Page 44 of The Perfect Pass
“Will they, though?” Calla’s eyes narrowed at the officers. “Be disciplined, that is?”
“Like I said before, there’s still a lot about this situation that needs to be figured out. It’s going to take some time,” Deputy Willis said.
“Let me guess—until the end of football season?” Calla said crisply. Jackson could feel the indignation rolling off of her in waves.
And unlike the other times she’d disparaged the sport that was his lifeblood, Jackson understood. He got it this time.
It’s only a game.
At least that’s how it was supposed to be.
“We never said that,” Deputy Willis countered.
“You didn’t have to,” Jackson ground out as he strode past him. He couldn’t take any more of this conversation. He needed to set eyes on Tommy, he needed to see for himself that the kid was okay, and he needed to get his own priorities straight…
Before Harper, SportsSphere, Principal Dean and the greater population of Bishop Falls all had their say and tried to do it for him.
* * *
Calla stayed in the visiting room for over an hour after the law enforcement officers left, holding her breath as she waited for Jackson to finish talking to Tommy.
He hadn’t expressly asked her to stay, and part of her wondered if she might be overstepping. She just couldn’t leave, though. She hoped to get an update on the scan of Tommy’s spleen before she talked to her dad. But as much asCalla tried to tell herself the scan results were her sole reason for sticking around, she knew it wasn’t true.
She wanted to be there for Jackson. And sure,theoretically, she was supposed to be at the hospital on behalf of theGazette, but Calla had lived in Bishop Falls long enough to know what was going to happen next.
Stan would ask her to downplay tonight’s events. He wouldn’t want to hurt the Bulldogs’ chances of making it to State any more than the sheriff’s deputies did. The whole event would get swept under the rug, because nothing was more important than football. The kids responsible for putting Tommy in the hospital might get a slap on the wrist, but that was all. Calla doubted they’d be suspended for a single game. The team needed its senior players, and given the fact that a younger kid had gotten hurt, she could venture a guess as to who had been responsible for his injuries.
Sure enough, when Jackson finally emerged from the treatment area, his very first words confirmed her fears.
“It was the team captains,” he said as he slumped into the plastic chair beside her. “All three of them. They made him stand on the fifty-yard-line and then they took turns tackling him. No pads, no helmet, nothing. They called it a team initiation for getting so much play this season.”
“The team captains? They’re supposed to be setting an example for the younger players, not beating them up.” Bile rose to the back of Calla’s throat. Watson Stokes, Hunt Collier and Zander Brown all outweighed Tommy Riess. By a lot. They were graduating this year, and Tommy was just a tenth-grader—a small one, at that. No wonder the poor kid had ended up in the hospital.
“Yeah, I know.” Jackson dropped his head in his hands and sat very still for a long moment while Calla tried towrap her head around the ugly truth. It was even worse than she’d thought possible.
When he finally looked up, the sight of Jackson’s bloodshot eyes made her heart twist. “At least Tommy told you what happened. He’s such a team player, I honestly didn’t think he would.”
“He didn’t, actually. He kept saying he didn’t want to get anyone in trouble and it was all just an accident. But while he was getting his CT scan, Principal Dean called me with an update. The whole thing transpired right there at the stadium. Luckily a janitor showed up and intervened. He found Tommy slumped on the ground and called 911. The other students fled. Their faces were painted, but apparently, they were wearing their team shirts with their jersey numbers. The janitor had no trouble at all identifying them when he talked to the principal.”
“They wore their jersey numbers to haze a kid?” Calla shook her head. “That wasn’t the smartest move.”
“I wish I could chalk that particular choice up to stupidity. Unfortunately, I think it’s worse. Those boys were being brazen because they didn’t expect to get punished, even if they got caught.” The vein in Jackson’s temple throbbed to life again. “Principal Dean blamed the curse, as if some invisible force had done this instead of three boys who’d made the conscious choice to hurt a teammate.”
All of Calla’s breath felt like it was trapped inside her lungs. This entire night had been a bad dream. When would it stop? “It keeps getting worse and worse, doesn’t it?”
“I do have a bit of good news.” He turned toward her with a sad smile. “Tommy’s spleen isn’t bruised. He’s going to stay here overnight so they can monitor his concussion, but he should be fine to go home in the morning.”
Calla closed her eyes as tears of relief welled up behind her lashes. “Thank goodness.”
“Yeah. I think that’s the best news we could expect right about now,” Jackson said, and the low rumble of his voice seemed to scrape her insides.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this raw. She’d spent the past few years doing her best to avoid feelinganything, and now that she’d allowed her walls to drop, she couldn’t seem to build them back up.
“I can’t help feeling like this is at least partly my fault,” she said in a ragged whisper, finally giving voice to the nagging thought that had been plaguing her since she’d first set foot in the emergency room.
Jackson’s forehead creased. “I’ve been thinking the same thing. I should’ve seen this coming.”
“We ran that cover story about Tommy in the paper. There’s no way what happened tonight was an initiation. Those kids were mad because everyone fell in love with a fourth-string player. In their minds, he was stealing their thunder.”
