I couldn’t if I tried; my eyes can barely stay open. It feels like someone’s wrenched my ligaments apart fibre by fibre, and while that pain should be all I’m able to concentrate on, I cling to desperate pleas instead, stuff that I pretend will be able to erase the injury as quickly as it happened.

‘Call my parents, man,’ I croak out, clutching JJ’s arm. ‘My mom.’

‘Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we’ll call ’em. Colt, they’re far, dude, you know they’re far. Won’t be here till tomorrow—’

‘Shut up.’ I grit my teeth against the now free-flowing tears streaking my cheeks. I just want my mom. I really just want my mom.

And as I grip my knee for dear life, the pleas of a desperate man weave their way through the tears. I want May. ‘May,’ I manage through waves of pain that send dark spots into my vision.

‘Who?’ Rod’s voice now, the thump of his knees against the grass as he presses a hand to my shoulder. One of the medics protests, and he says something I don’t catch in reply. ‘Who – Colt, I’ll call your mom,’ he assures me, voice wavering.

I blink away the floaters in my vision, and one more time, I barely manage to move my lips to form her name. No sound comes out.

Despite feeling like I’m going to pass out, I vividly recall every second when they load me onto a backboard to take me off the field and to the ambulance. The humiliation of not even being able to walk off the field on my own is almost as painful as the injury itself. Because it’s all crowds see now.

The paramedics buzz around me, asking me dozens of questions about scales from one to ten. Somewhere between it all, the realization dawns on me that it’s not just now. This is all anyone will see for the rest of my career.

‘You’re more than your injury,’ the doctors and therapists will tell me for weeks afterwards. I heard it enough times when Rod had his ACL injury the season I joined the team, and I’d love to believe it all.

I’d love to believe I’m still unbreakable, but I know that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Chapter Two

Southern Hospitality

May

Three Months Later

I pull at the laces of my cleats, shifting on the turf to get the optimal angle to free my feet from the snug shoes. Somehow, even after a practice straight from hell, the knots I made at the beginning of the afternoon haven’t budged a bit. I bob my head in tune with the Mt. Joy song thrumming from someone’s portable speaker as the first lace slides loose.