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Just for a moment, you can see Heather behind the scrolls and curlicues. The next second, she disappears through a doorway to the right, and then all that’s left is a living room—wooden floor, a couch, rugs scattered here and there, an armchair, pictures on the wall. Just a living room, like any other—but this one is Heather’s, and down that hall to the right must be Heather’s room, where she sleeps. In a bed. Mmm.
    It’s five whole days till Saturday. You do not want to leave this porch. You can almost smell her perfume lingering in the air, and you’re not ready to stop floating on it.
    You step off the porch and walk down that long sidewalk all by yourself. Getting into your truck is like slowly letting out a deep breath. You drive away, and everything inside you slowly deflates, till you’re bumping along the road like a day-old balloon that wasn’t quite ready to leave the ceiling.

CHAPTER FIVE
    The first game is an away game.
    In the locker room at the stadium, Cody Billings, the center, takes the offensive line off into a corner the way he always does; Coach wants the linemen to keep to themselves, like a family. A few of the other guys are still messing around, but most are starting to get serious. Brett Stargill bangs his head rhythmically against the wall the way he always does to get himself pumped. Jason Cox leans against the same wall, helmet under his arm, eyes shut, oblivious to the crash and thunder next to him. Dobie edges past both of them with a roll of white tape, not wanting to disturb their rituals.
    You do what you always do: walk around and around, more from habit than anything else. You don’t have those butterflies that always take flight in your stomach just before a game. You can’t feel a single onefluttering inside. It’s as if they’re all dead, and all that’s left is their weight in the pit of your stomach.
    Curtis sits on a bench next to the water fountain. He’s already off in whatever world he goes to before a game. On the bus and in the locker room, he likes to keep himself apart, likes to build his concentration to a pinpoint that’ll knock anybody to their knees if they happen to get in its way. Right now he has his helmet on, chin strap in place, and he’s leaning forward as if praying, elbows on knees as he stares at the floor between his feet.
    You walk along the benches, around the freestanding lockers, and back. Placing each foot precisely on the floor—because that’s what you always do, because you’re always careful to keep the lid on, to keep all that energy trapped inside, ready to be unleashed at the right place and the right time. You can’t feel it tonight, but surely it’s there. Isn’t it? Way underneath?
    On your third trip around the room, you stop to get a drink of water. Curtis is still sitting next to the fountain, but he doesn’t look up. You’re not sure he even knows you’re there. You straighten to wipe your mouth on your sleeve.
    It’s scary, to feel nothing. What if you never feel anything again?
    There Curtis sits, steady and calm as always. It makes you feel better for a moment just to be in the same room with him.
    “A long time ago,” Curtis says to the floor, “when a guy was about to become a knight, he spent the whole night before getting purified. You know, like baths and prayer and getting dressed in ceremonial clothes. And the next morning, when they were about to have the ceremony itself, he’d have all his friends around, helping him to get armed. It was like a ritual.”
    He raises his head then, and looks at you.
    “Everything,” he says, “had to be done exactly right. First, the guy had to be one of the chosen. He had to have the ability, and the desire. He had to be ready on the outside—and then he had get ready on the inside.” Curtis pauses. “He’d use the time before the ceremony to get ready. You know what I’m saying?”
    You nod. For Curtis, football is a moment of single-minded purity that