Damaged Petals.

[djp73]

Better story tbqh

[Soapy]

Better story tbqh

yeah b2b nattys felt a bit unrealistic but still didn't want to go out like this even though, realistically, that's how most Cinderellas end

[Soapy]

Season 10, Episode 8 (Season Finale)
The turf came up to meet him and he stayed down for a second longer than his father would have wanted him to.

He got up. Walked off. The punt team was already jogging past him, helmets bouncing, and he didn’t look at any of them. The sideline opened up around him like it had done all night, trainers and staff and players stepping aside to let him through, and he kept walking until he found the bench and sat down.

He glanced at the scoreboard. A stop. A quick score. Maybe a turnover. Another quick score. He stopped himself. He pulled his helmet off and set it between his feet and stared at the turf between his cleats.

Coach Odom came over. Brice could see his shoes first, the white Nike Pegasus, then the black pants, then the rest of him. He crouched down in front of Brice, one hand on his knee.

“I’m calling it,” Odom said.

Brice opened his mouth. The words were already there. The argument already forming. A stop. A quick score. Maybe a turnover. Another quick score. He stopped himself again.

He could still picture Jimmy’s face when he told him.

"You’ve got an extra mouth piece?" Brice asked him as they walked inside to the sound of cleats clacking against the concrete floors.

"What?" Jimmy said with a puzzled look on his face.

"Don’t worry about it," Brice shook his head, "I need your pads."

"What?" Jimmy repeated, even more incredulous.

"I’m playing the second half," Brice told him with a straight face, "I need your pads, my shit’s at home."

"Brice, what are you talking about?"

"I need your fucking pads, bro, I’m fucking playing."

Brice blinked. The sideline came back. The noise came back. Coach Odom was still crouched in front of him. Brice nodded.

Odom patted his knee and stood up and moved down the line, telling the rest of them the same thing. Brice watched him go. Then he looked down at his hands and started unwrapping the tape from his left wrist, pulling it off in long strips, the adhesive catching on the hair of his forearm. He balled the tape up and dropped it between his feet.

He hung his head. He tried to make out the individual blades of artificial grass, bent and flattened where cleats had driven through them.

He was done. He was really done.

He sat there for another second. Let himself feel it. The weight of it. The finality. Social media was going to have a field day with this one. This is what they had been waiting for the last two years. Then he pushed himself up off the bench.

Shane was standing a few feet away, helmet on, waiting for the defense to make a stop or, more likely, concede a score.

“It’s your turn now,” Brice dapped him up, pulling him in for a quick hug. “You’ve been waiting for this. It starts now."

Shane nodded. Didn’t say anything.

Brice moved down the sideline. Rashad was standing near the Gatorade table, his helmet in his hands, watching the field. Brice came up beside him and Rashad looked over.

“This is only the beginning for you,” Brice said. He put his hand on the back of Rashad’s neck and squeezed. “You hear me? This is just the start. You better bring that shit home next time you go to New York.”

Rashad nodded. His mouth quivered. Brice let go and kept walking.

Jesse and Corey were sitting next to each other on the bench. They looked up when he approached. Brice didn’t say anything. He just stood in front of them and they both stood up and the three of them came together, arms around each other, foreheads touching. Nobody spoke.

They broke apart. Brice clapped Jesse on the shoulder. Nodded at Corey. Kept moving.

He crossed the sideline to the defensive side. The first team defense had been pulled too. He worked his way through them, dapping each one, saying something when something needed to be said, saying nothing when nothing did. They all looked at him the same way, like they knew what this was, like they were feeling it too.

Jo’Ziah was at the end of the bench. He was sitting with his elbows on his knees, his helmet off, staring at the field. Brice stopped in front of him. Jo’Ziah looked up then got up and they hugged.

Brice’s eyes burned and he pressed his mouth shut and held on.

“I’m sorry, man,” Brice said. His voice cracked on it. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get you that ring.”

Jo’Ziah laughed. He pulled back and wiped at his face with the back of his wrist and laughed again.

“Man, fuck that,” Jo’Ziah said. “We showed them boys we wasn’t no fluke, man."

He grabbed Brice by the back of the neck and pulled him close again.

“And you got me a ring, nigga,” Jo’Ziah said. "Big Ten champions, motherfucker."

Brice nodded. He couldn’t trust his voice. Jo’Ziah let him go and sat back down and Brice kept walking.

Abdul was standing by himself near the water coolers. He saw Brice coming and his face crumpled for a moment before he caught it and straightened it back out. Brice walked up to him and Abdul opened his arms and Brice stepped into them.

They held on. Brice could feel Abdul shaking against him, or maybe he was the one shaking, he couldn’t tell anymore. The noise of the stadium faded to a dull roar, like it was happening somewhere far away, and all he could hear was Abdul breathing, ragged and uneven, and his own breathing matching it.

Freshman year. The four of them. Artie and Walter and Abdul and him. The late night regrets. The early mornings to make up for them. Artie gone after one year. Walter gone after one year. Abdul stayed. Abdul stayed when he wasn’t playing, when he was buried on the depth chart, when anybody with sense would have transferred. Abdul stayed and worked and worked and worked and three years later he started every single game at center.

Brice pressed his face into Abdul’s shoulder and held on.

…

The sound guy clipped the mic to the collar of his shirt and ran the wire down his back, tucking it under the fabric. Another guy was adjusting a light stand a few feet to his left, angling it down, then up, then down again. A monitor sat on a tripod near the door, the feed showing him from the chest up, and somebody was crouched behind it making adjustments he couldn’t see.

Ilyssa was huddled with two of the producers a few feet away. Brice could catch pieces of it.

"I get it, I want it to flow but also like we need to make sure we hit some of these points."

"So I should prompt him?"

"No, but you know, make sure we get the draft announcement in there. We can always clean it up in post."

The room was smaller than he remembered. The desk was still pushed against the far wall, though now it had a layer of dust and a stack of mail his mother must have set there and forgotten about. His old bed frame was gone. The mattress was stripped down to the bare springs and pushed against the wall to make room for the crew.

A poster of Deshone Kizer was still tacked above the desk. The corners had curled inward.

The shelf above the desk held his Division 4A MVP trophies. Two of them. His three divisional medals. A framed photo of the St. Joe’s team from his junior year, all of them in their jerseys, arms around each other, grinning. He could pick himself out in the second row. Jimmy was in the front, crouched, his helmet tucked under his arm. His jersey white. He didn’t play in that game but still got to dress out. Brice looked away from that one.

The Purdue trophies had started migrating in over the years. A Big Ten championship hat sat on the shelf next to one of the MVPs. A Rose Bowl commemorative football was wedged between two books he’d never read. His national championship ring.

The sound guy finished with the mic and stepped back, checking something on his tablet. The lighting guy gave a thumbs-up to whoever was behind the monitor. The crew settled into their positions. The camera operator adjusted his grip. The sound guy gave a nod. The producer behind the monitor held up five fingers, then four, then three.

Brice cleared his throat. He looked at the lens. The red light came on.

He opened his mouth.

…

The line at the taco truck was longer than she had anticipated. Connie shifted her weight to her other foot and checked her phone. She only made it to two scrolls before she put it back in her coat pocket and looked at the menu board mounted above the service window, even though she already knew what she was getting.

The couple in front of her had been talking since she’d gotten in line. She hadn’t been trying to listen, but the space between them was narrow enough that she didn’t have much choice.

"A bit ridiculous, isn’t it?” The woman was saying. She had a Notre Dame beanie pulled down over her ears. “Aren’t they supposed to be our rivals?”

The man shrugged. He was holding a coffee from the stand across the hall. “Well, he went to St. Joe’s. He’s probably the best athlete to come out of this county, right?"

Connie looked down at her boots.

“I guess,” the woman shrugged. "Did we just forget what he did in that video? What he said?"

"I’m sure he forgot," the man let out a quick laugh, "He was drunk out of his mind."

“Deplorable," she shook her head, "Absolutely deplorable."

Connie pulled her phone back out. Opened her email. Scrolled past a dozen messages from the university’s messaging system. She closed the app and opened it again. Scrolled the same messages.

The man said something she didn’t catch. The woman laughed. They shuffled forward as the line moved. Connie moved with them.

“Still, though,” the man was saying. “We don’t get a lot of those around here."

Connie put her phone away. She looked at the menu board again. Maybe birria today?

The couple reached the window. The man ordered first. Two burritos, one with extra guac. The woman ordered a quesadilla and a horchata. They paid and stepped to the side to wait for their number. Connie watched them go, the woman still talking, the man nodding along, both of them moving toward the seating area without looking back.

She stepped up to the window. The guy behind the counter was wiping his hands on a towel. He looked at her.

She cleared her throat.

“Hey. Two carne asada tacos, please,” she said. “Extra cilantro. No onions. And a side of rice. Thank you.”

…

The truck idled at a red light. Brice kept both hands on the wheel, his thumbs tapping against the leather were the only sound in the car as they had turned the radio off when James fell asleep.

“When you going back?” he said.

Serena shifted in the passenger seat. He didn’t look over. He could hear the fabric of her jacket move against the leather.

“Haven’t registered yet,” she said. “I need to do it this week, though. Before the deadline.”

He nodded. The light turned green. He eased off the brake and let the truck roll forward.

The silence sat between them. He didn’t reach for it. He kept his eyes on the road, on the cars pulling into the lot ahead of them, on the stadium getting bigger through the windshield. He could feel her waiting. The way she’d gone still beside him, the way she’d stopped fidgeting with the zipper on her purse.

“So Sabrina’s looking for somebody to take her room,” Serena broke the silence. “In the apartment she’s got with Kennedi. She’s moving in with Abdul after this semester, so the room’s open. I was thinking I’d go back this weekend, check it out, figure out classes from there.”

She paused. Brice kept driving.

“I’m not trying to get stuck with nine-ams again,” she said. “That was a nightmare last fall.”

He nodded. The parking lot entrance was coming up on the right. He signaled and turned in, the truck bouncing over the speed bump at the entrance. James stirred in the backseat, made a small sound, then went quiet again.

Brice found a spot near the back of the lot and pulled in. He put the truck in park and sat there for a second, his hand still on the gearshift. The stadium hummed in the distance. He could hear the band warming up, the low thump of a bass drum carrying across the parking lot.

“You can take classes online, can’t you?” he said.

Serena shrugged. She was looking out her window, at the cars filing in around them. Her shoulders went up and came back down. He caught the corner of her mouth moving before she turned her head further away.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe. I’d have to look.”

He nodded.

…

The field was packed. He hadn’t expected that. Selfishly, it was one of the reasons he had misgivings about doing this. A half-full stadium in the middle of January in the cold felt sad and somehow even more pathetic than the Fiesta Bowl ending.

This wasn’t that.

The home stands were full, the visitors’ side was full, people were standing along the fence behind the end zones. He recognized a few faces in the front row. Teachers, coaches, parents of kids he’d played with growing up.

The podium sat at the fifty-yard line. A red carpet ran from the sideline to it, which felt like a lot, but also felt nice. His jersey hung on a frame behind the podium, the number 12 in white against the blue, his name across the shoulders in block letters.

They walked the carpet. The cameras were everywhere, the crew from that morning already in place. He could see Ilyssa with her headset on, talking into her mic, pointing at something. The local news had a camera on a tripod near the thirty. Somebody’s phone was already up, filming.

His grandfather was walking slower than the rest of them. Brice hung back and matched his pace. His grandfather didn’t say anything, just put a hand on Brice’s shoulder and kept walking.

They reached the podium. His family arranged themselves behind it. Tom and Liz in the center, Sophie next to Liz, his grandparents flanking them, Serena standing at the end of the line with her hands clasped in front of her. Brice set James down and Liz took his hand. James looked up at the crowd and his eyes went wide and he pressed himself against Liz’s leg.

The athletic director stepped up to the podium first. Brice tuned most of it out. Something about legacy. Something about St. Joseph’s tradition. The crowd applauded in the right places. The athletic director introduced the principal, who said a few words about the locker room dedication, and then Coach Lanovoi, who talked about the weight room and Jimmy’s name going on the wall, and Brice had to look at the turf for a second when he heard that.

Then they called his name.

The noise when he stepped up to the podium was something he’d carry with him. He’d played in bigger stadiums, louder ones, but this was different. This was people who’d watched him grow up, who’d watched him throw his first touchdown on this field, who’d watched his brother play on this field before him. He set his hands on the sides of the podium and looked out.

He could see Eric and Marcos and Brandon in the front row of the home stands.

He looked down at the speech he’d written on his phone and then he set the phone on the podium and didn’t pick it back up.

“Thank you,” he said. His voice came through the speakers and bounced off the press box and came back to him. “Thank you all for being here. I feel like the president right now. Well, depends which one we’re talking about."

A laugh went through the crowd. He smiled.

“I want to thank Coach Odom, Coach Henson, Coach Lanovoi, all the coaches who pushed me, who believed in me when I didn’t always believe in myself. The training staff that kept me on the field. My teammates, at St. Joe’s and at Purdue, the guys who took hits for me, who blocked for me, who caught balls they had no business catching. I know, I threw a few hospital balls over the year.”

He paused. They laughed.

“I want to thank my family. My parents, who drove me to every practice, every game, every camp. My grandparents, who have always supported me. My sister, who put up with me and my friends crashing the house after games on Saturdays and leaving my cleats in the hallway.”

Another laugh.

“And I want to thank my son,” he stopped himself, steadying his voice. “For reminding me what matters.”

He paused again.

"I want to thank my brother. Jimmy. You’re always in my heart. I carry you everywhere I go. You are the best of me. You are the best of all of us. You’ve always been my number one fan. You’ve always been in my corner. I can only wish to make you proud when we meet again."

He didn’t bother wiping them away.

“They’re putting my name on the locker room,” he said. “And they’re putting yours on the weight room. And I want to say something to every kid who’s going to walk through those doors from now on.”

He looked out at the crowd. At the students in the front row. He recognized some of them. Kids who had been at his camp last spring. Kids who were the younger brother or younger cousin of a former teammate. Sons of his former coaches.

“Be resilient,” he said. “Things are going to go wrong. You’re going to get knocked down. Get back up. Every time. No matter what.”

He could feel his voice starting to go again. He pressed on.

“Be dedicated. To your teammates, to your school, to yourself. Show up when it’s hard. Show up when nobody’s watching. That’s where it counts.”

He took a breath. The crowd was quiet. He could hear the flag snapping on the pole behind the end zone.

“And be kind,” he said. “Be kind to each other. Be kind to the people who support you. Be kind to yourself. Because at the end of the day, that’s what people are going to remember. Not the stats. Not the wins. How you treated people.”

He looked down at the podium. He took a moment. He looked back up.

“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you, Saint Joseph. Thank you, South Bend. I wouldn’t be standing here without you.”

…

LaPenna set the Tupperware lid back on the container and pressed it until it clicked. He wiped the corner of his mouth with a napkin, folded the napkin once, and set it on top of the container. The desk was clean except for the lunch setup, which he’d kept contained to the left side, away from the monitor and the notepad.

His phone buzzed. He picked it up. Fifteen minutes.

He stood, carried the container to the small trash can by the door, and dropped the napkin in. The Tupperware went into his bag, tucked between a folder and his water bottle. He came back to the desk and wiped the surface down with a disinfectant wipe, starting at the left corner and working in overlapping passes toward the right. He balled the wipe and dropped it in the trash.

The hand sanitizer sat on the edge of the desk. He pumped it once into his palm and rubbed his hands together, the alcohol smell filling the space between his face and his hands. He let them air dry while he sat back down and pulled the monitor closer.

The file was already open. He’d pulled it up before lunch and left it there, the way he did with all his afternoon appointments.

Eighteen years old. Detroit. The address history ran down the left side of the screen like a timeline of instability. Three schools by the time he was twelve, a stint at a relative’s house at fourteen, then the prep school in Ohio for his junior and senior years. LaPenna scrolled. The academic transcript from the prep school was a roller coaster. A’s in the classes he cared about. F’s in the ones he didn’t.

The behavioral notes were longer. Detentions for talking back. A suspension for refusing to leave a classroom. Another suspension for an incident that the report described as “physical altercation with a staff member” and the kid’s own statement described as “he grabbed me first.” LaPenna read both accounts twice.

Potential redshirt was the last line. LaPenna closed the laptop. The screen went dark. He pulled the notepad closer and uncapped his pen. He jotted down a few notes.

The door knocked.

LaPenna sat forward. He set the pen next to the notepad, squared them both with the edge of the desk, and looked at the door.

“Come in.”

…

"I’m not talking about a hill behind the end zone, bro. The actual fucking field was on a hill," Marcos was saying, "You’re literally going up the field on a fucking drive, bro."

"Ain’t no way," Brandon shook his head.

"I’m telling you," Marcos laughed to himself, "NAIA is a fucking trip, man. You got to really love this shit."

"Shit, I almost ended up there," Eric interjected, "That portal is a motherfucker."

Austin laughed. Eric shook his head and took a sip of water.

Brice opened the menu and didn’t look at it. He’d ordered the same thing here since he was fourteen. He closed the menu and set it on the table.

“At least you got to play,” Austin said. “I didn’t even make it to camp.”

The waitress came back. Brice ordered his usual. The others ordered theirs. She left and Austin picked up where he’d left off.

"So we’re pledging, right? And one of the tasks is we have to run from the house to this spot in the woods, like two miles away and get like this fucking scroll or whatever and back. Naked. Butt naked."

“No way,” Brice said.

"I told you, twelve," Marcos shook his head, "Y’all white boys be on that gay shit."

"Whatever, ese. Anyway, we do it, right? We run out there, we run back, we’re freezing, it’s like two in the morning, and we get to the house and the door’s locked. We can hear them laughing, right? We’re fucking knocking on this motherfucker, trying to get them to open it, but they’re not budging. Obviously, this was always the plan."

“What’d you do?” Brice laughed.

“Shit, only thing left to do. We walked back to campus. At first, we were like in the woods and shit but at one point, I felt something crawling on my leg."

"In your ass," Eric chimed in. That got a big laugh. Austin ignored it.

"So I’m like fuck that, let’s get on the road. We’re on the road for like five minutes when this truck rolls by. It slows down, looks at us and just keeps driving."

The table erupted. Brice laughed. He looked down at his water glass and turned it in his hands.

Eric was already onto the next story and Brice listened and nodded and laughed when he was supposed to laugh, but his eyes kept drifting past Eric’s shoulder, past the pie case, past the couple at the counter, to the booth six tables down where Connie was sitting with two girls he vaguely recognized.

She’d looked at him when she walked in. Their eyes met and she’d looked away first. He hadn’t looked back since. He was trying not to look back now.

The food came. Brice ate his patty melt and his fries and listened to Brandon talk about a roommate who’d he suspected had stolen his laptop but could never prove it and Eric talk about a coach who’d made the team run stadium stairs at five in the morning because somebody had been late to a meeting, and through all of it he kept his eyes on his plate or on whoever was talking, and he did not look six booths down.

He finished his food and set his napkin on the plate. The waitress was circling, dropping checks, and he saw her coming toward their table and he stood up before she got there.

He walked toward the back of the diner, past the bathrooms, past the kitchen door where the smell of onions and grease was thickest, and he stopped near the service station where the waitresses picked up their orders. He leaned against the wall and waited.

Through the gap between two booths he could see his friends. Eric was still talking, his hands moving, and Brandon was laughing at something Marcos had said. They hadn’t noticed he was gone yet, or if they had, they didn’t care. That was the thing about these guys. They’d known each other long enough that nobody had to perform.

He looked past them, past the pie case, to the booth where Connie had been sitting.

She wasn’t there.

The table was empty. Two plates with food still on them, two glasses half-full of water. They’d left in a hurry. Or they’d just stepped away. He couldn’t tell.

He turned back toward the service station. The waitress was nowhere. He scanned the dining room, looking for her red apron, and when he turned back she was standing in front of him.

He hadn’t heard her come up. She was right there, close enough that he could see the small gold studs in her ears, close enough that he caught the faint smell of something he recognized from a long time ago.

“Hey,” he said. He cleared his throat. "Hey."

“Hey.”

“How are things?”

“I’m alright,” she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Her nails were short, painted a pale pink. “How are you?”

"I’m good," he let out a breath he realized he had been holding in until it was almost too late.

She nodded. Looked past him for a second, then back.

“I heard about the ceremony they had for you,” she said. “Congrats, by the way. On everything."

“Thanks.”

“I hope it goes well for you. You’re going in the draft, right?"

“Yeah," Brice nodded. A bit too vigorously. He slowed down. Then realized he probably should have stopped nodding about a half of second before so he stopped. "Thanks."

He could hear Eric laughing from the booth, the clatter of plates from the kitchen, the bell on the door as somebody walked in. Connie’s hands were clasped in front of her, her fingers working against each other.

“Well, alright,” she said. “It was good seeing you.”

“Yeah,” he said. “You too.”

She turned around. He watched her take a step, then another, and then her shoulders made a small hitch and she stopped. Her face was working. He could see it from the side, the way her jaw tightened and released, the way her brow furrowed and then smoothed out, like she was having an argument with herself and neither side was winning.

She turned back around.

“Why didn’t you choose me, Brice?”

The words came out clean.

“Why didn’t you choose us?”

He opened his mouth and nothing came out. He closed it. Opened it again.

“I—” He stopped. Tried again. “I don’t know. I just—”

He could feel his pulse in his throat.

“It’s not that I didn’t want you,” he said. “Or the—”

She nodded. Once.

“You take care of yourself, Brice.”

She turned and walked away. He watched her go, past the pie case, past the couple at the counter, out the door. The bell rang. She was gone.

“Sir? You ready to cash out?”

He turned. The waitress was standing there, order pad in hand, pen poised.

“Yeah,” he said. His voice sounded like it belonged to somebody else. “Yeah, I’m ready.”

[Soapy]

Editor's Note

► Show Spoiler

This marks the conclusion of this season.



See y'all FNs in August.