Page 70 of Campus Heat

“Are you okay?”

“I’m absolutely fantastic.”

“You’re barely keeping your shit together.”

He shifted his helmet under his arm, avoiding my gaze by awkwardly staring back at the field.

“They’re not even trying,” he muttered.

I frowned. “What are you talking about? Have you seriously not been paying attention to what’s happening out there?”

“Not the team,” he scoffed, his voice low and sharp. “Harris. He doesn’t care about this game. You can see it in his plays.”

I blinked, caught completely off guard. “What?”

“He’s already looking past it,” Ethan said, trying to clarify. “Like this is just another step on the way to something else.”

I was so confused that I couldn’t even begin to understand what he meant. It was as if his mind was scattered to the point where even he didn’t know what was going on in there anymore.

“That’s not true,” I said, still trying to figure him out.

“You weren’t there for the meeting. You didn’t see what happened between them, what was said.”

“What meeting?”

Ethan hesitated and then shook his head slightly. For the first time in the entire day he made eye contact, and I could see deep-seated pain hidden just beneath the surface of his gaze.

“It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“It does matter!” I insisted. “You’re out there ignoring half of his calls and it’s costing you the game.”

“Because his calls don’t matter!”

“They do.” I placed my hand on his arm. “This game matters more than any other you’ve had up until now.”

Ethan let out a short, humorless laugh that sent a chill down my spine. Something had obviously happened to him because this wasn’t the guy I knew.

“Do you really believe that?”

“Of course I do!” The words came out sharper than I intended.

For a second, Ethan looked at me. He really looked in the way one would if one were searching for a lie, and just before he pulled away, I saw something flicker in his eyes. It wasn’t frustration or exhaustion. It was something far heavier than either of those, but before I could identify it, it vanished.

“Look,” he said quietly, stepping back toward the locker room door. “This isn’t what you think it is. So don’t get your hopes up because I promise you’ll be disappointed.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He didn’t answer. The door behind him swung open, and suddenly he was gone, leaving me alone in a hallway that once used to carry so much hope.

The second half didn’t improve at all. If anything, it felt like the team was slowly falling apart. Trinity adjusted their defense, tightening coverage and sending more pressure toward Ethan. Havenport’s offense was really struggling to keep up because every failed drive seemed to drain the team a little more.

The defense fought hard, forcing a turnover that briefly reignited the crowd, but the offense still couldn’t capitalize. Ethan kept waving off signals from the sideline, changing his plays at the line and visibility infuriating Harris.

Late in the third quarter, he forced another deep throw into triple coverage. The interception that followed almost felt inevitable. The stadium groaned as the Trinity defender ran the ball back twenty yards before stepping out of bounds.

By the fourth quarter, the students were quietly leaving the stands. The alumni section stayed, but their applause sounded hollow. I kept cheering either way, my voice rasping as I led the final chants. Throughout the entire game, I kept going, even when the scoreboard became harder and harder to look at.

When the final whistle blew, Trinity stood at twenty-four points. The Highlanders walked off the field in scattered silence. There were no dramatic comebacks or last-minute redemptions. Just defeat hanging heavily over the stadium.