Page 25

Chapter 25

Spiralling

Brandon

Hi Dad!

Hope you’re good & campaign prep is going well. Life at Summit is awesome. I’m pretty much fully recovered now, just in time for the scouts. I looked online and saw that the conference for the Engineering Expansion Committee is next month, and it’s really close to where I’m staying.

I could swing by and we could get lunch, if you have time? Or just a coffee?

Brandon

* * * *

I stay on the field another hour. I believe in keeping my promises, but I also believe in protecting my career. Drills. Stretches. Protein. Anti-inflammatory meds. More stretches.

I’m doing everything I need to do to get my game back.

And it’s not fucking working.

I know I should give myself more time, but my body won’t move in the way it used to.

I can’t cut and dive, spin or adjust like I could before the accident. It might not sound like a big deal, but to me it is.It’s the difference between a Sunday player and a Super League Player.

Four weeks until the scouts visit. Four weeks until nothing less than perfection will do.

I could have told Di Rossi the truth, but I don’t need to give the guy another reason to walk away from me. And now he’s watching me from afar. I can feel the weight of distance looming like an unspoken threat between us.

My phone chimes.

Reuben

Pizza before the game was a schoolboy error

Billy

Wrong chat skipper

My teammates. They have another group chat. One without me.

Freddie

Who has time for managing multiple chats when they’re pizza drunk?

Billy

Clearly not the you of two.

Two of you.

Freddie

Who’s all cocky now he’s remembered how to save a penalty?

Billy

Confident not cocky.

Billy

Cockfidence

Reuben

I hate you

Joe

Can’t believe I have another month with you chucklefucks

What time are we meeting?

Brandon

Big night out for my boys?

Imran

We don’t do any other kind

Billy

Big cockfidence

Billy

Fellas?

Billy

Still there?

This shouldn’t bother me. It shouldn’t. And I’ll show them, when I’ve graduated from Summit and go back to school with a ton of new skills. And they’ll be wrong. Everyone who dropped me. My parents. My team. Parker.

Parker.

Truth is, I’m not an expert in this kind of thing.Any of it.

Sex, yes. But dating? Sleeping together, with feelings attached? Love?Yeah, not so much. They didn’t call me the Artful Dodger for nothing.

I’ve felt love before. I’ve loved Parker. But I don’t know what it’s like to be loved back . I’ve never had that two-way love. I don’t even think I’ve ever held hands with another dude.

I’m as out of my depth as Di Rossi is.

How long, really, before he figures that out? And if exploring his sexuality is on his agenda, how long before he decides to do that with a better version of me?

The sun has long since disappeared behind a cloud, bathing the grounds in cool mid-afternoon shadow. Be so good that they can’t drop you .

I survey the empty field in-front of me. Swallow hard. A voice runs through my head. You’re not good enough. I know it was three years ago. I know he doesn’t remember. But there are times, late at night when I can’t sleep, when all I hear is his words in my mind.

It’s sick, Carter. Get some fucking help.

I unpack my bag. Grab a fresh ball. Reset the timers. I run another lap, then another, and then another. I keep running after the buzzer sounds, and I don’t stop.