Guys Read: The Sports Pages Read Online Free Page A

they’d come from his own mouth.
    His parents looked at each other.
    His father winced. “I don’t want you to get your hopes up, Jake.”
    â€œBut you can live anywhere. Remember Sue’s friend? Her family was out in Huffton.” Sue was Jake’s sister, and her best friend traveled an hour each way just to attend IH.
    â€œIt’s not getting there.” Jake’s mom spoke softly. “You’re not listening. IH isn’t something we’re going to be able to afford , Jake. We’re all going to have to make sacrifices. Eastview’s public school is fine. And if we move out of town, we’ll find another good place.”
    â€œBut … football.”
    â€œMaybe next year we could find a place in Lawtonberg,” his mother said. “They have some reasonable homes, and a good high school team, right?”
    His dad’s face crumpled. “Did you hear what I said? We’re talking about the business I built up from nothing. You’re worried about high school football?”
    Jake stabbed at a chunk of apple and dug it free from his pie without eating it. “Sorry.”
    â€œWe’re all going to be fine.” His mother flashed a smile across the table at them.
    The sweetness and light in her voice filled Jake with dread. That’s how it worked with her: the sweeter she sounded, the worse things really were. Jake excused himself.
    â€œWhere are you going, Jacob?” His dad growled like Jake was jumping ship or something.
    â€œLet him, Frank. He loves that football.”
    Jake jogged upstairs and threw himself on his bed. If it even was his bed anymore. Did it belong to the bank now? He wove his fingers through his hair and pulled until it hurt. He remembered his words to Bobby about being rich not mattering, and he screamed into the pillow. When he said that to Bobby, he was talking about cars. The kind of car you drove didn’t matter, but going to IH? That mattered. How could he not go to IH? They said you could make things happen by visualizing them. If that were true, he had to get into IH.
    Jake didn’t get online. He didn’t play Xbox. He didn’t text anyone. He sat staring at the wall before he got up and ran his fingers over the framed pictures of all the football teams he’d played on since he was six. That brought him to his trophies. He held the smooth, cool figures to his lips—not to kiss, but to truly feel them and remember the sweat and pain he’d suffered to help earn them.
    The final and biggest trophy was from last year’s Junior High District Championship. Jake turned it over in his hands, then took the picture off the wall behind it, remembering last year’s eighth graders who’d gone on to high school. He smiled at the way he and his classmates had changed so much in just one year. Last year, Bobby’s hair was gone with a buzz cut. Jake’s had been longer, so that his straight brown hair hung down into his eyes like a shaggy dog’s.
    His gaze went back and forth between Bobby and Dirk Forester. Dirk went to IH. Like Bobby, Dirk lived in the apartment complex next to the Wal-Mart. Like Bobby, Dirk had been a wild man on the field, but Dirk was not as nice off it. Dirk was at IH. Bobby would be at IH. Jake’s stomach twisted as he wondered where he would be.
    He studied Bobby’s face. It didn’t look so mean. Bobby was fun, and funny, almost laid-back—but on the field? Jake rolled his eyes and picked at the dried blood crusted at the edge of his left nostril. Something happened to Bobby on the football field, or even in a stupid game of pool basketball. He was a different person, a person with fire in his belly, in his brain.
    Jake looked at his own face in the picture, framed by the long, dark hair. He didn’t see any fire. He put the picture back on the wall and went into his bathroom—would he have to share a bathroom in their new home? He