Chapter 4 Under Pressure

It was finally the day of the match.

Eighty thousand people were waiting to watch me fall. I heard numerous voices before I saw the crowd. 

Calloway Stadium on game day is a living thing, a roar that comes up through the soles of your cleats and shakes your teeth. But that Saturday, the noise had an edge on it. 

Someone in the student section had printed signs. They flashed in the corner of my vision as I jogged through the tunnel.

WONDER WHAT ELSE SHE'S GIVING UP.

DOES COACH KNOW WHO SHE'S LIVING WITH?

I told myself they were just paper. I told myself that for the entire first quarter, right up until Hartwell State's linebacker put me on my back for the second time and the stadium howled.

"Sack number two!" the announcer shouted. "Mercer's having a rough start, folks!"

I got up, smiled and spat out grass. I had not said a word to Dax since Wednesday.

That three a.m. voice outside my door had gone on for what felt like a century. I'd told him, "Go to bed," and he asked, "Quinn, are you okay?" and I'd said, "I'm fine," and my own voice had sounded like a stranger's. He'd waited. Then the floorboard had creaked and he had gone away, and I had lain awake until sunrise with my brother's question burning in my head.

“How did he know?” That question had been on my mind.

In the three days since, he had cooked every meal, he watched films with me until my eyes closed. He had never once asked me what was wrong and I never once asked him the question I was dying to ask, because I was afraid of what his response would be.

Now he was thirty yards away, on the other side of the ball, wearing number 21.

The second quarter ended with Hartwell leading 17–10. Third and long. 

I dropped back, scanning the field for an opening. Our defense line collapsed almost immediately, white jerseys closing in from every direction.

I threw it anyway. It was desperate, blind, and horribly inaccurate. The ball hung in the air.

Then number 21 came out of nowhere, a blur of crimson, leaping, plucking the ball out of the sky with one hand like he was picking an apple. He hit the turf running. 

Forty yards. 

Fifty. Sixty. 

The stadium exploded. Dax hit the end zone, spiked the ball, and the very first thing he did was turn and smile at me across the whole field, all the way across eighty thousand screaming people.

I didn't know what the look on his face meant. But for the first time all day, I could breathe.

At halftime, Coach Briggs stood in front of the whiteboard and didn't say a word until the room went quiet.

"They want you to flinch," he said, looking at me. "Every one of those signs. Every post. Every tweet. They are begging you to flinch, Mercer." He tossed the marker. "Don't."

I went back out and I poured in my all.

The third quarter belonged to us.

I hit Jamal Reyes for twenty yards on a seam route that I swear I threw before he'd made his break. The crowd, the one that had been swallowing its tongue, made a sound I hadn't heard in weeks. 

During the Fourth quarter, I scrambled left, dodged a blitz, and threw across my body for thirty-five yards that made the sideline stand up.

The scoreboard read 17–17.

For the first time that afternoon, we had a chance. But Hartwell wasn’t ready to surrender.

A few minutes later, they found the end zone again, followed by a successful extra point.

23–17.

Six points separated us from victory. Then the clock began to run out. We had fourteen seconds left, one play to win but then the ball rested on Hartwell’s eight-yard line.

I gathered my teammates into the huddle. Eleven faces stared at me, helmets dripping sweat. Marcus, on the end of the line, banged his fist against my shoulder pad.

"Whatever you call," he said, "I'm going through a wall for it."

I looked across the line of scrimmage. Dax was lined up on the far side, hands on his knees, watching me.

"Blue forty-two," I said. "Hut on two."

We broke the huddle. I stepped behind the center, planted my feet and waited for the snap.

I stepped up, shifted right and felt a defender grab my jersey. The fabric tore as I pulled away.

I had one second.

Maybe less.

My first read was covered. My second was impossible. So I threw to the back-left corner of the end zone, to the one place where only my receiver could reach it.

Jamal Reyes leaped.

His fingertips brushed the ball and for one terrifying second, it looked as though it would slip through his hands.

Then he pulled it against his chest, dragged both feet inside the boundary and crashed onto the turf.

The referee raised both arms.

Touchdown.

We had won.

I don't remember the next ten seconds clearly. I remember the sound, a roar so enormous it stopped being sound at all. I remember Marcus lifting me off the ground, and also being crushed in a hundred arms, screaming till my throat hurt.

Then a warm pair of arms wrapped around me, pulling me out of the pile.

Dax.

He lifted me clear off my feet, helmet-to-helmet, his whole body trembling. "That's my girl," he said, rough against my ear, and then seemed to realize what he'd said, and set me down so fast I stumbled.

"Dax—"

"Great game," he said, much louder than necessary. Then he turned and disappeared into the crowd.

In the tunnel afterward, someone was waiting for me.

Dr. Pruitt stood there in her navy suit, holding a tablet against her chest. Coach Briggs stood beside her, gray as concrete. And behind them, sauntering out of the shadows like a man at a garden party, was Harlan Walsh.

"Congratulations, Ms. Mercer," Dr. Pruitt said. "A remarkable game."

"Thank you." I smiled.

"It's unfortunate timing." She handed me the tablet. "The review committee met this afternoon. Effective Monday morning, you are on interim suspension pending the conclusion of the conduct investigation."

For a moment, I couldn’t understand the words.

"The title game is in four weeks." I murmured.

"I'm aware."

“Your off-campus living arrangement and the allegations surrounding your conduct have raised concerns about your compliance with university and athletic department policies.” She added.

I stared at her. "I just won you this game!"

"You did," Harlan Walsh said, almost kindly. He stepped into the light beside her. "Enjoy it, Ms. Mercer. It was a beautiful last one."

He smiled at me, and I understood, with perfect cold clarity, that he had not come to the tunnel to watch me play. He had come to watch me lose.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out with numb fingers.

It was the anonymous account again. A new photo, posted four minutes ago. Me in the end zone, wrapped in Dax's arms, his forehead against mine.

Another win for Ridgemont's Golden Girl. Wonder how she earned this one.

My stomach twisted.

I looked up from my phone and found Harlan Walsh watching me. His smile hadn’t changed.

“I strongly oppose this,” I said, my voice trembling with anger. “And I’m not accepting it without a fight.”