Chapter Thirteen #3
The game continued. Sebastian ignored the pain and watched the ball get punted into their fifty.
Corey marked near the boundary.
Sebastian stood near the arc, hands on his knees, breathing hard, head pounding, blood spilling. Corey lined up. The crowd tried to swallow the moment. Some roaring. Some whistling. Some clapping in rhythm to put him off. Corey started his run-up, struck it, and the ball curled late for the goal.
Mustangs by one.
For a moment, the MCG became sound without shape.
Sebastian turned and ran back to centre with the others, chest heaving, legs heavy, the noise hitting his back. Marcos caught his eye, brow furrowed, worry on his face. Sebastian shook his head, wiping his face and seeing how much blood was on his hand.
He blinked hard and carried on.
The Wolves won the next centre clearance.
Marcos got a hand to the ball, but it came off short, and their midfielder stole it from the front.
The kick went inside fifty before Sebastian could close the space.
Harry got across to spoil, but the ball spilled to ground.
A scramble followed. Then the ball came loose to a Wolves forward who threw it onto his boot under pressure.
Behind. Scores level.
Sebastian jogged back, lungs burning, face hurting more with each step. He wiped it again. More fresh blood.
Randal kicked in again. This time, slower. He held the ball, scanned, waited for the lead, then went short to Harry, who moved it wide. Parker took a mark near the wing and looked to kick it in. Nothing there. He went down the line instead.
Thirty seconds left, maybe. Less. More. Sebastian didn’t know. He didn’t want to look.
Parker got his hands on the ball down the boundary line and got his boot to it as soon as he could, and it flew to the edge of the centre square.
Sebastian ran.
He wasn’t the only one. He could hear bodies around him, boots thudding, breath, someone shouting his name or maybe someone else’s. The ball dropped awkwardly, spinning as it came down, and for a moment, he thought it would fall short.
He pushed harder.
His legs were nearly gone. His lungs burned raw. Each step caused more blood to drip from his nose and mouth. The whole game had become the ball, the space beneath it, and the body coming at him from the side.
He jumped.
The ball hit his hands hard.
Sebastian brought it into his chest as contact came through his shoulder, and he hit the ground on his side with the ball still held tight.
The whistle went.
Then the siren sounded.
For half a second, Sebastian didn’t understand what had happened. The noise changed too fast, turning from live chaos into something larger and sharper. Players stopped. Some with hands on heads. Some bent over. Some looking toward the umpire, then toward Sebastian, then toward the scoreboard.
He pushed himself up slowly, ball in both hands.
The umpire pointed to the mark.
Just outside fifty.
Sebastian stared at the goals.
The Mustangs were behind by three. The siren had sounded. This was their last chance.
The information settled through him, clean and brutal.
Kick it, and they’d win.
Miss, and they wouldn’t.
The crowd became almost unbearable once everyone understood.
Eighty thousand people, all of them suddenly inside the same breath.
Mustangs supporters rising, screaming, begging.
Wolves supporters roaring the other way, waving arms behind the goals, trying to make the space between Sebastian and the posts feel impossible.
A few teammates started toward him, then stopped because there was nothing they could give him now.
Marcos stood near the edge of the centre square, hands on hips, chest moving hard.
Sebastian found him without meaning to.
Marcos was already watching him. Not tense. Not grinning. Not hiding behind the easy illusion of rivalry or the careful silence they had been living inside for weeks. Just looking. There, tired and bruised by the game, trusting him with the only thing left.
Sebastian turned away before it could become too much.
He walked back from the mark. One step. Another. Enough space, but not too much.
The umpire spoke to him, but the words barely entered. Sebastian nodded anyway.
He wiped his face again. Still wet. Still bloodied.
He steadied himself, then held the ball in both hands and looked at the goals.
White posts. Grass and players between. Wolves supporters moving behind them.
Noise.
His chest rose and fell.
He could do this.
Not because the crowd wanted him to. Not because the team needed him to. He could do this because he had done it before. Different grounds. Smaller crowds. Junior ovals with mud under his boots. Training sessions when no one watched. Games that mattered less to everyone else and too much to him.
Sebastian set the ball firmly in his hands.
“This will be easy,” he muttered.
Then he breathed and started his run-up.
The stadium seemed to stretch around him with every step, sound thinning until all that remained was the ball in his hands and the shape of his boot rising to meet it.
Then, the ball was in the air.