Page 92 of After the Snap

“I threw a pick and put the ball on the ground.”

“And I’m talking about my play.” He gets the glove off and shoves it into the waistband of his pants. “You can have your shit. I’m keeping mine.”

I’m ready to point out that his route didn’t hand Houston the ball twice when Sullivan joins us inside the tunnel.

“I missed the linebacker on the drive before halftime.”

“You did.” King laughs when Sullivan gives him the finger, and they keep walking.

I fall into step with them, the argument I was ready to make still sitting behind my teeth. I’m used to walking off the field after a loss, already sorting through everything I need to claim before someone else can put it at my feet. I don’t know what to do with teammates who leave me responsible for my mistakes without letting me take theirs.

Coach waits until everyone is inside before stepping into the middle of the room. “We had chances to win that game, and we didn’t take enough of them. We missed tackles that extended drives, lost leverage when we needed stops, left points on the field, and turned the ball over twice.” His attention moves across the room before reaching me. “Both are yours, Duvall.”

“Yes, sir.”

“The first one, you trusted what you knew instead of what you saw. The second one, you saw exactly what you needed and decided it wasn’t enough. I expect you to fix both.”

“I will.”

Coach holds my gaze long enough for me to know there’s nothing comforting coming, then moves on to the next player and the next mistake. I wait for him to circle back because quarterbacks don’t get to disappear into the collective after putting the ball in the other team’s hands twice, but he has already given me what is mine and expects me to fix it.

After he dismisses us, I peel the tape from my wrists while Tuck and Easton go back through Houston’s last third-down conversion across the room. Sullivan is stripping off his pads, and King is already giving him shit about something else. The loss follows all of us into the same, ordinary post-game routine. My phone sits inside the locker beside my bag, with Calliope’s name on the screen, and I stop pulling at the tape.

She watched the interception, but she also watched what came after it. She saw me recognize what Houston had done, wait for the coverage instead of assuming it, and make the better decision when they tried to bait me again. But the fumble never got an after. I can still see Sullivan breaking open underneath, and I know exactly what I should have done differently. Knowing has always been the beginning of fixing something, but the clock ran out before I could put the correction anywhere except inside my head. Calliope hasn’t seen that version yet.

Once the tape is free, I reach for my phone. There’s one message from her beneath the notifications I ignore.

Pea

You alive, Old Man?

My laugh catches painfully against my ribs. On any other night, I’d already be giving her shit for questioning the durability of a professional athlete, but my first instinct is to give her the same answer I’d give anyone else. I type that my ribs are fine and stare at the lie until I delete it.

Alive. Ribs fucking hurt.

Her reply appears while I’m untying my cleats.

I knew that QB sneak was going to hurt you.

My fingers stop against the laces. She watched everything that happened today, and this is what she gives me first.

It worked.

You’re impossible.

A smile spreads across my face as I work the knot loose. She isn’t telling me I played well when we both know I didn’t, but she isn’t asking me to account for the loss either. The conversation feels exactly like the one we had before kickoff, when she called me old, and I knew she was going to be watching.

Are you heading to the airport soon?

The bus leaves in twenty minutes.

I could leave it there. I still need to shower before we leave, giving me the perfect excuse to put my phone down, but my thumb hovers over the keyboard. I know she’s awake, and I don’t want to stop talking to her.

You going to be awake when I land?

The typing bubble appears almost immediately.

Probably. Some of us have very important staying-up-too-late things to do.