We Come Alive

Mateo's Words

Jacob walked down the hallway of his home and down the stairs. He saw his mom waiting for him at the bottom with an anxious look on her face.

"Are you sure you wanna go, Jacob? You can stay home today. I don't mind at all." His mom, Nichole, explained.

"Mom, its fine." Jacob assured her. "Today I have football practice anyway, so I gotta go."

Jacob kissed his mom's cheek before heading to the door. Nichole followed after but Jacob was already walking out the house.

"I don't want anything to happen to you." Nichole worried.

Jacob chuckled as he shook his head. "Nothing is gonna happen, Mom. I'll come home after practice."

Jacob didn't look back as he heard his mom saying goodbye to him. He walked all the way to school without a incident. Jacob walked to his locker, grabbed his books, and walked to his first period class.

When he got there, Jacob saw his new found friend Julian. Julian looked up at Jacob and smirked. Jacob sat down in his usual seat next to him and set his books down.

"Hey." Julian greeted. "How's it going?"

Jacob shrugged. "I'm alright. My mom is driving me crazy though. She apparently wants me to be locked up in the house for the rest of my life now."

Julian laughed. "Really? Did you even know Ryan?"

Jacob shook his head. "Nah, I met him once. Never talked to him after that, so when all of this happened I didn't really have any take on it, you know? I hoped Ethan, Clover, and Diego were okay. And of course I felt bad for Ryan for feeling that way. But at the end of the day it wasn't my battle to fight. I had nothing to do with it."

Julian nodded understanding what he meant. "Are you gonna go to Ryan's funeral this Saturday? It's an open invitation to all of the Grand Ridge high schoolers."

Jacob stopped for a moment and looked down at his books. He hadn't heard anything about the funeral. "I don't know." He answered. "Should I?"

Julian shrugged. "I'm just going to stop by to pay my respects. He was a decent kid, I never hung out with him like that but he was alright. Ask your friends if they're going before you make a decision. Maybe if they don't go because of what he did, than you shouldn't go. But knowing the football players, they're respectable people. If some go, it's to pay their respects to a dead teenager and a kid who walked the halls with them."

Jacob nodded understanding what he meant. He just shrugged not knowing if he wanted to go or not. He sighed as he sat back in his seat and listened to the bell ring. Jacob watched the teacher start the class while his thoughts roamed his mind. He didn't know whether he was going to go to Ryan's funeral or if he was just going to sit it out.

~**~

After school was the first football practice after the school shooting targeted at them. Mateo stood in the locker room with the rest of the coaches waiting for his players to gather inside. He told them to not change and to just sit on the benches.

Mateo saw all of them looked surprised as some of the last football players walked into the locker room. Mateo turned around and saw Diego walking in with Clover behind him. Both of them looked at their teammates then to their coaches.

Diego walked over to his teammates and stood along the lockers since there wasn't enough space for all of them to sit. Clover walked over and saw a group of her teammates get up and offer their seat to her. She gave them a smile as she sat down.

Mateo looked between the two and sighed deeply. He looked away from the team and took a few deep breaths. He pulled himself together before turning back to them. "Okay, I know I've canceled nearly all of the practices this week because of what happened Monday. What happened was a tragedy. It's an example to all of you that words hurt. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will kill me. I don't know who bullied this kid, I don't know why, but what I know is that when I heard you 50 were the targets...it nearly killed me. When I heard that three of my players were shot, I felt like my soul left my body. I have one child, a daughter, she's your age and I care for her like I care about all of you. Just because you're bigger than some kids and more confident than some kids doesn't give you the right to bully them. And I know that the people who had a gun pointed at them didn't hurt this boy, but some did."

The entire locker room was silent as they listened to Mateo's words. None of them said a word or interfered with his speech to them.

Mateo sighed as he looked over all of them. He knew that some of their ways of dealing with this, was to play football like they did with everything else in their lives. Mateo knew that some of the players' therapy was on the gridiron.

"As far as football," Mateo begun, "we got a game Friday. We got a lot of work to do. If you wanna leave and go home, you can leave. If you wanna stay and put on some work out clothes we'll run some drills. I'm not forcing you to practice today or play tomorrow. You don't wanna play tomorrow night, tell me before 5 o'clock tomorrow. You don't tell me, you're playing. I know you're all still going through a rough time, but as your coach I have to keep some type of order. You're dismissed."

Mateo walked off and to his office. When he looked back over his shoulder, he didn't see any of them leave the locker room. They all just went to their lockers to change. The only person who left the locker room was Clover and she was coming to his office.

"What can I do?" She asked softly.

Mateo smirked. "You're the quarterback. You're the back bone of this team. So you're going to continue to be that. Just on the sidelines without your padding on and with a headset on your pretty little head."

Clover smiled. Mateo gave her a small smile, knowing she didn't want to give up her spot as the quarterback and being the assistant coach would keep her in action.

Mateo nodded his head for her to follow him as he grabbed his play book and went out to the field. They saw the Jaguar footballers who attended this practice running their warm up drills.

Mateo blew his whistle for them to pay attention to him. He dropped the whistle out his mouth and looked over them. "This is Clover. You're new assistant coach until she's healed. You listen to her just like you always did. Now, let's get to work, gentlemen."