Page 69 of After the Snap

“Yeah,” I respond, but the confirmation button blurs when I blink. I shake my head before Easton can look away. “No. Actually, I’m terrified.”

Saying it out loud leaves me with nowhere else to hide. I’m not reconsidering the date or wondering whether I want medicine badly enough anymore; I’m scared of what happens if I try this hard again and still fail.

“Okay.”

“Is that the only word either of you knows today?”

“I know a lot of words.” Easton grins as he pushes himself up from the table. “I have a meeting before you get meaner.”

He squeezes my shoulder as he passes, and I catch his wrist before he can pull away. Neither of us says anything about it, but his fingers close briefly over mine before he heads for the door. When I turn back to my laptop, Jubal is watching me. I move the cursor toward the confirmation button but stop before I reach it, knowing that once I click, I don’t get to call this something I’m considering anymore.

“You’re really not going to say anything?”

“Do you want me to?”

Yes. I want him to tell me I’m going to pass. I want him to give me something I can hold on to when I walk into that testing center because he saw what happened when I didn’t get the score I needed. More than anything, I want him to promise I won’t have to survive that again, even though we both know he can’t.

“No.”

“Okay.”

This time, I understand what he’s giving me. Jubal won’t decide for me or soften the choice with a promise neither of us knows he can keep. If I click this button, I have to do it knowing I might fail again.

My hand settles on the trackpad, and my fingers are still trembling when I click. The page refreshes before registration confirmed appears above my name, followed by the testing date I spent all week pretending I might never choose. I read it twice before I trust that it’s there. My eyes burn as I stare at my name beside a new MCAT date, because the last score has felt like the end of something I didn’t know how to reach for again. I just gave myself another chance.

“You did it.” Jubal’s voice pulls my eyes from the screen.

He’s smiling, and seeing his face brings Houston crashing into this moment in a way I wasn’t prepared for. He met me hours after I thought I’d lost this future and held me while I admitted I didn’t know who I was anymore. Now he’s here when I choose to try for it again.

“I did,” I whisper as a smile spreads across my face.

My name is still there beside the testing date when I turn back to the screen, and for once, I let the uncertainty exist without asking it to tell me how this ends. I don’t know what score will be waiting for me when it’s over, but I finally know what happens next.

I’m taking the MCAT again.

Chapter Seventeen

Jubal

“Again.”

King bends at the waist with both hands braced on his knees, slowly turning his helmet toward me. “I need you to know there are people on this team who respect me.”

“Name one.”

Sullivan laughs from where he’s resetting near the line, and King points at him, noting the betrayal, but I’m already looking toward the defense resetting across from us.

The ball came out exactly where it was supposed to on the last rep. King’s break was clean, and if Tuck could’ve finished what he started off the edge, I would’ve had enough time to put the ball between the corner and safety before either could close. There’s nothing wrong with the play, except King drifted half a step too far coming out of his break. On Sunday, half a step is the difference between a completion and giving Baltimore’s safety a chance to put his hands on the ball.

King knows it, which is why he jogs back toward the line instead of continuing to argue.

“Six inches,” I call after him.

He turns around while jogging backward. “Are you criticizing my inches now?”

“Just the ones you don’t know how to use.”

The offense breaks into laughter around me, and King’s mouth falls open behind his facemask.