Page 76 of Resisting the Fall

I lifted my chin. “You don’t just throw in the towel when there’s still time on the clock.” I was pretty sure that was a sport reference of some kind, though I couldn’t say from which sport. Maybe boxing? “So I refuse to give up.”

Ben’s gaze searched mine, like he knew there was a deeper meaning to my comment. Which there was, but also, it wasn’t relevant to now. Our clock had run out over six years ago.

“I’m with Maven.” Liv sent me a smile. “Until that final second runs out, we shouldn’t lose hope.”

“It’s not losing hope,” Ben said. “It’s looking at the facts. We can’t win.”

I kept my gaze forward this time. “Sometimes there’s more in play than just the facts.”

The two teams lined up, and following the snap, the quarterback handed the ball to a running back who only gained four yards. After an Autumn Ridge timeout, the next play went even worse for Poplar Grove High when our guys made a tackle for a loss of two yards.

I sent Ben a satisfied smile, but his gaze was on the clock.

The time continued to tick down from 1:28 to 1:27, then 1:26.

“Why hasn’t the clock stopped?” I asked, watching those precious seconds pass. Our players were lined up at the line of scrimmage, but the other team were taking their sweet time with the huddle.

Ben glanced at me. “The clock doesn’t stop when a running play is called dead as long as the runner stays in bounds. And since Autumn Ridge is out of timeouts, the only way to stop it would be an incomplete pass, a turnover, or Poplar Grove running the ball out of bounds. None of which they’re going to risk.”

My shoulders fell slightly. Exactly as Ben had predicted, Autumn Ridge wouldn’t have another chance to score.

“Don’t lose hope,” Liv whispered, leaning toward me.

I gave her a small smile, but even with her encouragement, I could hardly watch as the offense lined up again. Poplar Grove waited until the play clock had two seconds left before a nearly identical situation unfolded—the quarterback handed the ball off, though this time for a three-yard gain.

Only forty-six seconds remained on the game clock. And again, it didn’t stop.

My stomach was in knots, and the next play seemed to take forever. With only eight seconds left in the game, Poplar Grove finally snapped the ball. Autumn Ridge’s defense came at the running back like a group of charging bulls, and to avoid the collision, the running back fled backwards instead of forward. Out of nowhere, from the far side, one of our defenders slammed into the Poplar Grove player so hard that the ball went flying from his hold.

Ben shot to his feet, immediately followed by the rest of us. “Get it,” Ben yelled, the echoes of similar sentiments being shouted all around us.

And then it happened. An Autumn Ridge player scooped up the football and took off down the field. For such a big boy, he was moving fast, flanked by his teammates who were preventing any of Poplar Grove’s offense from getting to him. Liv and I jumped up and down, gripping each other’s hands.

“Run!” we yelled in unison. “Run!”

As if he could hear the crowd’s shouts warning him that the other team’s players were closing in, he picked up speed in one final push and crossed into the end zone.

I lifted my arms, turning toward Ben. “Touchdown!”

Ben was grinning, shaking his head as he clapped.

“We don’t have to make a big deal about how I was right,” I said, “unless we want to.”

“What?” He gestured to the celebrating crowd. “I can’t hear you.”

The cheering was loud, but not that loud. “You never were good at admitting when you were wrong.”

He shook his head, pointing to his ears like he still couldn’t hear me.

I ignored him, turning back to Liv. Then his hand came to my back and he leaned down, his warm breath tickling my ear.

“You were right.” His quiet voice somehow dimmed the surrounding noise. Or maybe it was how focused I was on the feel of his hand still against the small of my back.

I turned my head toward him, his mouth now only inches from mine. “See? That wasn’t so hard.”

“Just because I made it look easy doesn’t mean it was.”

Despite myself, I smiled. “Well, practice makes progress, and I’m guessing you’ll have plenty of opportunities to be wrong over our next seventy-two hours together.”