Within moments, the team is being announced, and I’m leading them through a fog of smoke out onto the pitch.
The sound of the crowd is deafening, so loud that I feel the vibration surging from the stands and pulsing along the grass as it crawls up my legs, wrapping around my throat.
Don’t look up. Don’t look up. Don’t look up.
But the impulse is too strong, and my eyes stray to thepacked stadium seats. Everyone is faceless, just a mass of people with no distinguishable features, my mind conjuring them up of its own volition. Each person casts a judgemental look in my direction, skepticism set into every groove of their face while anger lines their brows and beer sloshes out of the cup they’re white knuckling. Contorted faces scream without the need for words, but I hear their voiceless cries;you don’t belong here anymore.
The pressure in my head increases tenfold.
Our starters head out onto the pitch and get in their positions. I walk toward the center line to meet the referee and the opposing team's captain for the coin toss that will decide who gets possession of the ball first.
Stepping up to the center line, I shake the referee’s hand as the opposing team’s captain, Bron Stamwell of the Norwich Lions, steps up and does the same before toeing up to me.
“Plan on choking? Would really help me out if you did,” he says haughtily.
“Funny, that. Said the same thing to your mum last night.”
He takes a step forward before the ref interjects with a hand to Bron’s chest. “Save it for the match, gentlemen.” He looks at me, pulling a coin from his pocket. “Home stadium calls the side. What’ll it be, Stone?”
Logically, I know there’s a fifty-fifty chance of this going my way, but I still feel an immense pressure to choose correctly, almost as if this toss will set the tone for the whole season.
“Heads.”
He flicks the coin into the air, and it flips end over end in time with my stomach before it falls to the ground…tails side up.
“Tails—” he indicates toward Bron with an open palm— “ball is in favor of the Lions. Stamwell, choose your move.”
Smugness is smeared all over Brom’s face, and as I turnto walk toward my position on the field, I can’t help feeling like the coin toss won’t be the last loss of the night.
We’re down by seventeen points, and there’s only ten minutes left of the second half. Translation—we’re fucked.
I’m running down the pitch towards the defence’s goal post, boots pressing into the springy grass and propelling me forward. Cavan currently has possession of the ball but is being double teamed by several of the Lion’s players.
“Darcey!” I shout, grabbing his attention, but the second the defence realises my intention for him to pass me the ball, I suddenly have an additional two players on my tail. Fuck, I shouldn’t have called out to him. He would’ve got me the ball, but instead, I opened my mouth and cost us the advantage. As we get closer to the goal post, we’ve got one shot to score this try and bring the game at least a little closer in score.
I make a last minute decision to fall back and loop behind Cavan, dropping out of the hold of two players from Norwich trying to cover me. It leaves me slightly more open than I was previously, and Cav throws me the ball just before he’s tackled around the calves.
Taking off like a light, I sprint for the try line, sensing a player coming at me from the right. I dodge swiftly, not anticipating the man coming up on my blindside to the left just as he tackles me. Pain radiates through my body as my knees hit the ground, grass and dirt scraping against my skin, pulling my shorts up.
But the ball is still in my hand, and I’m only three metres or so from the line now. If I can get out from under the behemoth on top of me, there’s still a chance to score and bring this match just a little closer to even footing. No sooner do I have the thought does another player from the Lions join the fray, and a maul forms with me at the center. Bodies pile on top of me as hands reach fromaround and in between limbs to grapple for possession of the ball.
A familiar pair of arms coated in dark blond hair appear through the fray, and I take the opportunity to relinquish my vice grip to slip the ball to Myles. Before he can grab it, Norwich’s scrum half throws himself into the melee, stealing it and running in the opposite direction.
I curse loudly, jumping to my feet as half the team gives chase, sprinting into action. I’m close on his heels, about to tackle him at the waist, when he drop kicks the ball to a teammate on the opposite side of the field.
Possession of the ball is tossed around from team to team, a push and pull of defence and offence, pinging back and forth like a pinball machine.
I’m bouncing on the balls of my feet, waiting to make a move, when a voice calls out to me. “I thought you would have improved after the break, Stone. You know, once all the media coverage calmed down, that waswellembarrassing. I’m surprised they’re keeping you around, with all the bad moves you’ve been making.”
“Shut it, Toller,” Cavan quickly defends from a few paces away.
“Can’t even fight your own battles? Gotta sic your oversized mutt on me?”
Cavan tuts. “Scared of my size? I’m flattered.”
They bicker back and forth, but all I hear are my own fears perceived by someone else. Does that make them more true? Clearly, I’m not the only one thinking them, and if Toller is, everyone else must be too.
The world goes in and out of focus as panic and self-consciousness war for my attention. My mind whirls and my stomach dips. I can hear voices shouting, the crowd, my teammates—I don’t know. But the sound grows in volume, as does the rushing in my head.
