Page 6
The memory tasted like copper and panic. I had begged. I had practically dropped to my knees, stripping away every ounce of my pride just to plead for a reprieve. But Ed hadn’t cared. He had looked right through my terror, forced his hand, and pushed me off the ledge before I could even learn how to fall. I screamed. I cried. I wasn’t ready, and it hurt, but he didn’t stop.
I swallowed hard, my throat dry as sandpaper. I slammed the treadmill's speed arrow up again. Faster.
But the shift in pace only brought the next shadow creeping out of the glass. George.
Suddenly, the gym around me seemed to shrink, replaced by the suffocating memory of that high school hallway. George had blocked my way like a concrete wall. Packed with dense, brutal muscle, George had eclipsed me. I remembered the sudden, paralyzing sensation of feeling entirely microscopic. Trapped.
The phantom echo of his voice scraped against the inside of my skull, loud and mocking:
“You pretentious little fuck, how many hours do you spend in front of the mirror? You want attention? Well, you got mine. What are you gonna do about it? Accuse me of raping you like you accused Sullivan? How much more attention do you want?”
The words hit like physical blows all over again, knocking the wind right out of me. The humiliation, the raw helplessness, the fury. It all surged to the surface at once.
I ground my teeth, staring through the glass. That condescending bastard thought a simple apology would fix everything. He confessed because he thought he was untouchable, believing that I was nothing, that I couldn't possibly do anything to damage the star anchor of the football team. But he didn't know that I was done playing the victim. I wasn't going to run away this time. He handed me this opportunity on a silver platter, and now I finally had the chance to show George Brooks exactly what it felt like to be targeted. I was going to force him into the same suffocating trap he built for me to watch him scramble while everyone believed the lie, pointed fingers, and looked at him like a disgusting culprit. He made the entire world turn against me back then. Now, I’m returning the favor.
My breathing shattered, turning into a ragged, desperate gasp. My chest hitched. For a split second, the room spun, the boundary between the past and the present blurring into a sickening knot. My stride broke. My left foot faltered, catching the edge of the spinning belt.
"Fuck!"
Before I could correct my balance, my footing gave out completely. The machine took over, violently sweeping my legs from beneath me. I tumbled hard down the frantic, moving track, the black rubber scraping against my skin before I crashed onto the floor.
"Hey, are you okay?"
Suddenly there were voices, footsteps, a crowd gathering around me. I blinked through the sweat in my eyes, and then I saw him. Sam Howard. The football captain. George Brooks' best friend. Seeing his face was like getting doused in ice water.
"Don’t touch me!" I barked, my voice cracking with pure venom.
I scrambled backward, ignoring the stabs of pain in my limbs as I dragged myself to my feet. Pushing past the hands reaching out for me, I stormed out of the gym, leaving them and the mirrors behind.
Chapter Three
George
The stadium lights were blinding, the air thick with the rhythmic roar of the crowd.
"Blue eighty! Blue eighty! Set... hut!"
Scott William’s voice barked out the cadence, sharp and commanding. Ahead of him, Sam Howard snapped the ball cleanly, his massive frame instantly colliding with the defensive line. As Left Tackle, my job was simple: protect William’s blind side. I lunged forward, exploding into the defensive end trying to loop around the edge.
The collision echoed in my teeth. The defender tried to spin, but I locked my hands into his shoulder pads, drove my legs, and buried him into the turf.
Behind me, William had all the time in the world. He stepped up into the pocket and launched a beautiful, spiraling deep ball down the sideline. Greg Bennet tracked it perfectly, leaping over two cornerbacks to snag the ball out of the air and drag his toes in the end zone.
The stadium erupted. Six points.
Greg celebrated with a chest-bump, while Sam ran over to smack his shoulder pads in celebration. I walked back toward the sidelines, chest heaving, a vicious smirk plastering my face under my visor. We were lethal. We were untouchable.
On the sidelines, Coach Loranger clapped me hard on the shoulder pad. "That’s how you seal the edge, Brooks! Keep playing like that and the scouts are going to be fighting over you come spring."
"Yes, coach," I grunted, taking a squirt of water from the trainer.
I stood on the sidelines, my helmet gripped so tight my knuckles were white. I had survived Dean's office, but barely. Thanks to my father’s "donations" and a fleet of high-priced lawyers, the recorded confessions had been legally dismantled, framed as a coerced "creative writing exercise." Dean had let me off with a stern warning and a sealed file.
I felt invincible again. I was back in my jersey, back in my world.
Until I looked up at the Jumbotron.
The feed didn’t show the team's hype video. Instead, a grainy audio wave pulsed across the screen with my headshot dead center. My voice boomed over the stadium speakers, amplified by the massive sound system until it drowned out the wind.
