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"I still don't want to play D-I, though," I put in.

"But you're thinking about it," Brian said.

"No, I'm not!"

"Yeah, you are. Because if you weren't, you wouldn't have brought it up."

"Um ... maybe," I said in a real small voice.

There was a bit of a silence. Brian sighed, hard. "D.J.? I have ... I have a confession to make."

Well, you hear a phrase like that and your heart just stops. And your brain starts going a million miles an hour with
He's got a girlfriend ... His father hates us again ... Smut's asked to move in with the Nelsons.
"Uh, okay."

"You are going to bust me so bad for this, I just know it ... I think I'm going to UW–Milwaukee. And, well, they don't have a football team."

"
What?
But you're an awesome quarterback! How could you not play—"

"That's the thing. They've got a club. They just play for fun. I can still QB but it won't, you know ... it won't be all that pressure."

There was a long silence while I thought about this. I swallowed. "Can girls play?"

Brian started laughing so hard that he dropped his phone. Then he started coughing, he was laughing so much, but he couldn't stop. Finally he calmed down enough to make me swear I wouldn't
ever
go to UW–Milwaukee and show him up. Which, you know, I could never do, because there's no such thing as a club athletic scholarship. The Nelsons might be able to pay for college, but that was the whole point of my playing hoops: it was the only way I could afford it.

I still couldn't help getting a pang, though, at how much fun club football would be.

And I have to admit that it was pretty amazing to hear Brian acknowledge that he wasn't so, you know, lionhearted. (Although when you go to a zoo, all the lions do all day long is sleep their heads off and flick their tails, so why anyone would ever want a heart like that I can't understand.) To learn that he was also freaked about college ball. As wild as it had been to hear about Bill. Or Aaron, who's as big as a house and could tackle a zoo lion all by himself, to hear that even he gets the shakes. It opened my eyes, I guess you could say. Because Brian saying I was brave meant an awful lot more, you know, now that we both knew he kind of wasn't.

Although Brian
was
brave in his own way, braver than I'll ever be when I think about how much courage it took for him to come to our second Hawley game—which had a huger crowd than normal even because this was Hawley's big chance to show that losing to us had been a fluke and our big chance to prove we actually were better even in our tiny beat-up gymnasium—and not only to come, but to sit in the Red Bend bleachers. With the quote-unquote enemy. He sat next to Mom, even. Which was extra particularly brave of him because Mom was so psyched to finally get to see me play Hawley in person that she was probably the loudest person in the building. I noticed Brian didn't open his mouth much, at least not when I was looking. Maybe he figured that being next to Mom he didn't need to. Or he was just being neutral, which is an awfully smart position to take if you're from Hawley and sitting on the Red Bend side.

Thanks to Kayla's bruised tailbone, and Kari and all those strep victims, our benchwarmers now had more experience, and we'd really gotten good at that draw-out-the-clock-and-wait-for-an-opening offense. It was pretty cool, actually, that with Kayla and Kari back, now we could go both ways, full-court press or wait and see, and it was nice to watch Hawley trying to figure out which one it would be, messing with their heads like that. Darey liked that a lot. Plus 23 was parked on the Hawley bench with her leg in a big black Velcro cast. The sight of her shouldn't have made me happy, but it did, I won't lie. Though I tried right away to think good thoughts about her because otherwise that's just asking God to nail you next.

Then, about five minutes into the game, Kari gave me a nudge and nodded toward the doors. And guess who was coming in? Not Beaner, duh, because he was playing Hawley away. And not the Otts, or Amber and Dale, or anyone like that, because all those people were already there. And no college coaches either, thank God. No, it was Dad. Pushing Win.

I was so surprised, so totally shocked at the sight of Win in his wheelchair in the Red Bend gymnasium, giving me his little SCI wave, that I missed a pass. Missed as in it flew right past my face and I never even blinked. It was probably pretty funny, now that I think about it, Red Bend's star player standing there with my mouth so open that I probably could have caught the ball just with my lips.

Of course Win saw this and grinned, and that got me back into the game, more or less. Only I blew my next couple shots so you can see how back into the game I actually was. It didn't help that I could hear the whispers, actually
see
the news spreading through the crowd:
Win Schwenk is here!
Win is pretty much the best football player in the history of Red Bend, and as you know every single person in town has been following his story nonstop since the accident. So probably no one even saw me blow it; they were all so busy trying to catch a glimpse of my big brother.

We won. The suspense is killing you, I know, so I'll just go ahead and blurt it out. We won by ten points, which is the most any Red Bend team, girls' or boys', has beaten Hawley since our two schools started playing. Which only four different people told me afterward, so it's not like anyone keeps track. And you can go ahead and say it was 23's torn ACL all you want, but I'd like to think it was us. Us plus Win. Win and Darey.

Because it turns out Darey really enjoys basketball. Not that she's Magic Johnson, but at least she's not running around with a mouth all covered in duct tape. It was head and shoulders better than how I usually played. Head and shoulders and maybe even kneecaps. Sure, I freaked sometimes, but instead of just spiraling down into a spazzed-out lump of self-pitying D.J., right when the freaking started I'd notice a little thing, maybe only that Kari needed to switch, and then think of Darey. Then we'd speak up, Darey and me together, which would calm my spazzed-ness enough to keep playing without totally despising myself.

So you can see why I say that Darey won the game for us. Because even if she didn't, she kept me from losing it—losing the game and losing it, period.

And then afterward ... wow.

There was a time not too long ago when Win wanted to die—not as in "Oh, I'm bummed," but literally die. Because he believed his life was over, so why not make it official. And for a while after that he didn't want anyone seeing him in a wheelchair, seeing him disabled in any way. And yet there he sat as the bleachers were emptying, shaking hands with hundreds of people, accepting their best wishes like he'd been born to the role. Talk about a natural leader.

Ashley found me in the crowd and stood on tiptoes to whisper in my ear. "Do you think—um, would your brother mind signing my cast?"

I cracked up. "Absolutely. He'd love it."

And he did love it, signing away with his special big-grip pen. You should have seen Ashley's face when he asked how it happened and she got to say "Setting a screen." And then she said what a good coach his sister was, and Win grinned at me and said he already knew.

Brian came over as well. Most of the Hawley fans had left by then, not wanting to linger for obvious reasons. But Brian just stood there waiting for the fuss to die down as everyone and their brother squeezed around Win, saying how delighted they were to see him, and how much they were praying, how good he looked. Which he did, I guess because he was happy. Brian didn't even flinch when some Hawley kids started giving him a hard time. He just said he needed to speak to someone and he'd catch up with them in a few minutes. How do you like that?

I could see Win frowning as Brian came up to him, which you can understand seeing as Win had spent the past half-hour trying to place Sunday school teachers and fourth grade coaches and old girlfriends' parents.

"It's Brian Nelson," said Dad. "His father got us that van, and built the ramp." This from a guy who a year ago couldn't admit that his kids helped him milk. Actually, he probably still can't admit that. But he sure seemed happy with the Nelsons.

Win took Brian's hand. "I can't thank you enough for all your generosity."

"Hey, no worries," Brian said with a grin.

"You treating my sister right?" Jeez, Win! He still had Brian's hand too, like he wouldn't let go if Brian answered wrong. Talk about embarrassing.

"Doing my best," Brian said, smiling at me. "Doing my best."

Seeing that smile, my embarrassment pretty much vanished.
And
my happiness at winning the game—the
second
game, ha. And my satisfaction with Darey, Ashley's whole brilliant idea that seemed to be working out so well. And all my worries about college, which usually hung around nonstop waiting for a free moment to pop out and drive me insane. Instead, right at that moment, all I felt was crazy love for Brian. If he'd taken me in his arms and dropped me into one of those kisses, the kind you see in pictures from World War II, I would have been totally into it, and kissed him right back. Right there in front of everyone.

But I didn't. Instead I called the U of M.

Which probably doesn't make sense, those thoughts together like that. Because it's not like I wanted the U of M to kiss me ... although maybe I did. Because when you think about it, a scholarship is really kind of a great big swoopy movie-star kiss.

I know, I know: I wasn't calling the University of Wisconsin. Even though UW's in
Madison,
which has Mica and great haircuts, and I'd be representing my
state.
And Brian would be less than two hours away. And Ashley still meant to end up there and then she could help me with my homework. And I really did like the Madison coaches, and the classes were probably okay too, which I probably should have been thinking about, but I wasn't.

But the University of Minnesota, you know, has Bill and Aaron, which are two enormous pluses and I don't mean their size. And it's closer to home, to Red Bend, which is something I didn't think I'd care about, but it ends up I really care a lot. And I really, really liked that coach, and Tyrona, more even than the folks at Madison. Even more than I liked Mica.

It was a tough call, I admit. Really tough. Kind of like having to choose between Beaner and Brian, which had only been about the worst experience of my life, and now here I was a couple days later on yet another torture rack of big decisions.

Not to mention that I was calling at all, given I spent the past two months convincing myself that I'd never in my life play D-I ball.

You want to know what changed my mind? That trip to Brian's house.

All summer I was really hurt about how he never invited me over to his house. All summer, and fall. Then once I got inside and saw how huge and fancy it was, I was totally mortified about how bad our rundown farm must look in comparison. Of course that's why he'd never had me over! He was protecting me. He didn't want me to feel embarrassed. But then, later on, it occurred to me that maybe it wasn't that at all. Maybe
he
didn't want to be embarrassed about how unusual
his
house is, and how weird
his
parents are. I mean, it's not like they're the happiest couple in the world or anything, plus the whole Lutheran business, and Brian's dad being such a complimenter even with me. Not to mention that the guy
watches golf
for crying out loud. It wasn't that Brian thought his folks were better; actually, I think he thought they were worse.

Which has nothing to do with D-I basketball, except that it does. Because all season long, I've thought I wasn't good enough to play D-I. Sure, I could rattle off my stats and scoring and abilities—I knew
those
were good enough. But I never thought
I
was. But, just like I never took the time to see the world, to see me, from Brian's point of view, I never took the time to see the world from the coaches'. To realize that maybe they had more experience with recruiting than I did, duh, and that because they believed in me, maybe I should believe in myself.

Which is why I called. To acknowledge that I was scared, sure, but even so I might be willing to go for it. To try at least to be the player I believed now that I could become, that the U of M already saw in me. The player that Darey and I could become together.

I asked Coach K if I could use his office for a minute, and he said okay, and right quick before I changed my mind I dialed. I wasn't sure what I was going to say actually, except that I was sorry for calling on a Friday night even though she had said to call whenever.

"Hey there, D.J.," the coach said right off when I introduced myself. "How are you doing?"

"Great. We just won a game. Against our, you know, rivals..." I took a deep breath. "Um. I'm, um ... I'm thinking about verbaling."

"That's fantastic!" There was a little pause. "You do mean with us, don't you?"

Which got me grinning. "Yeah. I mean with you."

"You don't seem completely set on it, though."

"Yeah. It's a huge deal, Big Ten ball."

"It is. You're still thinking about the Wisconsin game, aren't you? I worried about that."

Oh, it was cool she knew that. "Yeah. Tyrona."

"That was tough. I won't deny it. It takes time to recover from something like that. Even though it's part of the game, it still stinks."

"It's just I'm worried, you know. I'm worried I'll screw up." All of a sudden my voice cracked. I was almost crying.

"You know, D.J., there's not a girl I've recruited who wasn't scared, only most of them are too stubborn to admit it. Frankly, I'd be a lot more concerned if you weren't worried."

I swallowed. "Guess you've got nothing to worry about then."

She laughed. "You think it's stressful now, just wait until you start coaching."

"Great. Just when I thought I had something to look forward to." But I smiled when I said it.

"D.J., I couldn't be happier about this. You'll just be a fantastic asset to our team, I know you will. And you know you're free to tell anyone you want, your local paper or—"