All Played Out (Rusk University 3)

“Let’s go, sweetheart.”

Fifty feet in, we find our first piece of graffiti on the concrete wall. In faded black spray paint, it reads “College Is Okay If You,” then the writing gets too faded to read, leaving the secret to making college “okay” forever mysterious.

When we get to the split, I have Nell choose, and she picks the middle.

We stumble upon a zombie horde painted on the wall, and I squeeze her arm. “Good choice.”

She wrinkles her nose, and I laugh. The sound echoes eerily off the walls around us and causes a twinge of pain in my head.

Nell sees it.

“We shouldn’t have done this.”

“I’m fine,” I assure her. “Let’s keep going. Maybe the Batcave is somewhere down here. Or the Chamber of Secrets.”

She doesn’t react to my Harry Potter reference even though I know she’s read the series because I saw them on a shelf in her room. Stubbornly, she says, “You’re not fine. I did some research after you left this morning. You said you’ve had concussions before. And with each one, no matter how mild, your risk for brain trauma increases. The next time you hit your head a little too hard, the symptoms might not go away for months or at all. They could be permanent. I read an article about one football player who not only can’t play anymore, but he has to have a tutor in all of his classes even though he used to be a straight-A student. He can’t concentrate. Can’t retain facts. And it’s been three years since his last concussion. He can’t play football, and football has made it so that he’ll have a hard time doing anything else.”

“I know, Nell.”

She stops abruptly, pulling her arm away from mine. “You . . . know?” She sounds like my knowing this is some kind of betrayal.

“Yeah, I know it’s risky. But I’m a wide receiver. Not a rough-and-tumble tackler. I don’t take frequent hits to the head.”

“Frequent enough,” she says.

“In a good game, I make maybe six catches. A great game could be eight to ten. Some of those don’t even end in a tackle. And yes, I’m tired now. And I’m still showing symptoms, but I’ve got several days before the next game.”

“And what about practice?”

“I’m taking care of that.” Though I’m not sure how long I can get away with underperforming like I did today. One bad practice is fine, but any more and I might jeopardize my chance to play this weekend even if I don’t mention the concussion.

“It only takes one hit, Mateo. Just one. I get that you’re this big, strong athlete and you think you should just tough it out, but you’re wrong. This game can’t possibly be that important.”

“It is.” We’ve both stopped walking and she’s dropped my arm to square off with me in this dark and dreary corridor.

“Football’s your dream, and I get that. And I know your coach mentioning going pro the other week has you excited, but you also have to be realistic. It’s just not smart.”

Her words stir up long-buried memories, and in an instant all the things in her that remind me of Lina come to the surface, similarities that I haven’t thought about in a long time. But I’ve had this fight before. Maybe not about a concussion, but that dig about being realistic is always the same. People think it’s the nice way to help you manage your hopes . . . that they’re doing you a favor by being honest. But that’s fucking ridiculous. It assumes that you’re stupid or naive, that you don’t have reality beating down the door to your thoughts day in and day out. It takes fucking work to dream, and I don’t need anyone else shoving the unlikelihood of success in my face, because I do that to myself enough already.

I need someone to believe with me. To believe for me when I can’t believe myself.

“You have to take care of yourself, Mateo, if you want to—”

“You know what?” I say. “Turns out that I am pretty fucking tired.” I gesture to the tunnel walls. “I don’t know why I gave a shit about this anyway.”

I turn back toward the entrance, and I don’t pause to take hold of her hand or let her grab my arm. I need the space.

“Mateo. You can’t just keep deflecting like this. It’s not enough just to rest. You need to tell someone. You need to take precautions against—”

And then I just snap. I whirl around and pin her with the beam of the flashlight. “You know fuck all about what I need, Nell. Jesus, you’ve never even been to a game. You don’t know anything about football, and you don’t know anything about me.”

For a moment she looks small. Too damn small. The black of the tunnel looms around her, threatening to swallow her despite my measly light. Her arms are wrapped around her middle, and in that big sweatshirt she looks like she needs protecting.

From me.

And just when I’m about to go to her, to say something, to take back my harsh words . . . anything . . . she lifts her chin in that familiar proud way of hers.

“I’ve known you from the moment we met, Mateo Torres.”

How could I have forgotten? “A puppet? That’s what you called me, right? Letting other people pull my strings. Sorry, sweetheart, but I pull my own strings.”

“Maybe you do. But you’re still performing for other people. You play class clown for others, thinking it makes them like you or makes you fun. But history has a word for that . . . you’re playing the fool.”

That hits me harder than any tackle, and for all her words about it just taking one hit to knock me out, it’s ironic that she would be the one to deliver the worst blow.

“Fuck this. I don’t need any of this.”

I take off down the tunnel, heading back for the small hole of light I can see in the distance. My feet splash through puddles, and the noise from my movements amplifies in the small space, becomes harsher and distorted as it echoes. Then I hear Nell hurrying along behind me. She calls out, “I’m not saying you are a fool. Mateo, would you stop? Listen to me for a second. You’re smart and kind and wonderful, and I—I . . .” She sucks in a breath, probably from trying to keep pace with me, but I don’t stop. “I’m just saying you don’t need to play that part for other people. Your friends care about you. I care about you. You don’t need to pretend for us.”