Page 186 of Just One More Thing

People think the hardest part of football is the pain. Or the pressure. It’s not. The hardest part is that it asks for all of you.

It takes your body, your head, your time, your sleep, your Sundays, your name. It takes whatever you hand it and holds its hand out for more.

And I used to love that.

Maybe I still do.

Maybe that’s the answer.

Because if I can do this again—walk back into this noise, this machine, the thing that made me and took from me in equal measure—then maybe I can stop looking over my shoulder for a while.

Maybe football can do what it always did.

Demand enough that there’s nothing left over. No room for grief. No room for wanting.

No room for her.

That thought comes in clean and mean, and I hate it on impact because it isn’t true.

There’s always room for her.

I tighten my grip on the helmet until the edge bites into my palm. Not today. Today I play. That’s the agreement.

Football first. Head down. Eyes forward. Do the job.

We’re standing in the tunnel. Ryan on one side of me. Wayne on the other. My brothers. The ones I can lean on when standing takes more than it should.

The roar from the stadium swells and rolls through the concrete in waves. My shoulders lock. My jaw sets. My body knows before my head does what’s coming.

I think about Mom’s hand on my cheek the first time I started a game in high school.You were born for bright lights, baby,she’d said, like she believed that was a blessing.

I think about Dad standing on the dock one summer night, telling me pressure was just proof something mattered.

I think about Mo.

Always.

Whether I want to or not.

A staffer points us into position. The team bunches tighter. Helmets on. Gloves smacking together. Guys bouncing in place, trying to burn off some adrenaline before it eats them alive. Somebody yells. Somebody answers.

Coach grabs my shoulder as he passes. “You with me?”

“Yes, sir.”

He studies me for half a second, then nods.

The lights start flashing.

The cannons fire.

The music pounds through the tunnel floor.

I thought about this moment a hundred different ways. In some versions, it felt easy. In others, it felt like a mistake I was making in public.

None of them felt like this.

I flex my throwing hand and keep walking.