Chapter Seven
T
Fault Lines
Rafe
he first forty minutes of the match are mine. The pain in my
hip is there, but I've got it managed. I am on, and I'm
reading this game the way I've been since I was seventeen.
Their left back is too high. Their holding mid telegraphs right
every time he's under pressure. Our winger wants the ball early and
often, so I keep finding him, and he keeps making things happen.
It's clean, it's flowing. Everything clicks.
"Left channel." Jamie's already moving. I slip it through before
the press of bodies arrives. We keep it alive.
Their center back tries to body-check me off a through ball at
the top of the box and doesn't quite get there. I'm through on the
keeper, and I finish it low, inside the far post.
One-nil. The stadium lifts.