Fourth quarter. Five seconds to go. A breathless turn of events leaves the team down by three. A field goal could tie it, yes, but the kicker can't kick the broad side of a barn. This play calls for brains. And, as the best quarterback to hit college football in twenty years, Sam's definitely got the brains. And the arms, the legs, the vision. It's his game.
A fake pass, a fake option, and a dive through tumbling bodies. He doesn't have time to see whether he's fallen over the line before he's thrust up by team members, who knock the air out of him in a hug of victory. The shouting, the calling, the cheers, the crowd--all that doesn't matter to him. It was the play, the one that would have won a championship.
If he had been there to make it.
Sam turns over to try to stopper the ache in his guts, like they're tearing apart in his abdomen. He sputters into his soaking pillow, one fist clenching at the thick blanket at his chin and the second thrusting hard into his stomach. A sharp regular screech of pain stabs itself into his right calf. Again and again he gasps, keeping time with the stabs, to a morbid musical pattern that one could not possibly appreciate. The single interruption is his mother delivering pain medication.
As the stabs slow down, his thoughts spiral down the same pattern again. -I'm a wimp. I'm worthless. I can't do anything.- The pain gives him a reminding prick and the final thought, before the black hole of his self swallows everything, is the longest sentence he ever has time to think. -It wouldn't feel so bad--if I still had the leg....-
Do not copy or quote the above material without the expressed consent of the owner of this page.