Page 105 of The Revenge Plan (Forbidden Descendants 1)

The next morning, I had to wake early and catch a bus for our last away game of the regular season. Everyone seemed glad to have me back on the team. Even the head coach slapped me on the shoulder and said it was good to see me out on the field.

I intercepted two balls and was even able to run one down for a touchdown. We won by three points in overtime. When the final buzzer rang, my defensive players cheered and hollered and lifted me up on their shoulders, celebrating. From twenty feet away, Topher Nicholl sneered and rolled his eyes. He hadn’t been able to connect a single pass the entire game with any of his receivers, poor guy.

When I returned late that night, Haven was passed out on the couch. The first thing I noticed when I opened the door to the apartment was the smell. Her accumulation of to-go boxes, candy wrappers, and disposable cups was beginning to make the entire front room reek.

Without waking her, I fetched a large trash sack and began filling it. It was stuffed full to capacity by the time I finished, so I tied it closed and carried it outside, straight to the complex’s dumpster.

Haven didn’t wake the entire time I worked, so I paused by her to place my hand a few inches in front of her mouth until I felt her warm breath on my palm.

“Dammit,” I muttered to myself, shaking my head as I stormed back to my room.

Now I was reduced to worrying about her even being alive. This couldn’t be good. How much further was she going to spiral? I knew she’d lost her college friends, but surely one of her family members would step in soon. I didn’t know how much longer I could take watching her do this to herself.

When I walked in the door Monday after classes, work, and practice, dog-tired, I was surprised to realize she was playing SpongeBob instead of Night Court. Pausing, I watched a pink star chasing a jellyfish with a butterfly net.

“Get tired of Night Court?” I asked, slicing her an amused glance.

She merely shook her head. “Watched them all.”

My eyebrows rose. “All of them?”

She nodded and opened a package of string cheese with her teeth. A bit of it broke free from the rest and fell onto her shirtfront, the same shirt she’d been wearing for a week straight.

She didn’t even notice.

Sighing, I ran a hand through my hair and retreated to my room to immediately grab my laptop. After looking up Night Court, I learned it had run for a total of nine seasons with each season typically containing twenty-two to twenty-four episodes. Being a math geek, I did the numbers, and at approximately twenty-four minutes an episode, I calculated that she’d watched over forty-five hundred minutes of Night Court in the last six days.

“Holy shit,” I breathed, staring at the sum. She definitely couldn’t have gone to class anytime between all those episodes.

I started to sweat with worry. How long could she miss classes before it started to hurt her prospect of graduation? She only had months left before she was finished. Now was not the time to drop out.

I returned to the front room and watched her from the doorway without her even noticing my presence. Chewing on my thumbnail, I tried to think of the safest way to ask about college without upsetting her.

An idea struck. “Hey, do you need me to pick up any homework assignments from any of your professors, or anything, for you?”

“Nope,” she answered, tossing her string cheese wrapper onto the coffee table to pick up a slushy cup with a logo on it from the convenience store at the end of the block and take a long drink through the straw. “I called and told them my grandma died and I wasn’t sure when I’d be back.”

I frowned, remembering what she’d told me the first night she’d moved in. “Didn’t your grandma die before you were even born?”

Finally glancing at me, she sent me an annoyed frown. “Well then I didn’t lie, did I? She’s definitely dead.”

When she went back to watching SpongeBob, I ran my hand over my mouth and then squeezed my lips, keeping everything I wanted to respond with inside.

By Wednesday, I was at my wit’s end. I knew a week-long funk was probably incredibly minor in the grand scheme of things but I was about to climb the walls. I absolutely could not watch this go on much longer. Something needed to change, or I was just going to snap.

What’s worse, Nicholl was extra snide in practice that evening, tossing barbs my way every time he spoke.

“What the fuck is his problem?” I asked Cannon, ready to pop the bastard in the mouth the next time he even looked at me.

“Rumor is his dad reamed his ass for how poorly he played on Saturday.”

I made a face. “Really? What’s the big deal? We won. We’re still going to playoffs. It’s not like he’s trying to get into the professionals or anything and has to impress any scouts.” When Cannon lifted his eyebrows meaningfully, I snorted. “Wait. Is he?”

“That’s what I’ve been hearing.”

I shook my head. “Wow. Well, good luck to him,” I offered bitterly, knowing it’d never happen. Topher Nicholl just wasn’t NFL worthy.

After practice, I stopped by my sister’s dorm at Dandridge for my weekly check-in.

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