People say your life flashes before your eyes when you die. My life flashed before me every time I took a snap, and I truly existed in those moments  - suspended between creation and destruction, toeing a fine line between my existence and my demise. Nothing more than a dance with the devil.

But with the glaring white of the stadium lights beating down on me, I almost wondered if this was the moment that I finally faltered, and my flirtationship with destruction was about to become a permanent marriage. But then Chris stepped into the light, his shock of red hair the most welcome sight I'd ever seen. I wasn't dying, but holy fuck it sure felt like it.

"Dallas? Dallas! Come on man, get up." There was a pause. "Please, get up."

The distress in Chris's voice was so apparent, I could hear it over the blood pumping through my ears. The glare of the lights forced my eyes shut, desperate to soothe the jackhammering in my skull. The air around me was too close and too quiet, too much of everything that made the adrenaline in my body skyrocket. I hoped that maybe when I opened my eyes again, I'd be dreaming. I felt my body being moved, pain shooting through me in waves like I was being electrocuted over and over again. I couldn't catch my breath, gasping like a dead fish in the hot, sticky night air.

I felt like a helpless child. I want my dad. Take me home.

When I finally pried my eyes open, I was staring at the glossy, pale blue linoleum floors of the locker room. Commotion swirled around me as I was brought to the back and laid face down onto one of the plastic cushioned tables in the trainer's room. Sweat trickled in little rivers down my temples and cheeks, clinging to my eyelashes the way drops of rain clung to tree branches after a summer storm. I shut my eyes again and pressed my face down into the towel, desperate to tune into the array of hushed voices that talked about me as if I was already dead on the operating table.

"I couldn't see, he got hit so fast."

Coach Knox, but in a tone so unfamiliar it took me a moment to place his voice. It was panic. Sheer panic.

"It was a nasty chop block, he landed awkwardly on his shoulder."

I immediately recognized the gravelly voice of our athletic trainer, Coach Spencer, which only fueled the panic.

"God damn it I'm right here you know," I managed to sputter out, but even talking was a labor.

Lying on my stomach, it was awkward to try and look up at anyone, and the more I tried, the more my head pounded and ached.

Coach Spencer knelt down to my eye level and shined a little flashlight in my eyes. "You know your name?"

"Dallas Gunther," I replied through clenched teeth.

"Do you know where you are?"

"Football game." My breath was so sharp that every word that came up was like a knife to the inside of my throat. "I...did we win?"

"Doesn't seem to have a concussion." Coach Spencer stood back up and addressed the rest of the coaching staff, again as if I was just a lifeless corpse in front of them.

"Can someone just tell me what the hell is going on?" I moaned.

The door of the locker room slammed, and as I gingerly glanced around as best as I could, I caught sight of the gold of my father's Cornell class ring as he strode in.

"Hey." He knelt down in front of me and put his hand on my cheek. "You're going to be okay, alright? Alright?"

For a moment I wasn't sure if he was reassuring me, or himself. I sucked in a sharp breath and put my face back down in the towel. I heard Coach Spencer's voice again.

"We have to pop his shoulder back in before we do anything else. Thankfully it's not his throwing shoulder."

"Pop my what?"

I went to move up off my stomach despite the swirly eddy of storms in my head, and sure enough, my left shoulder screamed in pain. Stop moving, you asshole.

My dad rose to his feet, placing one hand on the small of my back where there was nothing between my skin and the fabric of my jersey, and holding the hand of my dislocated shoulder with his other.

"Take a deep breath, okay?" he said as two other hands pressed down on my torso. I sucked in as much air as my lungs would allow and braced myself for impact.

"3, 2, 1..."

CR-ACK

I wasn't even sure the guttural, screaming noise that filled the locker room came from me, but it was a sound that transcended pain and agony. A sickly mixture of tears and sweat ran down my cheeks.

"Holy fuck," was all that punctuated the thick silence.

Like thunder as it rumbled in the distance after a storm, the pain began to subside. Adrenaline still ricocheted through my body as every part of me trembled, and I buried my face into the towel in front of me. I tasted the tang of metal in my mouth and realized I had bit down on my lip so hard I drew blood.

When I finally exhaled, all the pain and all the panic whooshed out of my body like a god damn exorcism.

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The car ride home was silent as the rain rolled in, pelting against the windows of my mother's Porsche SUV and turning the passing streetlights into a blurry mosaic of colors. I caught sight of my father following behind us as the Cornell red of my BMW cut through the dark of the night. Having my shoulder wrapped and iced meant I couldn't even drive my own car home, and even as something as little as that felt debilitating.

My phone vibrated in my lap again. I'd been flooded with text messages and DMs for the last hour, people I didn't even speak to wondering what happened and how I was. I ignored all of them. Instead, I counted streetlights and unsuspecting pedestrians that got caught in the rain.

When we got home, Mom held the front door open for me as I tried to shoulder my way through, nearly tripping over the rise in the threshold of the doorway. She hooked her arm under my free one and led me through the dim foyer, and droplets of rain dripped from her hair onto my shirt sleeve. My father followed briskly behind with my gym bag slung over his shoulder, and I was guided forward into the kitchen, as if I had broken my ankles too.

"I got it, I'm fine." I tore myself away from her. I knew my frustration was misplaced, but where the fuck was I supposed to place it?

"Just take it easy," my father instructed. I wasn't sure if he was telling me to take it easy on my shoulder, or his cordial way of saying chill the fuck out son. My head throbbed when the lights in the foyer flickered on, and little stars flashed in the corners of my eyes. I needed to crawl into a hole.

"I'm going to shower," I grumbled. I still smelled like a locker room, there were turf pellets in my hair, and I wanted to scrub away any and all remnants of tonight.

"Do you need help?" He reached for my undamaged arm, but I immediately turned away.

"No." I groaned, and I made for the stairs across the foyer as quickly as my aching body would allow.

As I ambled up the stairs, my knees threatening to buckle with every step, I passed a string of old family portraits that we stopped taking when I got to high school. 14-year-old Dallas had far too much glittering ambition in his eyes. If only he knew then what I know now.

"Don't get your tape wet!" I heard him call up the stairs.

"No shit, Dad," I muttered under my breath.

Admittedly, showering was far more of a herculean task than I thought. The more I tried to manage on my own, the more frustrated I got. Asking for help at this stage was digging a grave, so with wet hair and a hoodie half on I finally collapsed in bed and resigned myself to the reality of my situation.

Tears stung the backs of my eyes, and the pain that surged through me felt like someone was pushing my bones through a meat grinder...but it wasn't just that. It was coming to terms with the fact that I had done this to myself. Self-destruct initiated.

My phone buzzed beside me with more notifications, and my first instinct was to continue ignoring it, until it buzzed again and I realized someone was actually calling me. I grabbed my phone and swiped to answer it when I saw it was Chris.

"Ohmygodyou'realive," Chris breathed out into the phone speaker, and he spoke to fast it sounded like just one long word.

I groaned. "You idiot, I blew my shoulder out, I didn't get fucking shot."

The sound of cars passing by Chris filter through the speaker, along with the windshield wipers wicking away rain from the glass. I could hear his blinker too as he switched it on.

"Look, I'm on my way over to pick up Rochelle. We're going over to Anthony's. You wanna come? Might be good to just show your face for a bit."

I rolled my eyes at the implication Chris's words held, but I hated when he was right. A king needed to make public appearances, just long enough for the masses to know that he was still standing and still in charge - especially when he'd been weakened. Smile and wave. Don't grit your teeth even if you're in pain. Even if your head was about to implode. Don't falter.

A well acted facade was sometimes more powerful than any army.

"Hello? Dallas? I'm pulling into your neighborhood now and I'm getting Rochelle. You coming?"

I didn't know if I had the energy to put up that facade, but I was about to find out. I never asked for the crown, but because I had one, sometimes responsibilities outweighed my own needs.

"Yeah, yeah," I muttered. "I'm coming."

I hoisted myself out of bed (with more difficulty than I'd admit), and with every step I took across the carpet from the bed to my door made my head throb. It felt like I'd swallowed a bomb without a timer and without the means to disarm.

Self-destruct complete.

When I tiptoed back down the stairs, it was quiet, but not the peaceful kind of quiet. The kind of quiet that washes over you before you jump off a cliff into the abyss. We learned it in French class last year - l'appel du vide. The call of the void.

Except, my version of the void was my parent's dimly lit kitchen, with nothing but the modern chrome light fixture above the table bathing them in a soft glow as they sat huddled together. Their voices were hushed, but still loud enough for me to hear the sound whoosh away like it was being sucked into a vacuum when I approached them.

"How are you feeling?" My mom asked, lifting her head away from my father's.

The steam from my father's coffee cup swirled around and clouded his light eyes. Sometimes I wondered what it would be like to be gifted with crystal clear eyes, instead of eyes like a black hole.

"I'm fine. Just a little sore." I grimaced, feeling my body scream at the very mention of the word sore, but I added a chuckle for good measure. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other and tore my gaze away from theirs. "Chris is picking me up in a few. We're just going to Anthony's to talk about the game."

"Are you sure that's a good idea, Dallas?" My father's voice was calm, but stern in a way that even though it was framed as a question, I knew it wasn't.

I gritted my teeth. "God damn it Dad, I'm not going over there to mud wrestle. We're just hanging out."

Through the large bay window behind them, the headlights of Chris's Jeep illuminated the kitchen, sending streaks of shadows to the walls.

"I know it's a weekend, but please don't be too late." My mother offered me a pinched smile.

I gave her a curt nod before turning on my heel and making my way to the front door. Rain pelted the windbreaker I had draped over my shoulders (since I couldn't actually put my arm through the sleeves), and as I shut the door behind me, I heard her call out to me, "Love you."

I pulled the door shut and shuffled out into the rain to Chris's car. As soon as I jumped into the passenger seat, Rochelle and Chris verbally attacked me.

"You should have seen what happened when you went down -"

"The entire stadium was quiet you could hear a pin drop -"

"- and then Coach Knox put Lando in -"

"- it was a disaster, but -"

"Can you both just shut it?" I moaned.

A tense silence enveloped the car, and suddenly I regretted asking for silence at all. It practically choked us.

"You look better than I expected you to," Rochelle chirped from the backseat, probably desperate to dissolve the awkwardness.

"Well thanks, I guess."

Chris tightened his grip on the steering wheel as he rolled up to a traffic light, bathing the front seat in a soft red glow. "I need to tell you something."

My heart dropped into my stomach. "What happened?"

"What? No..no, nothing happened uh..." Chris frowned.

"Just spit it out you big baby," Rochelle smacked the back of Chris's seat.

"I just don't want you to think I'm rubbing salt in your wounds or anything." Chris shrugged. "Literally."

I raised an eyebrow. "Nothing could make me feel any worse, I promise. What is it?"

Chris nodded. "So I like...informally but formally committed officially to Alabama. The offensive coordinator was at the game and I spoke to him afterwards. You'd already gone home, I think..."

I leaned back into the seat and sighed. I didn't know what I thought Chris was going to say, but it definitely wasn't that. There was a part of me that could have felt some residual bitterness about still not being formally recruited by anywhere I wanted to go, but it was such a small part of me that I just swallowed it.

"About time, you dingus." I gave him a sideways grin and smacked him on the arm.

He let out a heavy sigh, a mixture of relief and exhaustion. "Yeah, about time I guess."

When we pulled into Anthony's driveway, the rain was letting up, but the sound of it pelting against the car was the only thing filling the night.

After football game parties were not normal Anthony Higashioka gatherings, and the lack of cars on the street was enough indication of that. This was a court hosting only the New Livingston Day School's innermost sanctum, and for the first time all night I felt myself exhale.

There was an odd sense of security when we walked through the high-ceiling foyer of Anthony's house, enveloped by familiar faces and a dim glow from the crystal chandelier above. There weren't any irrelevant underclassmen to poke and prod at me. Anybody who was here now had already seen what happened, and they knew better than to ask questions.

Even familiar, they were still all a blur, and when I walked my body pulsed like sonar. Pain, pain, pain. Smile and fucking wave.

Two other senior cheerleaders beckoned Rochelle over to the plush leather couch in the living room. She gave my good arm a gentle squeeze. "Just send out the bat signal when you need rescuing."

"What would I do without you?" I grinned.

She sauntered away, and Chris and I made our way back to the kitchen, where Anthony was flanked by two juniors on the basketball team. One I recognized as Jackson Britton, with all the tall slim reaper stature of Kevin Durant, who followed Kaia around like a lost dog. In the deeper parts of my head I wondered what a girl who never gave anyone the time of day saw in a twig like him.

When they caught sight of Chris and I, they scurried off like little mice.

"Ah, so King Dallas lives to see another day," Anthony chided.

"For now," I grumbled.

Chris watched me fumble with a stack of red solo cups and took them from my hand, pouring me a Jack and coke. I downed it almost immediately, desperate to numb my headache.

Smaller groups of people filtered in and out of the kitchen with the low hum of music from the foyer, while Chris and Anthony recounted the last 15 minutes of the game while I was in the locker room clawing my way back from Hell.

Anthony was like a hyena - there was a wicked gleam to his eyes, and I wish I didn't know what it meant, but I did. And the agony swirling around in my insides reminded me that I needed it.

"Hey." I leaned over the kitchen island and tried to keep my voice hushed. "Can I talk to you?"

That devious glint of his lingered on me, and he nodded and beckoned me to a darker corner of the kitchen, where the music and the light from the main foyer barely reached. It felt like we'd been dropped in a fishbowl, I only hoped no one was gawking at us and tapping on the glass.

"What's up?" He asked.

"I need something," I blurted out. "For my shoulder. Just to hold me over until I go to the doctor Monday."

He gave me a purposeful nod and put his hand down on my good shoulder.

"Don't worry. I've got what you need."

i'm a pretty boy living on the west side
living so loud you could never hear me cry

pretty boy / joji, lil yachty

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Could you tell I've finally caved into the hype and reading SHADOW AND BONE, hence all the king imagery.

This chapter gave me unexpected angst which is why it took me like a month to update and I have the shame. Injured Dallas is a dangerous, desperate creature - the question is how dangerous?

Thanks for reading, don't forget to leave some love!

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