Free The Book of David by Anonymous

this sixteen-year-old girl group that came from some TV show for kids, and they sing the worst pop singles of all time. They’re fast and stupid, and have terrible lyrics. They sound just like the color hot pink. You can totally picture eighth-grade girls jumping up and down and screaming along. The track Tracy is singing to right now has this awful chorus about how some dude is “the one I’ve always wanted,” and they say that like five hundred times in a row. She’s had this album on repeat for two days now. I’m about to lose my shit.
    Anyway, in better news, we beat Central High last night. Didn’t choke. We were up by three at the half, but it could’ve gone either way. I got sacked twice really hard the first two plays of the second half, and on the second one, the ball got away from me. Somehow the defensive lineman from the other team who was closest to the ball kicked it as he scrambled for it, and I grabbed it—but I got piled on pretty hard.
    That put us at third and fourteen on our own forty-yard line. I was not feeling good about it. If we had to punt, I knewCentral would score, and I knew we’d give up the momentum. The hardest thing in football isn’t scoring. It’s keeping the momentum. Getting the ball down the field when you’re behind because you had to punt is somehow twice as hard. The number of yards to the end zone is the exact same as if you’re ahead, but the challenge is all between your ears, as Coach likes to say, and it feels like trying to run through knee-deep mud.
    I knew we had to make the first down or we’d be in serious shit.
    Walker, our center, smacked my helmet when we came out of the huddle and just said, “You got this.”
    And I realized he was right. I could do this.
    He snapped me the ball, and I dropped back. For some reason, our line was screwed, and none of my guys were where I needed them to be. I saw the same dude who had kicked the ball on the last play break free and barrel toward me. I took a couple steps to my right, ready to run for it, but just those two steps to the right gave me a whole new view of the field, and I saw Mike Watters wide open way down on their ten.
    It’s a weird thing to just be in the moment and act on instinct. I’d never completed a pass quite that long before. If I’d had the time to consider that, I’d have psyched myself out. I didn’t have time to think about it—I just knew it was right. So I cocked my arm and let it rip.
    I watched the ball arc down the field in a perfect spiral. Idon’t know if the crowd actually went silent, or if I just couldn’t hear them, but when Mike Watters reached out and got his hands on that pass, the whole stadium exploded, and I wound up on the bottom of a pile again. This time it was my own guys, roaring louder than the crowd. We scored one more touchdown after that, and then I got Casey, our kicker, in field-goal range with a minute left and he kicked a thirty-yard field goal as the clock ran out. That’s what I mean about momentum. That pass sealed the deal for us. It wasn’t even the points. It was the power of knowing that we were in charge.
    After the game, Jon was waiting with Monica and Amy. Monica ran up and hugged me. She and Amy were hoarse from cheering. I saw Erin and Tyler were a little bit behind them. It was slow going with Tyler on his crutches, his leg wrapped in a big white Velcro sheath to keep his knee from bending.
    Jon held up a hand for a high five. I smiled and smacked it. “Hey, man.”
    â€œWhat’s up, ace?” he said. “Nice pass.” Something about the way he was smiling let me know he’d seen that moment with the pass—that split second before I saw Watters down the field and the split second after.
    â€œThanks.” I smiled back at him.
    â€œYou know how to give a guy something to write about,” he said. “This game is another great