Everytime I set foot onto the football field, time freezes. I go back to the day my team, the Longport Lions, played in the county semi-final game. I hear the muffled cheers that clogged my ears, but kept my heart racing. I taste the blood from my lip, bitten raw by my chattering teeth. I smell the stale sweat that rolls off my skin like glass marbles. I feel the palpable tension that restricts my breathing and crawls into my stomach like snakes. I see the wide open field filled with opportunities and chances to grab them. Chills overwhelm my body as I sense that something big is going to happen.
    November 15th, 1988, was the day I scored the touchdown that landed me my spot at Duke, as well as the girl of my dreams. My heart was a metronome that guided the whoops and cheers of the restless crowd. I was the trophy that was lifted by my teammates to parade around the school. I had discovered the secret to popularity. It was quite simple actually; be exceptional at sports and pretend not to care.
The school football team was the heart of our quiet Texas town. Every Saturday night, people of all ages would flock to the stadium like bees to a hive. Strangers became neighborly, and enemies grew friendly as they put their heart and souls into the game. My teammates and I were heroes. Kids in Longport didn’t dream of becoming astronauts or firefighters, but football players. We wore capes of dignity that carried us high above the others; we were untouchable.
While others were studying for their finals, I was preparing the senior prank. I felt a certain responsibility to make it legendary; something we seniors would always remember. To this day, I can assure you, no one has forgotten.
The climb down from my bedroom window was easier that night, the soft grass cushioning me as I jumped. The familiar rumble of my friend’s pickup made this Saturday night just like any other. We listened to The Grateful Dead as we carelessly drove 60 mph down the side streets to our school. Our youth was a shield that protected us from the responsibilities of adulthood. We swiftly alluded the flimsy laws that tried to suppress our raging spirit. Adults were bullfighters trying to tame us with simple red capes. We stomped our feet and blew out hot air, knowing they could never hurt us. Then, we charged.
We pulled up to the school, finding it empty and dark. It was unsettling to me that the last time I had seen it, just hours before, it had been bustling with people. Now, it seemed lifeless and hollow, like a deserted shell in the ocean. I shook the feeling and strolled up to the school like the confident jock that disguised me.
I’m not proud of what I did that day. My past still haunts me like the ghost of an old friend, desperately trying to remain a part of my new life. But I can’t change it. Its  consequences are engraved in my bones. Its stupidity is attached to my name. Its indecency stains my clothes. I reek of its vile stench.

As I took the red spray paint out of my bag, shots of adrenaline coursed through my blood like fighter jets. A flash of heat creeped from my heart to my head, making me invincible once again. I approached the brick school with my buddies behind me. I shook the can and smoothly wrote “Seniors ‘88.” Although it felt good, it did not nearly satiate my thirst for rebellion. I needed more.
I hopped back in the truck and the others followed without question. The engine revved as I flew around turns and burned through red lights. They had no power over me. No one did. 
When my friends asked where we were going, my driven stare answered. The darkness in my eyes was enough to cast a bleak shadow on the sunniest of days. I don’t know where this side of me came from, but its seething fury told me it had been brewing for years. The fact that it had been suppressed only amplified its malevolence by ten.
We pulled up to the school, finding it empty and dark. Not our school this time, but South Bay High School: home of the Eagles. I had nothing against them personally, except the fact that they would be our opponents in the upcoming county finals.
I stared up at the stone eagle that sat perched above the school. It was said to be a symbol of freedom and integrity. Instead, it mocked me for my flightless impotence. Being a lion, I felt an overbearing need to declare my dominance. I quickly leaped up the stone steps leading to the entrance and jumped onto the side ledge. My athletic abilities allowed me to acrobatically pull myself up onto the school’s wall. I gripped the edges of bricks and the ledges of windows. They sucked the red hue from my hands, leaving them pale white.
My forearms shook as I hauled myself onto the school’s roof. I was untouchable. I looked down upon my friends who stared up at me in awe. My aching muscles couldn’t compete with the adrenaline that flooded my body. I was the king of the jungle and I wanted everyone to know. My head inflated with conceit as arrogance seeped out of my pores. I called down to one of my friends to take a picture with his mom’s polaroid. He had borrowed it to document the legendary events of the night. I sauntered over to the stone eagle that had once seemed almighty. Now, I sat divinely beside it.
As he prepared to take the picture, a senseless idea surfaced from deep within my neurotic mind. I climbed up to the eagle and sat upon it like the throne I rightfully deserved. I hadn’t realized that its seemingly strong concrete was as false as the face I wore every day of my life. Its foundation as deceiving as the fearless nature of my ego.
As it fell, the eagle and my future shattered into irreparable pieces. Just like that, my dreams were intercepted, inches from the goal line.
***
The moment the cops surrounded me I knew I was no longer a Longport Lion, but a helpless deer. The lasers they called eyes melted right through my arrogant flesh and exposed my timid bones. They rattled with fear as my wrists were cuffed. 
I glanced back at the school as they led me into the cop car. What I found were the crumbled remains of something that had once stood so nobly. They laid across the concrete floor, scattered like constellations in the night sky.
The bumpy ride to the town jail helped me put things in simpler terms. I saw myself back in kindergarten, sitting at a desk with a piece of paper on it. Written in ballpoint ink were all of my accomplishments and the layout of my future (which looked fairly bright). My kindergarten self recklessly picked it up and, not understanding its importance, crumpled it into a little ball; the sole purpose being to hurl it at my enemy who peacefully sat across the room. It terribly missed the target and conveniently landed in a paper shredder. There sat my life’s work, irrevocably demolished.
As punishment, the principal suspended me for a week, banned my friends and me from senior prom, and worst of all, forbid me from playing in the county final game. Personally, I thought I deserved more. Perhaps he knew that the emotional pain that tortured me was greater than any discipline he could have prescribed.
I knew I had devastated the people of my town. Being the starting wide-receiver, my absence in the game would surely plague my team’s performance. However, something compelled me to pretend not to care. This only heated my peers’ simmering hatred for me to the point where it boiled over.
I couldn’t help but wonder how my competitive nature could cause both my rise to fame and my downfall. At what point did the two diverge? The way I saw it, it wasn’t the traditional “two roads diverged in a yellow wood.” Instead, I had drifted from the Yellow Brick Road into the Haunted Forest, and I couldn’t find my way out.
On the fourth day of my sentence, I decided I needed some air. As I walked into town, the sun’s light felt foreign on my pale skin; its warmth seemed out of place to my cold heart. The piercing glares I received never failed to embed themselves in my flesh like knives. The cruel words stuck to me like spit balls, and eventually hardened into a thick shell that let nothing pass. However, the smug comments were always brutal enough to penetrate it.
    The humiliation from my peers was a paper cut compared to the merciless stab of my parents' disappointment. I bled dignity until every ounce I had acquired was gone. The salt of regret burned as it dried me up into a ghost of my former self.
When my mother spoke to me, her loving words always flew away before reaching me. She tried to warm me with her reassurance, but my heart was far too cold to be defrosted. I had been severed from her gravity that used to keep me grounded. I floated aimlessly into a place where nothing seemed real. I didn’t think of myself as a human anymore, but more like a fish in a tank. I resided in a bowl of water where no sounds could infiltrate. I watched the world go on around me through a transparent wall; playing the part of an observer who had no interactions with the outside world. When others knocked on my glass to get my exclusive attention, it only made me want to swim farther and farther away. I was aloof from everything.
***
To me, the crowd was the most important part of the game. Without them, we were the same as every other high school football team: mediocre. However, the handmade signs, enthusiastic cheers, and hopeful gazes of the Longport community garnished our raw talent with passion. But today, as I sat on my team’s bench, the audience was silent. Despite the few shouts of encouragement from a parent or two, it was as if they knew something we didn’t.
The game was as heartbreaking as my senior year. The ball seemed to allude our hands while being allured to theirs. The glassy eyes of my teammates stared straight into my soul. I could feel them criticizing my decisions and blaming me for their humiliating defeat. Everyone knew my presence in the game would not have made a difference; the final score was 36-10. But that wasn’t the point. My fumble was greater than any that occurred on the field. It laid a blanket of anguish over the crowd that stifled their hearty spirit.
    To this day, ten years later, I have never forgiven myself. Shards of memories from that night still stab my subconscious and intrude on the private tranquility of my dreams.
I used to be a lion. Now I am a deer. I tend to the field of the school I once called my home. Now, each and every blade of grass mocks me with its condescending pity. The scoreboard looks sullen as it stares down at my crippled dreams, clobbered by the unrelenting hands of time. The past tinkers with my mind and flirts with my insecurities, only looking to sabotage me once more.
I don’t want this life anymore.
I look at my watch, but the time is wrong. It’s late, just as it always is. But for some reason, today, it bothers me. I take a minute to change it.