The Hard Count(67)

And Nico—he’s going to have to ride his board home eleven miles, in the dark.

My legs tired from sitting in the same position, I take my camera in my hands and stand, stretching them out and walking onto the field. Coach O’Donahue eyes me, and I acknowledge him with a wave, not wanting him to think he has any power to intimidate me. He doesn’t wave back, but he does look away.

I move near my dad, behind the line where Nico is taking snap after snap from Colton while Travis sprints down the field, trying to catch up to his ball. Nico’s overthrowing, and even though his arm should be dead tired, somehow his passes seem to get farther and farther out of reach.

“You know, Coach,” Bob says, leaning in close to my father. I stand quietly between them, my camera rolling, my ears listening. “There’s this saying they have about experiments, how if you repeat the same thing over and over again and get the same result, that maybe it’s a sign you should move on and try something else.”

“You think I should start Brandon, Bob?” my dad asks, his voice coming out clipped and his tone irritable.

Bob puts his hand on my father’s back and pats it twice, leaving it in place while they both look out on another failed play in front of them.

“I think maybe you’re coaching with something hot on your mind, and those boys—they can tell. I think maybe you can run them into the ground tonight all you want; won’t change how they show up to play for you tomorrow. I’ve got no opinion on who you start at QB, Chad. I do have some thoughts on the man I see standing right here, though,” he says, patting my father one more time before putting his hands in the front pocket of his sweatshirt and rolling his shoulders. “This ain’t you, Chad. I know the boys disappointed you, and I know they’re struggling, but this way? This has never been how you get things done. Besides, you keep this up, I’ll be taping every single one of your players up just so they can make practice.”

Bob spins and our eyes meet, his giving me a small wink. I smile at him on one side of my mouth, but don’t turn when he walks back to the training bench. I keep my focus on my dad, the way he looks to the side and ruminates on the words Bob just said. My dad chews at the inside of his mouth, just like my brother always does—like Nico—and eventually pushes his whistle between his lips.

“All right, bring it in,” he says.

His tired players fall in line, forming a half circle around him, each of them taking a knee, some of them pulling their jerseys off, taking off their pads, their bodies drenched despite the frosty air coming from their mouths. Fingers are pink with cold, and faces are red with heat. My father simply looks exhausted, the stands behind him dotted with boosters watching it all play out.

Everyone is on display.

Everyone is judging someone else.

“You worked hard today,” my dad says, shaking his head, warding off saying the wrong thing. “We didn’t get great results, but that…that’s partly my fault.” He rests his hand flat on his chest.

A few heads turn up to look at him, but most of his players are looking down. Nico is staring straight ahead, to the empty lot and the dark field he probably wishes he never left. I stare at him and let my body fill with regret. My eyes go directly to his lips, to the mouth that whispered the sweetest things against mine. I let my gaze travel to his chest and arms, to the way he kneels, balancing his weight on his helmet on the ground. His shoes are scuffed, and wrapped with tape, holding them to his feet. His body, so strong, is sheer exhaustion. Even so, I know if my father asked him to, Nico would stay out here until midnight—until the sun came up—throwing that pass again and again. He would throw until he got it right. And then, he’d keep going.

When I move back to his face, I flinch. His eyes are waiting for me, and I don’t know how long they were. He stares at me, not blinking, and I look back into him. My father’s voice fades to the background, and all I hear is the sound of his breath, despite being several feet away. Nico’s chest rises and falls in slow, calculated draws, his face blurred periodically by the frost from the air escaping him. I never break my hold on his eyes though, and neither does he.

Were our tale one of the Grimms’, it would end right here and right now. The earth would open up to swallow him whole in front of me. Fire would rain from the sky and burn us all, scorching and marring our skin. That man in the car in West End would kill my brother, and nobody would be able to stop him.

But Nico did.

Nico is the twist in the tale. He’s the element of good. He’s what humanity should be—the lesson to be learned. He is hope.

Nico stands, his eyes leaving mine, and I startle, realizing that everyone is breaking for the night. They all move to the center, and I fold my tripod up, and hug my camera again. My brother hops to the center with them, and my dad looks to Noah, urging him to send them all off.

“Whose house is this?” Noah shouts.

As broken as they are, as beaten and disheartened and filled with doubt, The Tradition answers.

“Our house!”

The chant plays out, and I find Nico’s eyes in the sea of faces, his mouth screaming with just as much passion as it did the first time he chanted those words in the gym.

They don’t hate you. They resent you, because you’re better than they are.

You’re better than us all.

The players all begin to step back, and before it’s too late, I move into the crowd.