That Pivotal Moment

Chapter 2

I put my things down as I stood in front of my locker and started to get ready for practice. I had just pulled off my shirt when one of the second stringers came up to me.

"Hayden, Coach wants to see you."

This wasn't a good sign. "Okay, Thanks, -uh..." Shit. What was his name?

The kid kept his eyes on the floor. "Alex."

He turned and left and I cursed under by breath. I should know everyone's name on the team. I get more frustrated as I walked to the coach's office and knocked lightly on the door. I heard his deep baritone tell me to enter and, against my better judgement, I went inside.

Coach Thompson was in his early fifties, thin, six feet tall with thinning brown hair and a receding hair line.

He turned and leaned back in his chair. "Hayden, how are you, son?"

I saw Roy smiling wide in the corner of the office and my feeling went from bad to worse. "I'm fine, coach. What can I do for you?"

He smiled at Roy before looking back at me. "Roy here came up with a great idea to win state this year."

This was only going to end badly. "And that is?"

The coach smiled as he gave me a stern look. "Well, we're going to host some new tryouts."

Bingo. "Coach, we have a full roster. Can't we just work with the guys to help make them better?"

"Hayden, with that new school opening up, there are new guys in this school that may be the only way to help us win this year. I'm cutting the whole team. Everyone has to try out again. Including you and Roy here."

What. The. Fuck. This was insane. "Coach-"

"No. My decision's been made. Now, you can either agree to it or clean out your locker."

I looked at Roy and he seemed like he didn't have a care in the world. He didn't see the trouble it would cause for these players. He didn't seem to realize that holding new try outs would risk them getting kicked off the team. All Roy saw were the possible dollar signs in the future.

Crazy thing was...three months ago, I would probably have been on board with this ridiculous plan. But things were different now. I was different. Unable to look at either of them, I left the office and headed back to my locker.

I just finished putting my uniform on when I saw Alex, the second stringer, emptying his locker. I walked over to him and asked what he was doing.

"Coach told everyone about the new try outs. He told me and a couple of the other second stringers that we could have try outs again, but it was a slim chance."

I punched the locker in front of me. "That's bullshit."

He didn't even look at me. "Please. Like you care. You're one of the star football players. You're spot on the team is safe."

Before I could say anything else, he closed his now empty locker and walked off. I wanted to walk out of the locker room and tell the principal exactly what was going on. But, I knew I couldn't. For one, there were players on the team that actually needed me, and it wouldn't be fair to them. Then there was my dad. He never really recovered and made his dream my dream. Sure, I loved football, but my heart wasn't in it nearly as much as my father's. If I quit, there was no telling how my father would react.

Brad must have seen me hit the locker and he came up to me. "Chill, bro. We need that hand to help us win state."

Brad wasn't too fond of coach or Roy either. He also thought this was a shitty plan, but didn't feel we could do anything about it. "State doesn't seem that important right now."