Page 56 of Forever Relentless

Shuffle. Plant. Burst.

Simple linebacker footwork. My body knew what to do before my head caught up.

Read step.

Downhill trigger.

Fill the gap.

It was simple on the field. Someone showed you where the threat was coming from, and you hit it.

Controlled violence.

I pictured the guard pulling. I pictured the gap opening. I pictured filling it.

My first step was always clean. This was the part of my skill set that I was most proud of. No hesitation. No wasted movement. When I decided to go, I went.

Finishing the burst, I reset. Clean.

Life wasn’t that clean.

I took a moment, hands on my hips, breathing steady. I wasn’t winded. I don’t get winded easily. That had always been my advantage — I could hold the line longer than most.

You don’t fall first. That was the rule.

Tiffany had been left to fall.

The thought came uninvited, sharp and unwelcome. I pushed it back, closed my eyes before the burst, and counted to three. I exploded forward.

The contact wasn’t there — no lineman, no shoulder pads — but my body reacted as if it were. I drove through empty air, finishing five yards past the cone.

Control, it was all about control.

I didn’t lose control. Not anymore. Not in my footwork, not in my breathing. I managed it. But right then, my head was in turmoil.

They would have called her death tragic. Unfortunate. Or, my personal favorite, ‘a loss to the community’.

They never called it what it was . . . preventable.

I knew what preventable looked like.

It looked like adults who noticed something wrong and chose paperwork over action. It looked like meetings, policies, and ‘appropriate channels.’ It looked like everyone protecting themselves first.

My lips curled into a sneer. I’d seen it before. Back home, in a cluttered garage with too much junk, and a kid with too much anger and little support. People shook their heads afterward, saying no one could have known.

I’d known.

I’d known the night he swung too hard at the bag and didn’t stop when his knuckles split. I’d known the way his silence stretched longer each week.

And I’d done nothing because I thought stepping back was what he wanted. Giving him space was what he asked for. I’d read it correctly. I just hadn’t known what to do with what I’d read. Not realizing that space was the one thing he hadn’t needed. He’d needed people around him. He’d needed people asking questions. But all he had was space and silence.

“Fuck.” I shook my head, trying to clear it. “I need to hit something,” I muttered, trying to focus.

I understand violence better than most. I also know how to control it. Only once have I lost control, not long after they found his body. I’d fought too hard, too wild, and put a guy in the hospital. My mom had cried. My brother’s eyes were too wide with shock when he looked at me, unsure how I could have done that.

Never again.

I would never allow myself to become that again.