Pass Interference Read Free Page B

look now?”
    “No, we can talk about it next time.”
    “Hey, how come you get to take it home and work on it in your spare time and I don’t?”
    Sara laughed lightly. “Because I’m calling the plays in this arena. If you think football has a lot of rules, wait until you see Sara’s playbook.” She smiled, enjoying her momentary authority. “Bye.”

Chapter Two
    After returning to her dorm room that evening, Sara grabbed a yogurt and an apple for dinner, finished her homework, and took a quick shower. She had a private bedroom in a third floor apartment she shared with a roommate in the Evanston Towers. Her dorm felt small to her now that she’d seen how EFU’s privileged athletes lived. Philip’s apartment overlooked a lake, but her building merely overlooked other buildings on campus. Even though it was an apartment for two, it was smaller than Philip’s place, but much neater.
    When she finally settled into bed, she found herself thinking a lot about her new student. In some ways he was exactly what she expected—a jock whose shoe size was bigger than his IQ, but in other ways, he wasn’t at all what she’d imagined. After his friends left the room, Philip seemed like an ordinary guy. She had to admit, she’d enjoyed their banter.
    She felt a little guilty for being so sharp with Philip. In truth, he had done nothing to deserve it. Blame it on that old defense mechanism which, by now, was sewn into the fabric of her personality. Her bravado was a habit, and she wasn’t sure how to turn it off.
    Since she wasn’t tired enough to sleep yet, she reached for the tablet on her nightstand and clicked on Philip’s email. She was prepared for the worst, an incoherent essay filled with self-aggrandizement and typos. What she read surprised her. It wasn’t incoherent at all. Instead, it was earnest and emotional. He titled the composition “Being Sidelined Sucks . ” Sara chuckled a little. It was a crude title for sure, but it instantly conveyed the point of the story, so she had to give him credit for that.
    As for the rest of the paper, Philip explained clearly and succinctly how hard it was to be sidelined after winning his last fifteen games in a row and thirty out of thirty-eight games since he became the Barracudas’ starting quarterback. The tone of the essay wasn’t boastful, though. He expressed disappointment in being unable to lead his team for much of the season. He felt like he was letting them down. More than anything, he hoped they’d keep up the winning momentum without him. He vowed to work hard to stay strong while he recovered, both physically and psychologically. He’d be back.
    Sara leaned back on her pillow. She wasn’t easily impressed, but this was really good. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a compelling narrative. It also tugged a little at her heartstrings, and she wasn’t expecting her student’s assignment to evoke any emotion at all.
    Shaking off the brief bout of sympathy, she looked back at the essay and made some notes in the comments section. It needed a little help with grammar and sentence structure, but really, it wasn’t nearly as bad as Sara had expected.

Chapter Three
    A few days later, Philip was in the doctor’s office for a routine post-op visit. It was the second week of November, and the oppressive Florida heat was finally done for the year.
    It had been four weeks since the incident and two and a half weeks since his ACL surgery. He had torn the anterior cruciate ligament on his right knee once before, but this was his first surgery for it and the doctors were being extra cautious. They recommended he stay in his wheelchair a little longer before graduating to crutches. That was surprisingly fine by Philip, since putting any weight or pressure on his knee hurt like hell. He barely slept since the injury occurred because he simply couldn’t find a comfortable position, and because of another reason—something he couldn’t share with anyone. He was