Chapter 21: The Big Screen

Anneliese's POV

The whole stadium was booing Dane, and I was sitting in row twelve with a hot dog I could not eat.

Rory had stopped chewing beside me.

"That's not the whole reel," he said. "She's got fifteen minutes."

On the big screen the pink caption faded out.

A new one slid in: Is She Next?

Under it was a photograph of me at the bakery counter, taken through the window, with my mouth open mid-sentence.

The crowd made a sound I had heard once before, at a tailgate.

I put down the hot dog.

On the field, Dane had stopped at the fifty-yard line with his father beside him.

The other seniors had walked on without him, because the announcer had stopped saying their names.

He stood alone with his helmet in his hand, and he did not look at the screen.

His father put an arm around his shoulders and said something I could not hear.

Dane nodded once.

He just kept standing there and let them boo.

Two years ago strangers had done this to him on a screen, and I had baked twelve cupcakes about it.

This time I could walk to him.

"Rory," I said.

"Yeah?"

"I'm going down."

"Anneliese, the field's closed. There are guards."

"Then you'd better find me a way."

He looked at me for a second, and then the grin came back, cracked and real.

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