That gets made perfectly clear when Devlin grabs the mic and quiets everyone down. “I think we all know who to thank for this win.” He looks up at the sky, and I’m not sure whether those are genuine tears in his eyes or he’s just blinded by the lights. “Robbie, brother, we miss you, man. I can’t believe you’re not here. But we know you’re watching out for us, guiding our hands, and that you delivered this win. Number one forever.”

My gut twists into knots as I watch the cheerleaders, Amber included, get into formation and do what must’ve been the standard Robbie cheer. It’s somehow rowdy and somber at the same time, something they must’ve practiced, and it’s followed by the marching band’s equally confusing rendition of “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

Whatever. My parents seeing this win is what matters. They know they didn’t move me here for nothing. And hopefully, one day, the right person to move me forward somehow will join them in the stands, but if not—even if it’s always “just a game”—playing under the lights tonight felt like pure magic.

That’s why I’m here. That’s why I’m tolerating teammates who ignore me and cheerleaders who hate me and Amber McCloud’s stupid cute ass. Because the field is where I most feel like myself, and this could make my future. The chance is tiny, I know. There’s certainly no future ahead playing QB in the NFL. But that doesn’t mean I couldn’t be a sports reporter like Holly Rowe, or a coach like Katie Sowers.

I just have to get through the fucking season.

Even if my parents are literally the only people cheering me on.

(Are they? I wonder, thinking of the number in my phone, the hotline to a “personal pep rally.” But that way lies dangerous thinking. Dangerous, stupid thinking.)

I push that dangerous, stupid thinking aside and pick my way over to the field house, where I stop short, realizing there’s only one visitors’ locker room and it’s currently being filled by a mass of wretched, sweaty boys. This is what I get for spending halftime on the bench, paralyzed by the irrational fear that they’d find a way to start without me if I disappeared to the locker room that apparently doesn’t exist for me.

“Tough luck, Walsh,” Sanchez says with a smirk as the guys watch me try to figure out where the hell I could possibly take off this stinking uniform, and laugh their asses off at my helplessness.