They say that sport eclipses thought, depression, nervousness—it is a kind of doping, with electricity piercing the lungs like little ice spikes. It's colder at night; the darkness at night should freeze regrets and resentments, but it's as if they're only nourished by the twilight, exposed now in the rough moonlight.

Kevin stops in the middle of the field, feeling vulnerably naked. Night training is hardly just a pursuit of perfection; he's not as expert a camouflage as he'd like to be; the truth is sour.

He's made a lot of choices and a lot of mistakes; the aching arm is proof. But if it were only his arm that ached, he'd brush it off with clenched teeth, but against the aching heart, he wants nothing more than to cut it out altogether. It's irrational to date someone from the team. Kevin forced to see your face every day, to look at your smile, your sad eyes, your anxiously drumming fingers on the arm of your chair. It's hard to know you by heart but not be able to reassure you.

Even Andrew seems to understand, quietly walking away from the bleachers to start the car. Kevin is no longer fighting the Ravens; he's fighting himself. With his choice to part ways, and now it seems silly to him—this self-righteous attempt to shield you from his popularity and influence; the nebulous dangers and the nerves spent overcoming them. And now? Now it is foolishness. He knows he has acted like a coward, not a hero. It should have been resolved by talk and patience, not white-flag surrender.

Talking. You don't talk; you don't know where to start.

Kevin moves blindly through the semi-dark corridor, folding his equipment in a grim act of self-deprecation. His whole life is like dark corridors in which he hides, and you're the light he needs to step out into, but he lacks the determination.

"Shit, I'm sorry," Kevin catches himself clutching your shoulders as he bumps into you in the gloom of the locker room, and you seem like his mirror—anxious and frustrated. "What's wrong? Talk to me."