Page 63 of The Perfect Pass
A stunned silence followed, then a collective intake of breath. He’d just uttered the unspeakable word out loud.
Jackson couldn’t take credit for tackling the taboo subject, though. Calla had done it first, and she’d done it so well that he was going to let her opinion piece in the Saturday edition of theLone Star Gazettedo the talking. She’d broken it down far better than he could, anyway.
“Did anyone here read Calla Dunne’s column in the paper this weekend?” he asked.
At first, no one dared to raise a hand. Most of the teenagers dropped their gazes to the floor, and even the other coaches stayed silent, awkwardly shifting from one foot to the other. Then, a sound came from behind him—the quiet clearing of a throat. He turned to see Cade lifting his hand in the air.
The admission set off a chain reaction. One by one, the other coaches did the same. Even Simmons, who sighed ashe did so. A few of the boys followed, until about half the people in the room had admitted to reading Calla’s article.
“I heard my parents talking about it over the weekend,” one of the players said.
“That doesn’t surprise me. I’m willing to bet that quite a few tongues have been wagging lately.” Jackson reached into his pocket for the folded piece of newsprint he’d been carrying around since Saturday. “I’d like to read the article out loud for those of you who haven’t seen it.”
A hand flew up at the back of the room. “Coach?”
Tommy Riess stood and squared his slim shoulders. “Can I read it?”
Jackson paused, startled but filled with unexpected emotion. The piece referenced Tommy’s injuries, and the teen had been downplaying what happened to him since the night he’d landed in the hospital. The kid wanted to wish it away. Or he had…
Until now.
Jackson nodded. “You know what? I think that’s a great idea, Tommy. Come on up here.”
The teen stepped forward, picking his way around pads, backpacks and athletic gear. He took the square of paper from Jackson and unfolded it, flattening the creases against the thigh of his jeans. Then, in a loud, clear voice, he began to read.
“Before I hated football, I loved it. From the time I was a little girl, it was more than a sport to our family. Like most people growing up in Bishop Falls, it was a way of life. On Friday nights, we’d pack the stands at the high school stadium. My brother, Ethan, and my dad would wear matching Bulldog jerseys, and I’d wavegreen-and-white pom-poms and dream about the day I’d cheer on the sidelines. When Ethan learned how to throw a football, I did, too. On warm summer nights, we spent hours tossing the ball back and forth while Mom made homemade ice cream and Dad worked long hours at his vet clinic. I always told him I wanted a real, live bulldog when I grew up, and he’d laugh and tell me that most bulldogs snored louder than the freight train that rumbled through town twice a day on the railroad tracks near the water tower. I never cared, though. I could see that bright, sparkling future, stretched out before me like a movie reel.
“But like so many first loves, football eventually broke my heart. It broke my soul, and it broke my family. That’s the story I’ve always told since the night Ethan was so horribly injured at the state championships. But this football season has been full of surprises, and for me, the most surprising twist of all was that hearts heal. Families heal. And somewhere deep down, I still loved the game.
“Football itself isn’t flawed. People are. I needed a way to understand why the unspeakable had happened to my family, so I blamed it on the one thing my brother loved most of all. I invented a villain, and in the aftermath of what happened, so did Bishop Falls. My villain was football, but theirs was something bigger—a curse.
“The curse was a whisper that turned into a roar, and that roar has never been louder or more damaging than it is right now, eight years after a single tackle in Austin, Texas, changed everything. Over the courseof this season, I’ve watched the people who claim to love our team the most throw a parade for the man they handpicked as a savior, only to turn around and blame him for anything and everything that’s wrong with the Bulldog football program. When one of his younger players was injured in a cruel and horrible prank, he took a stand for courage and decency. He chose to protect Bishop Falls’ own when the same ‘fans’ who paraded him through town a few weeks ago pressured him to do nothing, all in the name of a winning season.
“Because that’s what real sports heroes do. They stand for integrity, no matter the cost, both on and off the field.
“In return, you’ve blamed the curse for everything. You’ve kicked the head coach out of his home. You’ve made the boys who are left on the squad feel like the rest of the season is a lost cause, not because another team is unbeatable, but because fate and destiny are.
“Our boys aren’t cursed, and neither is our town. People cling to the idea because it’s easier to blame a mysterious force than it is to accept responsibility for the way we’ve failed the Bulldogs. We’ve put winning above everything, and that choice is the real villain.
“There is no curse—just a pattern waiting to be broken. I think it’s high time we sit back and give our coaches and our players the space to fix it.
“Do it for our boys. Do it for the love of the sport. Do it for my brother.
“Go Bulldogs!
“Calla Dunne”
Chapter Eighteen
Just as Jackson hoped, Calla’s opinion piece in theGazettelit an immediate fire under the team. After Tommy read all the way to the end of the article, where Calla had signed off with“Go Bulldogs,” the boys responded by spontaneously echoing the battle cry with enough enthusiasm to shake the walls of the locker room. Her words had unlocked something inside them that only she could. If Ethan Dunne’s own sister didn’t believe in the curse, then why should they?
Practice that afternoon had been a complete one-eighty compared to the previous week. As the days went on, it just kept getting better and better. By Tuesday, Jackson and Cade started training the boys on the Underdog Blitz again. By Wednesday, they’d rechristened it the Bulldawg Blitz, because—as Calla had taught him oh-so-well—words had power. When Thursday morning rolled around, Jackson woke up convinced they could start working on two more new plays, despite the fact that the game was just a day away.
As the sun came up, he pushed his eggs around with a spatula in the Dunnes’ kitchen, absently making offensive and defensive formations with the yolks and the whites sizzling in the pan. The garage apartment wasn’t equippedwith a full kitchen, and Bill insisted he should feel free to use the main house whenever he wanted. Jackson still met up with Cade at Huddle Up on the way to school every morning, but he’d also been taking full advantage of having a working coffee maker at his disposal, along with a seemingly endless supply of farm fresh eggs from the Bishop Falls farmer’s market.
Jackson was so consumed by his breakfast scrimmage that he didn’t even notice Calla stumble into the kitchen until she was just an arm’s length away, staring at him, wide-eyed.
“Sorry. I didn’t realize you were…um…” Her gaze drifted over his T-shirt, eyes lingering on the way it hugged his pectoral muscles. The tee was a holdover from high school with his team logo—the Rams—so faded that it was barely visible, and the shirt really didn’t fit. But it was as soft as tissue paper and still his favorite sleep shirt, paired with plain gray sweats.
