10. Dream of Pain
10
Dream of Pain
“Football is easy if you’re crazy as hell.”
-Bo Jackson
Dylan
I was dreaming. It was like being there again. I couldn’t stop it anymore than I could change the past. I knew I would wake up, covered in sweat with my wrist aching. I just had to survive the dream.
Snow makes everything slippery.
Frost coats the edges of the field. It’s wet and slippery under the lights, but it’s the playoffs.
We made it. I made it.
My legacy will go down in the history books. I can feel it. All I have to do is catch the ball.
That’s easy. Easy as breathing.
We line up. I take the left side. Marcus nods twice. That’s our signal. It’s not in the playbook. Coach doesn’t know about it. It’s just for the two of us. A secret code that he’s going to get me the ball if I can get open.
He calls out the play. “Twenty-three, thirteen, twenty-two... hike, hike.” He stomps his foot like a bull about to charge.
I take off running. My muscles clench and spring forward as I put everything I have into this drive. If I score, then we’re going all the way. I can already taste the victory champagne. I can already hear the cheers.
My legs pump down the field. None of their defenders can keep up with me, and the ones that think they can I juke and run around. I can fly out on the field.
I was made for this.
I glance back, relying on my peripheral vision. There’s three guys coming up on my left. Three! I grin that they think I’m that big of a threat that they need to send three guys after me.
They really should send four because those three aren’t going to catch me until I’m in the end zone.
I can see the white lines. The hash marks are long behind me.
I don’t have to look. Marcus and I have a psychic link. I know he’s aiming the ball right for the space between my hands. I don’t have to look. I can feel it.
The crowd gasps and I know he’s thrown it all forty yards. They hold their breath, waiting to see if I catch it.
But I always catch it.
Even in my dreams. That part is never the problem.
The ball hits my outstretched right arm. It nearly wobbles out of my reach, but time slows. My left arm moves up to catch the ball. I feel the ball in my grip. I have it.
But there’s a problem.
One of those three guys is suddenly in my space. It’s slippery. He can’t control his body or his speed. I see his eyes widen as he realizes he’s out of control. He’s not going to tackle me. He’s going to crash into me.
I have to choose. Do I hold onto the ball or do I stop my fall?
I choose the ball. I should choose the ball. I panic. I choose my body. I throw a hand out to protect myself.
Today it is the wrong choice.
Bodies collide. I should have held onto the ball, but instinct made me put my arm out to stop the fall. I try to hold onto the slippery pigskin, but is slides out of my grasp like it’s oiled.
I don’t feel the snapping of bones, but I hear them. I hear the crowd gasp. I hear someone scream on the sidelines.
The ball is loose. My hand doesn’t work anymore. I don’t have control and the ball skitters away from me and directly into someone else’s hands. I scream, but no sound comes out. I reach for the ball, desperately trying to bring it back to me, to rewind those last ten seconds. It feels like they were never real anyway. Those seconds were never mine. I just watched them like the viewers on TV. They didn’t actually happen to me.
This is all wrong. This is not how this was supposed to happen. This is not supposed to be my legacy.
The ball is gone and I’m on the grass. My hand is bent the wrong way. There is bone showing. The crowd is screaming. Coach is screaming. Marcus is screaming.
I should be screaming, but I’m just staring at my arm.
It’s broken. I can’t move my fingers. I know on an instinctual level that this is bad.
It should hurt. I should be writhing on the ground in agony, but I’m more angry that I fumbled the ball. My legacy is running down the field to the wrong end zone.
The game will not end in a W.
And it’s my fault.
Marcus threw me the ball. We’d used our secret signal. No one had known.
Yet I lost the ball. If I’d held onto it, protected it, rolled with it, I wouldn’t be staring at a shattered wrist.
But I’d valued my arm more than the ball.
I didn’t protect it with my life.
And now my life might be over.
I hear the air horns blast a touchdown. That should have been mine, but now it’s my fault.
The pain is coming now. I welcome it.
I lost the ball.
I lost the game.