Chapter 13
Noah
Morning training had done exactly what it should have done.
Kicked my ass.
Defense had film in the afternoon, and we watched Jamie Woods of the Cardinal Saints play his final college game. He’d declared for the Draft in January, lucky bastard. I hope he got drafted high. He earned it.
Now it was late afternoon, and the field was empty.
Not technically empty — the grounds crew had left cones scattered near the hash marks, and the goalposts cast long shadows under the stadium lights — but empty enough that I could hear myself think, which wasn’t always a good thing.
No music blaring over the speakers. No coaches yelling from the sidelines. No chatter bleeding out of the locker room.
Just turf and the hum of the lights overhead.
I’d dropped my helmet beside the forty and rolled my shoulders. The air still held some of the day’s heat, not like the heat back home, but it was better than the chill that had been in the air for too long.
I liked the field like this. No eyes. No grading sheet. No one waiting for me to fuck up so they could call me out in front of everyone.
I set two cones ten yards apart.
Shuffle. Plant. Burst.
Again.
Shuffle. Plant. Burst.
Simple linebacker footwork. My body knew what to do before my head caught up.
Read step.
Downhill trigger.
Fill the gap.
It was simple on the field. Someone showed you where the threat was coming from, and you hit it.
Controlled violence.
I pictured the guard pulling. I pictured the gap opening. I pictured filling it.
My first step was always clean. This was the part of my skill set that I was most proud of. No hesitation. No wasted movement. When I decided to go, I went.
Finishing the burst, I reset. Clean.
Life wasn’t that clean.
I took a moment, hands on my hips, breathing steady. I wasn’t winded. I don’t get winded easily. That had always been my advantage — I could hold the line longer than most.
You don’t fall first. That was the rule.
Tiffany had been left to fall.
The thought came uninvited, sharp and unwelcome. I pushed it back, closed my eyes before the burst, and counted to three. I exploded forward.
The contact wasn’t there — no lineman, no shoulder pads — but my body reacted as if it were. I drove through empty air, finishing five yards past the cone.
Control, it was all about control.
I didn’t lose control. Not anymore. Not in my footwork, not in my breathing. I managed it. But right then, my head was in turmoil.
They would have called her death tragic. Unfortunate. Or, my personal favorite, ‘a loss to the community’.
They never called it what it was . . . preventable.
I knew what preventable looked like.
It looked like adults who noticed something wrong and chose paperwork over action. It looked like meetings, policies, and ‘appropriate channels.’ It looked like everyone protecting themselves first.
My lips curled into a sneer. I’d seen it before. Back home, in a cluttered garage with too much junk, and a kid with too much anger and little support. People shook their heads afterward, saying no one could have known.
I’d known.
I’d known the night he swung too hard at the bag and didn’t stop when his knuckles split. I’d known the way his silence stretched longer each week.
And I’d done nothing because I thought stepping back was what he wanted.
Giving him space was what he asked for. I’d read it correctly.
I just hadn’t known what to do with what I’d read.
Not realizing that space was the one thing he hadn’t needed.
He’d needed people around him. He’d needed people asking questions. But all he had was space and silence.
“Fuck.” I shook my head, trying to clear it. “I need to hit something,” I muttered, trying to focus.
I understand violence better than most. I also know how to control it.
Only once have I lost control, not long after they found his body.
I’d fought too hard, too wild, and put a guy in the hospital.
My mom had cried. My brother’s eyes were too wide with shock when he looked at me, unsure how I could have done that.
Never again.
I would never allow myself to become that again.
I drove forward again, harder this time, my mind still racing.
They knew about Tiffany’s death. They had to have known. People you pay off don’t just disappear without someone noticing.
They just hadn’t wanted it to be their problem.
If the system hadn’t been a pile of shit, would she still be here?
If someone had stepped in instead of stepping aside?
My jaw tightened. That was the part that made my hands shake.
Not the fact she’d died. That someone had known she was drowning and let her sink quietly because it was easier than admitting something was really fucking wrong.
Back at the starting line, I dropped into a low stance, fingers brushing over the turf, knowing to an onlooker I’d look calm and steady, but inside my head was spinning.
Growing up, the first lesson I’d learned was that size changes rooms. At fifteen, I hadn’t known what to do with that. Didn’t know why teachers stopped arguments when I stood up. Didn’t know why the boys, who were twice as loud, got quiet when I stepped closer.
It hadn’t taken long to figure it out.
I pushed off from the starting line again, sprinting to the forty this time. Not full speed — eighty percent. Enough to feel the stretch in my hamstrings, the pull through my hips.
The stadium lights flickered slightly, breaking my concentration. I didn’t like that. I turned and set up for pursuit angles next. An imaginary running back breaking outside.
Open hips. Run. Cut him off.
I hit the angle hard and decelerated just before the sideline; my cleats tore at the turf, and pellets sprayed everywhere.
I stayed standing. My old coach used to say I had the temperament of a surgeon. Calm. Measured. Efficient.
They didn’t know about the garages.
They didn’t know about the heavy bag.
They didn’t know how easy it was to lean into someone and feel them fold.
Anger doesn’t disappear. It waits.
Another thing I’d learned early on.
It waited in your chest. In the set of your jaw. In the space between what you could do and what you are allowed to do.
My legs burned, and I welcomed it. Pain is simple. Pain makes sense. You overwork something, and it hurts. You rest, and it heals.
Systems didn’t work like that.
People didn’t.
In the end zone, I dropped to the turf. I rolled onto my back, staring up at the empty stands — rows upon rows of metal and shadow.
They’d cheer in the fall. They’d chant my name.
They’d never know how close I’d come some nights to letting my anger run wild, or how close I’d come to exposing everything.
Because that’s what I felt like. If the system wouldn’t protect innocent people, then maybe it didn’t deserve to be protected at all.
That was a dangerous thought.
Not the sorrow. Or the guilt. But the decision on what to do with it all.
I sat up and wrapped my hands with athletic tape that I’d dropped here earlier, exactly for this purpose. Keeping it tight around the knuckles. An old habit.
I needed to spar. The last few weeks had been building up inside me, and I needed to let it out before my control started to slip.
There was a heavy bag in the auxiliary gym. I could go there next. Hit until my shoulders burned or until my thoughts stopped looping.
I flexed my fingers instead.
Not tonight.
If I let myself lean into it — really lean. I knew how easy it would be to stop asking permission. To apply pressure where it hurt and to make people uncomfortable enough to move.
It wasn’t about pretending the anger wasn’t there. It was about choosing where to put it.
I stood, walked back to the forty, and dropped into stance one more time.
Eyes up. First step, clean. When I exploded forward, it wasn’t because I was angry. It was because I chose to. I finished the sprint past the goal line and didn’t look back up the field.
“You fighting demons out here, Matthews?”
Dustin was sitting on the sideline. I hadn’t even seen him come out. I looked around, looking for the QB, but Dante wasn’t here.
“Yeah.” My nod was tight and brief. “You could say that.” Dustin was in jeans, a hoodie, and a ballcap. “You waiting for me?”
He shrugged. “Yeah. Haven’t seen you for a few days, thought you might want to hang.”
“You see me every day.” I caught the towel he threw my way and wiped my face and neck. “What’s this about?”
He pushed himself to his feet and gave me an eye roll I’d come to know well. “Maybe I just want to talk to you.”
“Why?”
I heard him mutter ‘oh my God’ under his breath as he walked over to stand beside me.
“I don’t want to do deep and meaningful shit. Can I not just want to hang out with you?”
My hand stopped rubbing the towel over my head. I took in his ultra-casual stance, the blank face, but the corner of his eye twitched.
I grinned widely. “You miss me, Dust?”
He was already turning away. “No, you’re a prick, and stop eating my snacks!”
I caught up to him, and we walked the field in silence. “So . . . you miss me?”
“Shut up,” he grumbled.
“Did you fall out with your girl?”
Dust looked affronted at the suggestion. “No! Hadley is . . .” He took a deep breath. “She’s just great, really.”
“Then why are you frowning?”
“Am I?” His look of surprise convinced me to go easy on him.
The change in his character since hooking up with Hadley was a complete one-eighty; he was a new man. There were so many players who were players, and Dustin had fit into the mold perfectly.
“Who knew the sharp-eyed reporter was going to be your downfall?” I teased.
He grimaced but said nothing. We headed to the locker room, and I wasn’t surprised to find it empty.
“I’ll wait for you.”
A simple statement and I nodded in agreement. He’d waited for me, no doubt watched me practice when I thought I was alone. Whether it was out of friendship or he had an agenda, I realized now that I wanted his company rather than be alone with my thoughts.