Carter glanced at the calendar hanging near the telephone on the wall. July was flying by.The month, he noted with equal measures of excitement and anxiety, was almost gone. The days and his Italian lessons were passing fast, and Carter wondered where the time had gone. Looking back, with the exception of a few precious days on the beach, the summer to that point all seemed a blur of work and lessons and study. The addition of rugby practice to his weekly agenda only compounded that feeling, but Carter had no reason to complain.

Carter had discovered the sport of rugby just that past spring, during his senior year of college, but already he loved it. Up till then, Carter had played football at one level or another practically from the time he could walk. As he progressed from the peewee leagues to high school and finally into college, the football season came to be the focal point around which he built his world. Being a football player was for him an important part of his identity. It gave him discipline and a sense of purpose and belonging that seemed to make everything else in his life better.

And so it was that the end of his collegiate football career came as something of a trauma to the young man. It left a great void in his psyche. When Carter took off his helmet and pads for the last time, packed his kit, and walked out of the locker room, he felt as though a great part of him had died, and he grieved much for it throughout the cold winter months that followed.Without a clear goal to train for, the careful discipline with which he had led his life suddenly fell apart. He stopped working out and taking care of his body, and instead took to carousing with his friends till all hours. He cavorted with women and ignored his studies, and was very close to throwing away his chance of graduating on time. Then one Saturday morning, after a particularly late night of revelry that left him passed out on the vestibule floor of a fraternity house other than his own, Carter was roused from his slumbers by a stiff kick in the ribs. Dry-mouthed and bleary-eyed, he looked up and beheld two of the fraternity’s brothers gloating over him.

“You’re a mess, Quinn,”one of them had said with disgust.

“Really,” the other had agreed with a supercilious air. “It’s about time to pull yourself back together, don’t you think?”

Not at all certain of his precise location at that particular moment, Carter had sat up and squinted at his two tormentors through bewildered red-rimmed eyes. Far too hung over to respond with anything other than a groan and gurgle, he gaped at them in dumb silence until the two simply shook their heads, gave him a few choice comments to consider, and left him there in a heap.