bad for a comeback,” he says.“You keep this up, you’ll earn your spot.”
Earn.
The word hits harder than any tackle I’ve taken today.
Earn means nothing is given.It means I don’t get to coast on who I used to be.Earn means every day I show up, bleed a little, prove I deserve to stand here.
I take off my pads in the locker room and sit on the bench, lingering longer than I need to.My hands rest on my knees.I look at them as if I don’t recognize them.Dirt under my nails.Knuckles scraped raw.Skin split and stinging.
Something about this feels right.
Purpose doesn’t settle in clean.It never does.It hovers just out of reach—restless and unfinished.But purpose sits closer than it has in a long time, and that matters more than I want to admit.
I don’t go home.
Instead, my feet move on their own and carry me back across campus, muscles sore, body heavy, mind quieter than it has been all day.The late afternoon air cools the heat clinging to my skin as I walk.
That’s when I remember my notebook.
Still sitting at one of the tables in the library—the one covered in all my notes, with Sam Carter’s handwriting in the margins, tied to a project I can’t escape and a girl I haven’t managed to shake all damn day.
The library is quieter this time.Not the tense, skin-tight quiet from before.Instead, it’s more gentle.Afternoon light filters through the tall windows, pale gold and dusty, slicing across the room in long beams.Dust motes drift lazily in the air, slow and unbothered.
My boots sound too loud against the floor.
The librarian sits at her desk near the front, glasses resting low on her nose, fingers moving through paperwork with practiced boredom.
She looks up when I approach, her eyes flicking over me, lingering a second longer on my gear bag slung over my shoulder.
“Did anyone hand in a notebook?”I ask.My voice comes out rough, still scraped raw from practice.
She looks at me over her glasses.“I’ll just have a look,” she says, already bending down to check under the counter.
“It’s a black one,” I add unnecessarily as she opens a drawer and scans the contents.
As she looks, my attention drifts around the room, and there she is.
Sam is sitting at the same table we used earlier.
Her hair is pulled back this time, tidy and out of her face, revealing the curve of her neck.Her sleeves are rolled up, with her forearms resting casually on the table, her posture relaxed and loose in a way I’ve never seen directed at me.
A kid sits across from her.He’s a freshman.Books are spread out between them, highlighters scattered as if he’s drowning in coursework.
Red is leaning in, listening, with her pen tapping lightly as he talks.
And she’s smiling.
The smile that softens her entire face.She nods along as the kid talks, says something I can’t hear, and he laughs, shoulders relaxing, relief evident on his face.
She’s helping him.
She looks happy.
And for some fucked up reason, that makes it harder to breathe than anything that happened on the field tonight.
“Is this the one?”the librarian asks, holding out a black notebook.The corners are bent.The spine is worn from months of being shoved into my bag and dragged back out again.
“Yeah.Thanks,” I say, already reaching out.
