Rise Above by Shannon Knudsen

Author:Shannon Knudsen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lerner Publishing Group

10 / SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 23—AT HOME

I don’t think I really knew what the word bittersweet meant until that moment. We were going to the finals—something I’d dreamed of doing since Coach Z’s Half Backs youth camp. And it was happening in my sophomore year. Not only that, but I’d played a key part in getting us there. Yeah, this was some kind of sweetness.

But the bitter? Knowing I didn’t do it on my own. Knowing we didn’t do it on our own. I mean, come on, a big chunk of the offense was juicing! Even if some of the guys on the other teams were doing it too, like Coach Kramer was always saying, we’d never know whether our victories came out of our ability, our guts, and our desire—or a pill bottle and a syringe.

We’d never know if we would have won without the juice. Without cheating.

I couldn’t fall asleep that night. When I finally drifted off, I dreamed about needles, dozens of discarded syringes with some kind of foul green liquid dripping from the tips. I woke with a jerk to find myself covered in sweat. It was three a.m.

I sat up in bed and turned on the light. Marion Motley gazed back at me from my desk. I wondered if they had the juice back in the 1940s and 1950s. Would Motley have taken it?

Something in my heart told me no.

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