Chapter 31 What It Showed
Chapter 31 What It Showed
Cole
I was in the second quarter when I looked.
I did not plan to. I was running a read option and the defense had shifted and I had already made my decision and released the ball and in the half second before the play resolved my eyes went up to the stands without me telling them to.
Instinct. Habit. Something.
I found her before I was even looking for her, which told me I had known exactly where she was sitting from the moment I saw the three kids settle into the section near the aisle. Mia was visible from almost anywhere because of the sign and the way she watched a game, like someone monitoring a situation. Jake was holding two foam fingers for reasons I was not going to try to understand from the field.
Wren was between them.
She was not watching the game. She was sitting with her hands flat on her knees and her eyes forward and her face completely still. I knew that stillness. I had been watching it since the first week on the bus and I knew the difference between Wren paying attention to something and Wren performing the act of paying attention while something else was happening.
Something else was happening.
I kept looking for two more seconds than I should have.
The player beside me, Marcus, shifted slightly.
I looked away.
We ran the next play and I put my full attention on it and executed it correctly. I ran three more plays without looking at the stands. I was focused. The scouts were somewhere in the bleachers and I was giving them sixty minutes of the best football I had played all season.
At halftime Marcus came up beside me.
"You looked," he said.
"I scanned the stands," I said.
"You looked at a specific section for two seconds. I was right beside you and I clocked it."
"It was nothing."
"I am not saying it was something. I am saying two seconds is noticeable and somebody had a camera."
I looked at him. "You are sure about the camera."
"I saw something that moved like a flash. Could be wrong." He paused. "I hope I am wrong."
"Play the second half," I said.
I played the second half the way Coach had instructed and the way the scouts needed to see. Present on every play. Every read made correctly. Every adjustment timed right.
We won by fourteen.
At halftime Marcus came up beside me.
"You looked," he said.
"I scanned the stands," I said.
"You looked at a specific section for two seconds." He said it without judgment. Just information. "I was right beside you."
"It was nothing."
"I am not saying it was something. I am saying two seconds is noticeable and somebody had a camera."
I looked at him. "You are sure about the camera."
"I saw something that moved like a flash. Could be wrong." He paused. "I hope I am wrong."
"Play the second half," I said.
I played the second half the way Coach had instructed and the way the scouts needed to see. Present on every play. Every read made correctly.
We won by fourteen.
In the last thirty seconds I looked at the stands one more time.
Mia was on her feet with the sign above her head. Jake had both foam fingers extended at full arm length. Wren was standing with the crowd and clapping and her face was the one she used when something genuine was happening but she was not sure how much of it she was allowed to show.
One second.
Then the whistle.
The team came together in the center of the field and Coach came out and he said what he said after wins, which was brief and specific and worth hearing. He pulled me aside after and said the words I had been working toward all season. I said yes sir and nodded and stored it.
In the locker room there was noise and celebration and Tyler sat on the bench with his phone face down.
He held it out to me.
I looked at the photo for three seconds.
It was a very good photo technically. The angle caught me at the exact moment my eyes had gone up to the stands. From below and slightly to the left it made two seconds of instinct look like a deliberate and specific act.
Which was accurate.
I handed the phone back.
"Okay," I said.
"That is all you are going to say," Tyler said.
"What would you like me to say."
"I don't know. Something." He paused. "People are asking questions."
"People can keep asking," I said. "Get in the shower."
"Cole."
"Tyler." I looked at him. "I played the best game of my season. Two scouts confirmed present. Coach said what needed to be said. The rest of it is going to be there in twenty minutes when I get out of the shower and it will still be there tomorrow. Tonight I am going to go home."
He said nothing.
I went to shower.
Under the water I thought about the photo and what my face had been showing. The honest answer was that it had been showing the thing I had been refusing to say out loud for weeks. Two seconds had been enough for someone with a camera to decide it was worth sharing.
I stayed under the water until I had my face right.
Then I turned it off.
Door was next.
In the locker room Tyler showed me the photo. He held his phone out without saying anything.
It was a good photo technically. The angle made the two seconds into something that looked more deliberate than two seconds usually looked. More directed. More specific.
Which was accurate.
I looked at it for three seconds and handed it back and went to shower.
I played and I played well and when the final whistle blew I had done what I came here to do. The scouts had seen what they needed to see. Coach would tell me more tomorrow. Right now I had the locker room and then the drive home and then the door.
The crowd noise came back when the second half whistle blew. I ran to the line. The play was called. I executed it. The scouts were watching and I performed and I did it well. But somewhere in the part of my head where things got filed away, two seconds and a pair of flat hands on two knees stayed exactly where they were and did not move.
Coach gave adjustments at halftime and I stored all of it. Then I stood at the edge of the bench and looked at the stands one more time.
I found her section.
She was sitting with Mia and Jake and she was looking at the field. Her hands were on her knees but not flat. The flatness from the second quarter was gone. Whatever had happened with Priya had passed enough that she had let herself relax slightly.