I wince with an involuntary twinge of sympathy. The understanding that only another lacrosse player can have about how much injury sucks.

‘But since then, at least physically, he’s turned over back to ninety per cent. Well on the way to a hundred. He really should be out there playing next season, captaining the Chucks to our title. Didn’t get it last year, unfortunately. Losing sucked, but we were hopeful we’d get it next time, Colt at the helm, except now …’ Rod shakes his head. ‘I can still hear the way the guy was screaming on the ground, calling for his mom. May … when he gets so much as near the stick, it’s so weird. It’s like he doesn’t know how to play any more. Something snapped when he got hurt back in October, and no one knows how to fix it. Not even team-mandated therapy. So when he realized it was really bad, he decided he was going back to Oklahoma. Not for clout, not to keep his reputation up. He came back here to hide.’

I’ve never known Colt to be a hider. I know I’m one. I tuck myself away in a corner of campus – i.e. the Meteorology building study pods – after a terrible exam and sob. Colt took every hit when we were kids, and he took them standing. I never saw him falter. But this Colt is, at least according to Rod, scared. That revelation dumps rocks into the pit of my stomach by the wheelbarrow. The guilt is so heavy, I don’t know what to say.

‘Right now, this is between me, Colt, and the PT and therapy teams. And now you. He doesn’t know if he’s gonna come back for the next season. Hell, he doesn’t know what he’s gonna do if the team finds out he’s completely recovered. Especially the bosses. I mean, he doesn’t know if he’s going to play ever again.’ Rod lets out a nervous laugh, leaning forward to prop his elbows on his knees. ‘It has me scared as shit. We’re all pretty young. To have your career end like that is one thing, but to have your mental health – your state of mind – so fucked up that you don’t know how to play a sport you’ve been training in since you could walk …’

God.

That was part of why I fell so hard for Colt. He was indefatigable. He was a wall that ploughed through whoever he needed to knock down to make goals. And yet, he always had so much heart. The dumbass had jokes and shit-eating grins alongside the kinds of plays that made college scouts dizzy. He made for a fantastic rival. He made for a fantastic friend.