Hitting the Wall (UGA SERIES I)

ONE

Grant Carson

I liked praise to be honest. I loved hearing a whole fucking stadium of red and black screaming my name. It was so loud all you can hear are their voices you can't even think. I thrive when I can't think. I believe you make the best passes that come the easiest, especially the ones you don't even have to think about.

The winning pass this afternoon was one of those. I wasn't even thinking about it I just knew. Knew exactly how to throw the ball to make it happen.

And my best friend was there to catch it. He's always their to catch me. When I hit those walls.

The stadium is loud and everyone's cheering, we just beat NC state, which was a good feeling. They weren't are rivals like Tennessee but they were something in the path to victory.

I run up towards Novick and we both know it's chest bump time. "Thank you!" I tell him as we come down from the air.

"No, thank you." He takes me shoulders and shakes them aggressively. Every victory kind of feels the same after a while, but when it's Novick there to pick me up somehow it feels better.

We're quickly surrounded by the whole team yelling and cheering. We weren't as good as we were last year. Some of our best had graduated and so this was our time to prove we were still here thriving. I was still thriving.

Everyone breaks out it barking, it's just the way we cheer as dogs.

All of the guys started to tumble into the locker room. Everyone else wanted to get the sweat off their bodies, I wanted to bask in the victory a bit longer. I knew I was in trouble when I stumbled into coaches office and he had this look on his face.

"Intuition cannot get you everywhere." He tells me with his hands crossed over his chest. He looks a little stupid with his big bushy eyebrows and scruff beard. But Tim Grange was not to be messed with.

He'd been telling me the same thing for three years. Ever since I came here as nothing but a kid who thought he was everything when he was nothing. "It gets you a step inside. The rest you have to know." He continues to tell me.

Fucking prick, he wont even let me enjoy one victory. "Good game too, Coach." I quip back before turning around to walk out.

"You're gonna chew off that cheek, boy!" He yells to me as I walk out. Good ole southern gentlemen Tim Grange.

I'm met with a bunch of naked guys as I walk through the locker room. I hit the showers letting the cold water cool off my steaming skin. It feels so good but it feels like I'm removing the part of me on the field whenever I shower after practices and games.

I don't know how long I shower but when I come back the are in the locker room are the people I drove here with. My best friends, the guys I shared a townhome with, my team within the team.

Novick Rylins, Logan Perl, and Carter Lurren. Playboys, Heartbreakers and god damn beasts. My best friends.

"You know you always do this little emo thing." Logan tells me. Logan's a blonde boy. He is your traditional Boston raised money hound. He's got it all and he loves to make it known.

I shake my head at them. "What emo thing?" I ask him.

Carter rolls his eyes. "You take a long ass shower after every win. Probably contemplating life, death and all that stuff in between."

All that stuff in between. Really I was just sitting enjoying the win and the coolness on my back. But my best friends were just harping on me. They loved to mess like that.

I turn to the closest ally I have here, my best friend Novick Rylins. "You have your moments, Carson." He tells me before we all leave the locker room laughing.