Hammer’s right. Luce is my best option.
“Thanks, but it’s true.” She takes a deep breath. “The summer before I came to college, I prepped for weeks for the mock trial tryouts. I wanted to be a lawyer. I’d spent four years in high school mock trial. Had a pre-law track all set out in front of me. I killed my tryout.”
“I’m guessing the story doesn’t end happily?” I take her hand and tuck it into my jacket pocket as we walk out of the room.
“Not once in the fifteen-year history of mock trial club here at Western had it fielded a winning team. We’ve never made it out of Regionals, let alone to a national tournament. After my tryout, everyone was convinced that I was the closer they’d been looking for. So we were at Regionals and we were slaying it. Randall delivered an awesome opening, and I nailed their expert on cross. Caught him making up facts that weren’t in the packet. I was so excited for the closing. So excited.”
Her eyes are gleaming in remembrance, but I know it’s not going to end well, so I brace myself. From what she’s revealed before, it’s not hard to guess what happens next.
“When I stand up to give the closing, I can’t remember a thing. I open my mouth and nothing comes out. It’s eight minutes of total silence. Do you know what that sounds like? What it feels like? It sounds like death and feels worse.” She looks pale, as if her mind—and her confidence—are back in that mock courtroom, suffocating under the weight of silence. “Closings aren’t for me,” she says in a shaky voice.
And neither are risks. I get it now, better than I ever did before. Being with Luce these past couple of weeks has showed me how rigidly she has to monitor herself. What she eats, what she drinks. I don’t blame her for being cautious. The one time she took a step outside her comfort zone, she was humiliated. It’s burned into her psyche.
Success in sports is almost entirely mental. The best quarterbacks have terrible short-term memory. You have to forget your mistakes or be paralyzed by them. Luce hasn’t moved on from that. Still…it says a lot about her that she didn’t quit on the team entirely.
“You’re tough. Anyone else would have quit and run away.”
“I love it too much,” she admits. “Like you love football.”
“I do.” I hesitate, gulping hard.
“What’s wrong?”
I grip her hand tightly. I’m afraid of how she’s going to react and I feel, foolishly maybe, that if I’m still holding her at the end of this, we’ll be okay.
“I hate coming to you like this. I really do, but you’re my last resort.”
Is she really? my conscience chides me. You haven’t really done anything to smooth this over with the team. But Luce is clearly made for persuading people. It’s in her blood. She might not be able to do it in competition but one-on-one? She’d be able to persuade someone to willingly walk the plank. And hell, maybe she’d even want to do this. After all, Ace is her friend. She wants him to succeed, right?
“I really think you’re the only one who can do this.”
“What is it?” she asks warily.
We’ve reached her apartment. I draw her to the side, away from the center sidewalk and down toward the empty parking lot.
“There was a fight in practice today.”
“Oh no. Is that where you hurt your lip?” Her fingers come up to touch the corner of my mouth. “Ace wasn’t an ass to you, was he? He’s going through something right now.”
I nod grimly. “I’m fine. Ace is fine. Physically, that is.”
Her face falls. “Physically? Did the coach talk to him again?”
“You know then? He told you about the QB thing?”
“Yeah.”
“We weren’t supposed to tell anyone outside the team,” I answer, but even though Ace was supposed to keep his mouth shut, I’m relieved she already knows the general gist of the situation.
She shrugs. “Ace doesn’t really think the rules apply to him, and besides, it wasn’t like I was going to ESPN with this or anything.”
“Right.” I exhale heavily. “The situation is grim. I need to say something, ask you something really important.”
Her face pales under the harsh glare of the apartment’s floodlights. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”
I try to think of the most positive spin on this that I can. “I’m only bringing this to you because I think it’s right.” Although I don’t know what’s right other than if our team keeps fighting like we did this afternoon, we’ll be a basket case this fall, and we’ll be lucky to win half our games, let alone make another run at the title. “You can say no, and I understand if you don’t want to hear this, but…I’d like you to make the case for Ace as a safety.”
“No,” she says immediately and turns away, but not before I see the hurt in her eyes.
My stomach falls somewhere around my boots, but I’ve started down this path and I might as well see it to the end.
“What if I told you that I want Ace to succeed?” I ask.
“So?”
“So this isn’t just about me wanting to win another title. I want that, but I’ll admit I’m not as hungry as I was before. A repeat is great, but my aims and goals are different now, and I bet that’s true for Ace. Only he’s not seeing it clearly because all he sees is embarrassment from losing his position.”