The One & Only(150)

I start to tremble, just as I feel Lucy’s hand on my back. She is pushing me toward her father, right into his arms. I give her a confused look, thinking surely she doesn’t mean for me to hug him, but she nods and says, “I was wrong, Shea. Go to him. You belong with him.”

I stare at her, processing what she’s told me, realizing that I’ve never heard her say those words before: I was wrong.

“Go,” she says, smiling through tears, pushing me again.

So I step forward. Coach grins at me.

“Congratulations!” I shout over the mayhem. Then I close my eyes and collapse against his broad chest, feeling his heart beat through his wet shirt, inhaling his salty skin. “You did it, Coach,” I say, more quietly, directly into his ear.

“Yes, we did it, girl,” he whispers back, squeezing me tighter. “We finally did it.”

I pull back and look into his eyes, and can tell that Lucy has talked to him. That he knew before the game what she has only just said to me. I was wrong.

Then, confirming my wishful thinking, he leans in and brushes his lips against mine. It is the quickest kiss ever, but very much a real kiss, right there in front of Lucy and the entire world. It is the sweetest moment of my life, yet I know there will be even better ones to come. And soon.

“I gotta go,” he says, beaming at me. “But I’ll see you later tonight, okay?”

Light-headed with elation, I smile and nod, then watch as he slips back into a mob of teal. For a moment, he is gone, but he soon reappears, hoisted high on the shoulders of a lucky few players, representatives of everyone who has ever put on a Walker jersey, Miller and Ryan among them. I stare up at Coach, against the backdrop of a black-velvet sky filled with a million stars, a planetarium above the most famous stadium in college football, and marvel that we can be this happy from winning a game.

Then again, I know it’s not the win itself, but everything that went into the victory. The effort. The passion. The faith. The things that Coach Clive Carr has taught me to believe in. The things that endure in defeat, and even death. The things that make football like life—and life like a game of football.