Fixing Her

Chapter XXI

Parker gets up and excuses himself before walking past me and Iona, bowing a bit and telling Thomas something, and then rushing away. Thomas tells Iona something and disappears as well, and a few minutes later the both of them are down on the field with Dylan.

"Dylan's aggression is on again," Iona says. "The guy's a five year old kid, but he's got a temper like a nuclear bomb. Probably the only thing all of them have in common."

"But what happened?" I ask, just as Dylan starts screaming at Parker and Thomas.

"I don't know."

Out of practically nowhere Landon is on the field as well. This isn't only because of Dylan's aggressiveness, there's something more to it.

After a few more minutes of Dylan screaming at all of them, the boys part ways, and Dylan who was only forbidden to play for a while, is now unable to play for the rest of the game.

"What was all that about?" Iona asks when Thomas and Parker come back.

I don't hear what Thomas tells her, but she asks no more questions after his answer.

From the second Dylan stopped playing, the game got a bit more boring, so even though he's been doing nothing but sitting on the bench with arms crossed over his chest and glaring at the guy he tackled, number thirteen, I shoot him a small glance every now and then.

With fifteen seconds left to the game and with our team risking to lose, I look over at Dylan one last time, seeing him in the middle of an argument with the coach. He says something more to him, and then, even though he isn't allowed, even though he can get suspended for breaking a few rules, without taking on the helmet, he runs out on the field. He tackles one of the boys from the opposite team on his way and catches the ball that comes flying towards him. He runs with all his power towards the line with the audience at the border of excitement as they clap and scream and one by one get up on their feet. Even I stand up to see what he's doing.

"Oh fuck it," I hear Thomas say before he gets up as well. "Come on Dylan! Show the son of a bitch what you're worth!"

A few people turn to look at Thomas's sudden exclamation, me being one of them, but he doesn't seem to notice them.

Just as the time runs out, Dylan throws himself over the line, and if the audience were crazy before, I have no idea how to describe them now. They're like that pretty little girl from Despicable Me when she sees the stuffed unicorn.

A second after Dylan stands up, he's surrounded by teachers and judges and teammates and team-enemies and everything, the other team yelling at him as teachers try to calm them.

"I'm going down to check on him," Parker informs us. "You can go home."

"Oh hell no," Thomas says. "If there's someone who wants to see how this ends, that's me. Here." He turns to me and gives me the keys. "You and Iona can leave if you want to."

"I'll stay with you," Iona says. "Someone needs to make sure all of you don't end up behind bars."

"Yeah, love you too."

"You wanna go home?" Parker asks me as Iona and Thomas start walking.

"It's fine, you can stay," I tell him. "I'll walk home, take these."