Ninety-five degrees, and the heat doesn't sit on the field—it presses into your sternum like an iron plate. Out here on the college turf, the rubber pellets heat up until they smell like scorched tires, rising through the soles of my cleats until the arches of my feet burn—Hell Week isn't just an intimidating metaphor. Coach Ace is pacing thirty yards out, his whistle swinging from a sweat-stained lanyard, screaming about gap discipline to guys who are already seeing double. Ten yards back, Sean has his hands clamped on his knees, spitting dry cotton into the hash marks. We've been running the same isolation drills since 10:00 AM. My jersey is soaked through, salt crusting around the collar, heavy as chainmail, and every muscle in my legs feels like chewed rope.

"One more rep!" Coach Ace barks across the chalk.

I don't drop, and I don't bend. If you bend out here in camp, they smell the blood. Every time I was exhausted, my auntie would joke about me being young, like my twenties were some magic potion, but youth isn't keeping this sun from treating me like a doormat. What locks my cleats to this turf isn't young blood—it's the desperate belief that my endurance can buy moms out of a lifetime of survival. A full-ride college scholarship isn't a trophy; in my house, it's an exit visa.

Every athlete grinds through four years of high school praying to earn a letter of intent like this, but nobody warns you about the weight once you actually set foot on campus. On this roster, you produce or you vanish, and I didn't come to this university to get redshirted or pushed around. In my family, athletics runs in the bone marrow, but track was the house religion. Liam held university records on the cinder before trading his spikes for a degree that hasn't cleared a single bill. Aubrey had the same stride until life got heavy. Ethan was the only one who put pads on with me—a savage with pro-day dreams until his knee came apart, leaving him with an empty trophy case and a quiet grief he never learned to name. And moms was the core of it all, spending thirty years coming home on swollen ankles, state medals buried in her closet while trusting God to balance a heavy ledger.

Pops didn't care about sports; he'd much rather sleep with a hammer in his hand. He put in graveyard shifts and showed me what unyielding labor looked like. The talent was a birthright; the endurance came straight from him. I'm the only card left on the table. I didn't take this scholarship just to play college ball—I took it so moms wouldn't have to choose between blood pressure medicine and the lights staying on. If surviving Coach Ace's whistle is what clears the check, I'll run drills until my lungs tear.

"Alright, that's it!" Ace's whistle cuts through the stadium air. "Hit the lockers. Hydrate. Six in the morning tomorrow!"

Helmets hit the turf before the echo even dies. Guys are slumped over, staring blankly into the hot rubber infill, completely spent. Sean, though, is entirely in his element—cracking up with the tackles, unbothered, while my own legs feel like lead pipes dragging across the green carpet toward my gear bag. I yank the laces loose on my shoulder pads and let the plastic drop.

When I finally lift my head, the entire field blurs—then my eyes catch on the sideline. Two girls cutting through the heat, but it's the quiet one holding the frame. Deep brown skin that catches the late afternoon glare like oiled cedar. She isn't rushing. She moves through the glare with a quiet, deliberate gravity—the kind of posture that belongs to someone who has already survived something heavy and refuses to let the noise touch her. I stop mid-stride. Right then, she turns. Her eyes meet mine straight across forty yards of scorched rubber, steady and unbothered, refusing to give the ground back.

The girl next to her nudges her elbow, and the spell snaps. She looks away toward the track while I stand frozen, one fist hooked into my gear strap—lungs burning, but for the first time today, the oxygen isn't about running drills.

Sean's palm smacks the top of my pad. "Yo," he laughs, dropping his helmet to his hip. "You planning on blinking, or you just gonna stare clean through her?"

I don't drop my gaze. "Who is that?"

Sean looks out toward the fence. "Who, the light-skinned girl?"

"No. Don't point," I say, pulling his arm down. "Her friend."

Sean squints, then shakes his head with that slow, patronizing grin. "Oh. That's Faith."

"Faith," I repeat, the name rolling off my tongue like cold water.

"That's Josh's girl, fam," Sean says, cutting the floor right out from under me. "QB1 Josh. Plus, she's got like five years on you, Kev. And didn't you just get serious with Mia back at the dorms?"

"Relax, fam," I laugh, adjusting the duffel on my shoulder. "I asked what her name was, not for her hand in marriage."

"Uh-huh. I know that look," Sean laughs, turning toward the locker tunnel. "Leave it alone, bro. That's a closed door."

I head toward the tunnel, letting Sean's voice echo against the runway. He's right. I've got Mia. I've got a scholarship to defend at 6:00 AM. There's no room on my plate for someone else's woman, but the air behind me feels charged. Just before the concourse cuts off the sun, I throw one last look across the turf. She's framed against the sun-baked iron fence—not looking at the quarterback, but directly at me.

Forget it, I tell myself, stepping into the damp chill of the tunnel. That'll never happen.