As I came to on the field, what felt like fire gave way to the regular ol’ heat of the late-morning sun. I’d never been happier to view the sight of six guys who’d just pummeled me into oblivion.

My shower was long and hot. Usually I wasted no time getting in and out of the locker room—I wasn’t crazy about the whole communal-cleansing thing—but the other guys were still running laps.

In the sick camp, I had been cleared for exercise three months earlier but didn’t do much more than running. I yearned for a weight room so I could gain some bulk for football, but there was no gym. The physical therapy consisted mostly of stretching and running; I circled the camp’s perimeter over and over, gaining speed and endurance. I worked on my sprinting, though given that I was running alone, I wasn’t measuring myself against anyone else.

After finishing my shower, I examined my scars in the mirror. The one on the right side of my chest, where they’d gone in to fix my punctured lung and do whatever they did to my ribs, seemed to be glowing. Normally when ribs break, you don’t do anything for them. Two seasons ago, Lance Butler cracked a couple and was back before the final game. But when you puncture an organ or two—aside from my lung, the ribs gouged my liver—they have to open you up and put everything back where it’s supposed to go.

The zipper on my left arm ran from the elbow to the wrist, and the one around my knee was bright pink. My scars looked fresh. My mom told me that if I’d been in a real hospital trauma center, the doctors would have minimized the scarring, but apparently not military surgeons. Fat chance of finding a plastic surgeon at sick camp.

I was standing in my boxers by my locker when the rest of the team tromped in, their cleats clonking against the tile floor.

“Well, look who’s upright,” drawled Troy Cameron as he stopped between the banks of lockers. I’d known him since elementary school. He was a short, fat kid with a red bowl cut who’d grown up to be a tall, stocky kid with a red bowl cut. I once tried and failed to argue him out of pulling the legs off a frog.

Now I said nothing.

Luke stood next to Troy, both in full pads, helmets in their hands. “Maybe Jordan doesn’t know,” Luke said with pretend concern. “Troy here is the one who nailed you with that sweet head shot.”

“Knocked you clean out,” Troy chimed in.

Allow me to pause here and point out the obvious. I’m black—mixed race, actually, but to these folks, black. Luke and Troy are white. We’re in South Carolina. Mount Hope has a long, complicated history when it comes to race, and I’m sure you could read about it online, assuming where you live didn’t experience a nuclear meltdown and internet access isn’t cut off for no apparent reason. My town is home to a lot of white people and a fair number of black people, with some Hispanics, such as Tico’s family, thrown in to boot. We’ve all been living together for a long time, and sometimes “issues” come up, but mostly everyone knows who’s who and what’s what and gets on with life.