Noah

Waking up felt like getting tackled by a linebacker.

Not physically — I’d slept, I’d stretched, I’d eaten — but mentally? It felt like my brain had been dragged across gravel.

Today mattered.

Today I was going to ask Jessa Lombardi to Homecoming.

And somehow, that was scarier than a fourth-and-goal play with the game on the line.

⸻

I pushed through the doors of Ridgeville High with Jackson beside me. He looked annoyingly calm for someone who’d witnessed me ...