Running the Numbers

POV: Wren

The football hit my shoulder before I even saw it coming.

One second I was holding my phone up, filming the game for my extra credit points. The next second I was flat on the bleacher bench with a football in my lap and forty people laughing at me through my own livestream.

"Sorry! Sorry, are you okay?" Dash was already running over, hand out, face red under his helmet.

"I'm fine," I said, even though my elbow was throbbing. "You just need to stop throwing like you're mad at the ball."

He laughed, and for a second the whole loud, chaotic field went quiet in my head. Just him. Just that laugh.

Then Coach Ruiz blew the whistle and Dash jogged backward, still looking at me, and I remembered I had a comment section to deal with.

wren did u just get tackled by a FOOTBALL someone typed.

bro catch it next time lol

I tapped my screen back to the game and tried to sound normal. "Okay, decathlon people, that's your action shot for the week. Dash Alvarez with an overthrow that almost took my head off."

I wasn't supposed to be doing color commentary. Ms. Okafor just wanted footage of "school spirit in action" for extra credit points toward our next competition. But somewhere between kickoff and now, I'd turned into the unofficial narrator of Larkwood's season opener, and honestly, I didn't hate it.

I especially didn't hate that it meant I had a reason to watch Dash all night.

Which was a problem. A whole entire problem. Because Dash Alvarez was the starting quarterback and the guy who called me "Wren the Brain" in fourth grade and somehow, somewhere between then and now, had turned into someone whose laugh did things to my stomach. And I had never once told him that, because that would mean admitting it to myself first, and I was not ready for that kind of homework.

The next play started. I lifted my phone again.

Dash dropped back, scanned the field, and threw.

The ball sailed six feet over his receiver's head and bounced into the grass.

That was the third overthrow in two quarters.

I lowered my phone slowly. Something felt off. Dash didn't miss throws like that. Dash was the guy who once threw a paper ball into a trash can from across the classroom without looking. His arm didn't shake. His aim didn't slip.

But tonight it kept slipping.

I zoomed in without really thinking about it, the way you do when your gut tells you to pay attention even before your brain catches up. His shoulders looked tight. He kept glancing toward the sideline instead of the field, like he was checking to see who was watching.

I followed his eyes.

That's when I saw the man in the navy jacket.

He was standing near the fence with a clipboard, not cheering, not really doing anything but watching and writing. His jacket had a small crest stitched over the heart gold letters on navy blue. I squinted through my camera zoom until the letters came into focus.

Redgate.

My stomach dropped in a totally different way than it had a second ago.

Redgate wasn't just any school. Redgate was the school. The one with the scholarship program every athlete in our district whispered about like it was a fairy tale ending. If a Redgate scout was here, watching Dash specifically, that meant this wasn't just a normal Friday night game anymore.

That meant everything Dash did tonight actually mattered.

Which made the overthrows so much worse.

I should have kept filming the game. Instead I found myself tracking the man in the navy jacket instead of the ball, watching him write something down every time Dash missed. My chest felt tight and I didn't fully understand why yet. It wasn't just for Dash. It was for me too, in some weird twisted way I didn't want to look at too closely like if Dash got something amazing, maybe some small good thing would land on me too, just from being close enough to see it happen.

That's stupid, I told myself. Focus on the assignment.

I didn't focus on the assignment.

At halftime, players jogged toward the sideline for water and I trailed along the fence, phone still recording because I forgot to stop it, honestly, my brain had officially left the building. I wanted to catch Dash's face up close, see if he looked as rattled as his throws looked.

Instead I caught something I definitely wasn't supposed to.

Coach Ruiz was standing near the equipment bags, talking low and fast to the assistant coach. I wasn't trying to eavesdrop. I swear I wasn't. But sound travels weird on a quiet field, and his voice carried straight to where I was standing, half-hidden behind the fence post.

" can't put him out there next week if the grade doesn't come up," Coach Ruiz was saying. "Chemistry's the one class standing between him and eligibility. If he fails that midterm, he's benched. District rules, not mine."

The assistant coach said something I couldn't hear.

"I know Redgate's watching," Coach Ruiz snapped, quieter now, like he'd just remembered how far his voice could go. "That's exactly why I need him passing. A scout doesn't care about a kid who can't suit up."

My whole body went still.

Benched. Dash could get benched. Not because of his arm, not because of his aim because of a chemistry grade nobody talked about, nobody warned him was that serious. I'd heard rumors before, some kid in my study hall saying Dash was struggling in Mr. Feldon's class, but rumors were just rumors. You hear a hundred rumors a week at Larkwood. You don't believe the ones about your crush failing a class that could end his entire season.

Except now I did believe it. I'd just heard it straight from the coach's mouth.

And Dash didn't know that a scout from his dream school was standing forty feet away with a clipboard, watching him overthrow pass after pass, completely unaware that one bad test grade could erase this whole night before it even mattered.

He was out there right now, laughing with his teammates, splashing water on his face, acting like Friday night was just Friday night. He had no idea his whole future was balancing on one class he was apparently failing.

I knew. And he didn't.

That thought sat in my chest like a stone. It felt wrong, holding a secret that big about someone I okay, fine, someone I liked. It felt like standing on the edge of something and not being able to warn him it was there.

I should tell him, I thought. I should walk right over and say something.

But what would I even say? Hey, I overheard your coach say you might get benched, also I've had a crush on you since fourth grade, anyway good game? No. Absolutely not. I wasn't that brave and I definitely wasn't going to blow up his night like that in front of everyone.

So I did the only thing I could think to do. I lifted my phone again and kept filming, because that's what I was there for, because it gave me something to hide behind.

I didn't notice the little red dot in the corner of my screen. The one that meant I was still live. The one that meant every single word Coach Ruiz had just said had gone out to everyone watching my stream not just the forty decathlon kids anymore.

My phone buzzed in my hand.

247 watching flashed across the top of my screen.

Two hundred and forty-seven.

A comment popped up right under it, and my stomach dropped straight through the bleachers.

wait... is Dash getting BENCHED?? did I hear that right???

Then another.

OMG is this real

Then another, and another, stacking up faster than I could read them, the numbers climbing, climbing, climbing.

I stared at the screen in my shaking hands. The whole thing was still recording. Still live. Still streaming straight to the entire school's group chat, and possibly, judging by the notifications exploding across my screen, way past just our school by now.

I had just told two hundred and forty-seven people and counting Dash's biggest secret.

Before he even knew it himself.