Vocab Quiz #1 (12 Cp)

VOCAB QUIZ #1 (12AP 1415)

Part one: Fill in each blank with the best word from this week’s list. Use each word once. You may not change a word’s part of speech. You may change a verb’s tense. (1 point each, 15 points total)

Dylan walked into the room and encountered a(n) (1) ______awkward silence. He had things to say to Ashley and he intended to say them, but his voice trailed off in (2) ______wisps of breath every time he opened his mouth. After all, what could he say? He had wronged her, had refused her, had pushed her away in such a manner that nothing he could conjure verbally could serve as (3) ______for her pain. His words--his penchant for nonchalant eloquence that had served him so well in the past--now slipped away along with his hopes of (4)

______. Her expressionless gaze was (5) ______and effective. He knew she wanted him to leave, and her stoic face--absent of all the laughter and silliness only he had known--(6)

______him like a swift punch to the gut. He searched one last time for something to say, some random thought, something with which to (7) ______from the gravity of the moment, but came up empty. He walked out with only the sound of the door clicking quietly behind him.

Ashley was never among the (8) ______that seemed to hang on Dylan's every word like he was some (9) ______of expertise. He was funny, she would admit, and not just a bit cute, but she failed to subscribe to the idolatry that overcame many of her classmates, male and female alike. She was (10)

______that so many who seemed to know him so little seemed to revere him so much. She cared little for his ability to throw a football, hadn't taken a second look at his Mustang, didn't know he had a house on lake to which he often invited “everyone” after game nights. And if he hadn’t forgotten his wallet that morning when she found herself behind him in line at

Starbucks, they might never have spoken.

Ashley picked up on a brief stammer, an embarrassed, (11) ______apology to the barista, as

Dylan search first his jeans and then his varsity jacket in futility. He turned to leave, his head down. Something about this (12)

______Dylan--she had never seen him without his entourage--resonated with her unexpectedly. His athletic and social prowess waned in the cappuccino machine’s dull shriek. He looked less a captain, more a(n) (13)

______.

She saw then she had been as callow in dismissing him as her peers who worshipped him. There at 6:45 in the morning on a

Tuesday with no one to impress he became another in a long line of humans going about their days in unforgiving solitude. She wanted then to be near him. She wanted to have him near, to (14) ______him in her own strange world.

And so she stopped him from walking past with a hand to his varsity letter, to his heart. A simple gesture really, utilitarian and seemingly unintentional. But in her world it was a(n) (15) ______movement, forceful contact emblazoned with spontaneous passion she had never before known. He looked up at her and smiled.

“Ashley,” he said.

“Hi,” she said. And she paid for his coffee, her debit card shaking in her hand with the thought that he had known her name. VOCAB QUIZ #2 (12AP 1415)

Dylan stood under center, trying his best to force his mind to (1) ______the pulsing throb in his left side that threatened to light his torso afire. He had surely broken ribs, had done so before, and had lost his composure during the last huddle, his frustration creeping out in a(n) (2) ______verbal jab at the left guard who had missed the block. His offensive line was normally a(n) (3) ______wall but tonight had allowed three sacks and had yet to establish much of a running game. The line was so discombobulated that at halftime the head coach had considered (4)

______a second tight end into the offense. As the game progressed, the line's flaws became (5)

______enough that the opposing team started to blitz almost every down, which led to the sack that had waylaid Dylan. Now, through the din of the pain and the opposing crowd and his own breathless signal-calling, Dylan glanced up and (6)

______that the defense would once again come fast and hard from his left, the weak side on the current formation. His physical fragility and fourth-quarter fatigue became (7) ______forces of weakness and he lost focus for a moment, unable to call an audible to (8) ______the ensuing blitz for his lineman. At the last moment before he took the snap, his vision seemed to blur and the collection of defenders facing him morphed into some sort of (9)

______(10) ______of militants waiting to besiege him.

Mr. Thomas’s English class had always (11) ______Ashley. Besides the teacher’s insufferable monologues about whatever his children had done or said that weekend or his insistence that his students write in black or blue ink or his propensity to match his pocketed pens with his ties and then take the time to actually talk about this frivolous act, she really just didn’t like studying English. She held to her stringent (12) ______that she was a “math-and-science” person, a pragmatist who preferred the parabola to the poem, the beaker to the book. And so she spent her daily hour in Mr. Thomas’s room (13)

______explanations for her teacher’s odd behavior. Why, for instance, was he so fond of this Conor Oberst guy, with his nasally, gravelly voice? What happy memories in his life coincided with listening to this sort of melancholic verbosity? Did a

Bright Eyes song pop on the coffee house mix at the very moment the future Mrs. Thomas first appeared before him? Did he harbor some sort of collegiate, bro-esque reverie that would account for the auditory forgiveness he lent these songs?

Dylan refused to take the pain medication his doctor had prescribed. Earlier that year, bored on holiday break, he had stumbled upon a slim novel on his father's shelf that had scared him away from any sort of prescription medication. In the novel a man whose name Dylan couldn't recall had lost his daughter in an accident and—having broken his hand by punching the wall in a fit of mourning rage—had become quickly hooked on painkillers. What Dylan could remember about the book—other than its heartbreaking premise—was the further downward trajectory of the man's life once the pills took hold of him. And so Dylan lay quietly immobilized for the evening, wincing ever so slightly at any movement, any breath too deep. He lay there for a long time wide awake, first listening to Conor Oberst's new album and then returning to some of his recent favorites--Bon Iver, The Shins, and Taylor Swift's (1) ______first album, the last his guilty pleasure that he kept as latent as his disdain for football and the people who seemed to adore him so fervently for his ability to play it well. He glanced to his nightstand—recruiting brochures from schools he had no desire to attend, an empty bottle of his customary

Yoo-Hoo, his phone. As if provoked by his gaze, his phone sprang to life in a cacophony, vibrating enough to nudge itself precipitously toward the edge of the nightstand, blaring Ariana Grande's “My Everything”—easier to laugh this off as casual irony than to try to explain his love of Justin Vernon's strange voice to his nonplussed friends—lit with a number he couldn't yet see from his angle. He nearly yelped in pain as he reached for the phone.

“Hello?”

“Dylan?”

“Yeah.”

“Um, hi. Sorry to call. I know that's creepy or whatever. But I didn't want to text because I knew you wouldn’t have my number in your phone—”

“Who is this?”

“It's Ashley.”

“Ashley?”

“Yeah, um, from school. I'm in Thomas's class with you.”

“Oh, right.”

“I bought you coffee that day at Starbucks?”

A wave of recognition washed over Dylan and brought clarity to the (1) ______conversation. He pictured her and smiled into the phone. He remembered her, definitely remembered her but had just misplaced the name and felt bad for doing so and wanted to tell her so but lost the words to do so. And so he let it go, let this desire to rectify slip from him before it had even manifested itself. Let it go like so many of these tiny tragedies that he didn’t even notice. Or that he pretended not to notice.

“Oh, right,” he said. “Hi, Ashley.”

And as he waited for her to continue he became conscious of the fact that for the first time since last Friday night his pain had subsided. Name: ______

Dylan Davies began his second year of little league with all the swagger of a seven-year-old fresh off his first all-star game.

He was an established phenom at first base and assumed that he would continue right where he left off. His new coaches had other ideas. For one, they already had a first baseman. Second, they clearly did not understand Dylan’s fielding prowess—for no (1)

______reason they sent him to practice with the outfielders. Dylan did not take this development in stride. As he walked to the outfield a(n) (2) ______washed over his face and he felt as if he might be sick. He could not be stuck in the outfield. He could not be could not be could not be. He held it together for the rest of practice but lost control as soon as he got back in the car with his dad. Through tears Dylan explained the nature of his (3)

______predicament. His dad’s laughter was not an inappropriate response—Dylan’s tears subsided. The elder Davies patted his son’s knee and told him to hang in there, that he just needed to play hard and his position would take care of itself. Dylan’s dad had the benefit of experience and knew that all problems—even the most (4) ______

—seem (5) ______to children.

Simply put, Ashley Cassette’s mother had to (6) ______her daughter into taking ballet classes.

Even at seven years old Ashley had no patience for the tights, the shoes, or the bun in her hair. And she had even less patience for her

(7) ______instructor, and ancient, cantankerous woman who suffered from an assortment of rotating (8)

______that left her coughing, wincing, and inexplicably groaning throughout each lesson. Ashley didn’t want to be stuck in the studio—she wanted to be out in the woods that began at her backyard’s edge and sprawled indefinitely. She wanted to look for chipmunks and climb trees and come back hours later covered in dirt and bug bites. Her mother could fathom neither her daughter’s disinterest in the discipline and grace and beauty of ballet nor the child’s love of solitude. Mrs. Cassette, a lifelong extrovert, attributed Ashley’s predilection for being alone to some (9) ______of spirit.

Ten years later, Dylan and Ashley talked on the phone for the first time in tones so comfortable that anyone listening might think they had know each other since those days of little league and ballet. After the initial awkwardness—Ashley silent admitted to herself that it had been a(n) (10) ______decision to dial his number, and Dylan couldn’t remember ever having spoken to anyone except his grandma on the phone—they settled into a conversational cadence. Dylan forgot about the pain in his broken ribs. Ashley forgot about the verbal spat she had endured with her mother a few hours before. Dylan listened to wind whistle through the last of fall’s leaves in the oaks outside his window. Ashley pondered her childhood Dream Lite, which still illuminated her ceiling in a(n) (11) ______display of twinkling neon. They talked of school and hobbies and friends. Ashley told Dylan about her plans to leave the state after graduation. Dylan told Ashley about his frequent volunteer work, an account she initially deemed (12) ______based on his “football star” status, but she immediately censured herself for such callow assumption when she realized he was telling the truth and was actually quite (13)

______with his time and energy. Dylan also told her of his love for music and books, a passion she didn’t actually share but at least managed to sound (14) ______about the subject. Both Dylan and

Ashley knew the (15) ______effects of talking so long would be certain exhaustion at school in the morning, but neither seemed to care. Name: ______

For Ashley, the weeks leading up to homecoming were business as usual. She had no interest in the game and her desire to go to the dance was peripheral at best. She had gone last year but had spent most of the night hovering in the corner, feigning laughter at her friends' jokes, which were not really funny but rather lame linguistic attempts to distract themselves from the fact that they were standing in the corner. But she had also felt no provocation to enter the dance floor, where as far as she could tell she might actually be swallowed whole by the pulsating mob of students. And so she stayed off to the side.

But after a few conversations with Dylan, Ashley admitted to herself that she was in fact feeling (1)

______wishes not necessarily to attend the dance but more specifically to be asked to the dance, namely by Dylan himself. Dylan, whom she had misjudged so thoroughly prior to the advent of their relationship. Was that the correct word?

Was it a friendship? What does one call their series of exchanges, their late-night phone calls, his gifts of coffee before school, the first a reciprocal gesture for her initial coffee purchase, the second and third something different altogether? What was she to make of her female classmates, whose stares were (2) ______in their jealousy as she and Dylan talked before school, continuing whatever discussions they had left hanging late the night before, she trying to keep up with whatever he was saying about his bands and his movies, he jocularly imploring her to share more, to have an opinion once in a while. Then these thoughts would subside and she would return to her daily routine, her calculus, her solitude. She would remind herself that she was she and he was he and that quiet girls who stand in corners don't usually go to the dance in the quarterback's Mustang. And she would remind herself that she didn’t care about any of that anyway.

Chuck, senior linebacker, was widely known for his thick beard so black it almost seemed (3)

______under bright lights and his (4) ______personality, both of which belied his youth and made him seem less suited for a suburban high school and more suited for a rustic cabin in the Upper Peninsula.

And yet it was Chuck who served as the catalyst that would bring Dylan and Ashley together to the dance two weeks later. He stood next to Dylan one night after practice, staring into his own locker, which Dylan had noticed was strangely empty except for a stick of deodarant.

“Going to the dance, brother?” Chuck asked.

“Yeah,” Dylan said. “You?”

“Hmmph.” Dylan didn't know whether this response was affirmative or otherwise, and he didn't press.

“You taking Ashley?” Chuck asked. “What?”

“Ashley. You know that girl you been bringing coffee to every morning?”

“Yeah?”

“That cute girl, quiet, has the pink TI-84 with the Mickey Mouse sticker on it?”

“Yeah, Chuck, I know who you mean,” Dylan said, perplexed that his teammate knew so much about Ashley.

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“You taking her?”

“To the dance?”

“No, to bingo.”

“Bingo?”

“Yes, the dance, brother. You taking her?”

“Ashley?”

“Yes, Ashley. You get knocked in the helmet today?”

“No.”

“No you didn’t get knocked in the helmet, or no you’re not taking her?”

“No, neither.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. Hadn’t really thought about it.”

“Who you taking?”

“Jenny Lewis.”

“Jenny Lewis?”

“Yeah.”

“Why on God’s green earth would you take Jenny Lewis?”

“Why not? I’ve known her for a while. She’s cute.”

“Yeah, well, she’s probably all right. But you should take Ashley.”

Chuck swung his locker shut and was gone just as quickly. Dylan lingered for a minute or two and tried to convince himself that he didn’t really care what he had just heard, that he was (5) ______to Chuck’s comments. He even attempted a halfhearted laugh to prove his nonchalance but his throat caught and he sat down on an adjacent bench and thought for a few minutes about how upset Jenny Lewis was going to be after he stopped by her house in a few minutes.

*** Dylan’s visit to Jenny’s house was as unpleasant as he had anticipated. After tripping in to the (6)

______that separated the curb from the front yard, he was met on the lawn by her family’s (7)

______yellow lab—honestly, he had never seen a dog so fat—and then had to endure a ten-minute conversation with Mrs. Lewis in the foyer before Jenny, wearing jeans and a blouse that resembled the (8)

______of his grandmother’s curtains, finally appeared. After Mrs. Lewis excused herself to a room

Dylan was sure was still within earshot he began the (9) ______conversation timidly but with certainty that he was doing the right thing. As he explained to Jenny that she would not be accompanying him to the dance, that he had experienced an epiphany of sorts that involved the need to be honest with himself, her father, a(n) (10)

______at the local community college, walked in from the garage. And so Dylan quickened the conversation. He expected to be met with (11) ______anger from Jenny. It turned out that he was thinking a bit too highly of himself and that Jenny possessed a(n) (12) ______ego. There was no (13)

______backlash from Jenny, only a shrug of her shoulders, a benign comment about how she’d either have fun with her friends or find another date, a kiss on his cheek, and a wish of good luck for his game that week. On the way out he noticed a picture near the door of Jenny jumping her (14) ______during an equestrian event. He thought to himself that she was probably a better person than he or Chuck had ever considered.

Jenny Lewis was ancient history by the time Dylan reached Ashley’s front door. After a brief (15)

______at Kroger to pick up a bouquet of roses, it was past nine. He worried about offending a set of parent whom he’d never met, waking younger brothers and sisters whom he wasn’t sure existed. But he had come too far now, so he pressed the doorbell, took a deep breath and waited. He heard the soft patter of footsteps followed by the metallic slide and clack of the unlocking deadbolt.

Instead of asking her to the dance, he handed her the roses and kissed her. He figured that would get the point across. Name: ______

Ashley deplored the mall and its gleaming storefronts, its cacophony of voices muffled by the atrium's fountain, its ubiquitous assault of overpriced wares. The few times a year when she was forced to enter this three-story debacle by her family or friends she walked aimlessly with a(n) (1) ______expression as though she were (2)

______with some sort of spiritual malady. Certainly Ashley accentuated her somewhat feigned melancholy just to (3) ______her mother. Mrs. Cassette had long been a fan of shopping and fashion and seeing and being seen, all part of the mall-going experience. Unlike her pouty daughter, she ascended each escalator with a sense of righteousness and (4) ______. To her, the mall and its collection of bright, shiny things were hers to conquer. In this way, Mrs. Cassette would never understand her first-born.

So when Ashley set off to the mall that Saturday morning, she did so with the (5) ______of someone who knew exactly what she was looking for and exactly how long it would take her to find it, pay for it, and depart just as quickly as she had arrived. True, she hadn't the faintest clue what she was looking for. She simply knew that because “a handsome young man” (her mother's words) named Dylan Davies had knocked on her door two days ago “at all hours of the night” (dad) and had brought her “pretty flowers” (little sister) and “kissed her on the face” (little brother), she needed a dress. She didn't know what kind of dress, which stores sold this unknown hypothetical of a dress, or what she would do to overcome her ignorance. Her standard uniform of jeans and Converse didn't take much forethought. Now she stood at the (6) ______of some world at which she'd only glanced from afar.

She took two trips around the first floor of the mall and one around the second before she admitted to herself that she would need help in her dress search. She looked around and then laughed to herself at the idea that she might find that help randomly at

10:15 on a Saturday morning. She imagined for a moment that everyone was staring at her, blushed in unnecessary embarrassment, and spun quickly toward the nearest escalator to retreat toward the parking structure. She felt in her desperation that she would simply have to (7) ______her acceptance of Dylan's date request. She quickened her pace at the thought of this conversation, and in her (8) ______she bumped into someone. Ashley snapped back to reality and saw a familiar face.

“Oh my god, Victoria,” Ashley said. “I'm so sorry.”

“No worries,” Victoria said, though Ashley detected an almost (9) ______tone of vexation in her classmate's voice as she shook spilled mocha from the back of her hand.

“Can I buy you a new coffee?” Ashley asked. “No, no, really—it's okay.”

“Sorry.”

“What are you doing here this early?” Victoria asked.

“Um ... just shopping. You?”

“I have to get shoes for homecoming. The ones I have aren't the right color. Why are there so many shades of powder blue?

I've literally bought like a hundred pairs of shoes this week.”

Ashley didn't know what to say, literally and otherwise. Her heart sank at the mention of shoes. She hadn't even though of accessories. She couldn't wrap her head around the dress and certainly wouldn't know where to begin with shoes. She felt a tear forming at the corner of one eye.

“You okay, girl?” Victoria asked.

“Yeah.”

“Hey, I heard you’re going to the dance with Dylan.” Victoria put her hand on Ashley’s shoulder.

“Yeah,” Ashley said.

“You don’t sound very excited. What’s wrong?”

“Um, it’s just that … I don’t have a dress.”

“Well, you’re in the right place,” Ashley said, her mocha-toting hand sweeping in front of her to indicate the mall’s vast array of options.

“Yeah, I don’t really know where to look. I’ve never really bought a dress. I guess I should have brought my mom, but she was going to hot yoga this morning.”

“What about last year’s dress?”

“I thought that wouldn’t be cool to wear the same dress again.”

Victoria laughed. “No, it wouldn’t. I mean, didn’t you buy a dress last year? I saw you at the dance. That was the week we had to finish that huge project for McCann’s class.”

“Oh, right,” Ashley said. “That was my cousin’s dress.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, say no more. I’ll take care of you. I know this place better than anyone. Let’s go.”

And just like that, a sort of (10) ______was engendered between the two young women.

Victoria gave up her morning to help Ashley find a dress and shoes, and in return—though she didn’t say this aloud—Ashley agreed to at least try to like the mall a little bit.

*** Dylan still couldn’t practice or play for at least another week, his bruised—not broken as originally suspected—ribs still intermittently sore and definitely vulnerable to further contact. So he assumed the role for which many a sidelined quarterback has been destined—he wore a baseball cap, held a clipboard, and helped his coaches call in plays, though his signals were placebos.

During his first game out, Dylan found he possessed a(n) (11) ______gift for the game. Even from the limited vantage point of the sideline, he saw the field well. He saw plays develop before they happened on both sides of the ball. He tuned out the roar of the student section behind him and focused on the minutiae that went into each and every down.

Back at practice the next week, he gazed up at the now (12) ______stands and wondered if he’d be cleared to play that week for the homecoming game. And just as immediately and probably more intensely, he wondered about Ashley. He hadn’t spoken to her that morning. He saw her from the other end of the senior hallway and waved. She waved back sheepishly, almost dropping her book and binder in the process. And then they lost each other in the shuffle of the tardy bell. He hadn’t seen her the rest of the day. He wished he’d brought his phone out to the field so that he could text her, but certainly that would have ended in some sort of fit by Coach Harrison.

Dylan’s job that week at practice was simple—he was to continue helping Smith Ferris, the sophomore quarterback who was athletic as he was inexperienced. The problem with Smith was that his agility and speed probably made him too explosive to fall into rhythm with an offensive line that had been protecting the methodical, calculating Dylan for more than two years. Smith should have been running the option, but it was too late that fall to (13) ______any changes into the offense.

Smith and Dylan ran in different circles once the game ended each week, but the younger quarterback had a swagger and a smart mouth that Dylan couldn’t help but appreciate. Dylan’s own hidden irreverence toward the game he was supposed to love so dearly found a home in Smith’s blasé cockiness.

“Hey, Wally Pip, you see that run?” Smith asked Dylan after scorching past the defensive unit on the first play of that day’s practice.

“I saw,” Dylan said. “You know that’s the second offense, right? I think one of those DBs is in eighth grade.”

“Whatever, Wally. You better get used to that cap.” Smith improvised a(n) (14) ______touchdown dance. Dylan laughed.

On the next play, Smith dropped the transfer from the center and had to fall on the ball.

“You’re actually supposed to hang on to it,” Dylan said. “You carry it backward a few steps, and then you decide if you’re going to throw it to someone, hand it to someone, or run with it yourself. Didn’t they cover this last year on JV?”

“That’s not very (15) ______, Wally,” Smith said. “Volunteer student assistant quarterback coaches are supposed to be more helpful.” Name: ______

Directions: Fill in each blank with the best word from this week’s list. Use each word once. You may not change a word’s part of speech. You may change a verb’s tense. (1 point each, 15 points total)

Dylan and Ashley strolled down the Paint Creek Trail, cider and donuts in hand, on a fall Sunday afternoon. The leaves had turned but only a few had fallen, leaving the branches above them in a phantasmagoric swirl of reds and oranges that threatened to set their hearts afire1.

“It’s beautiful here,” Dylan said.

Ashley said nothing, not out of any negative emotion but just because she could. The fact that he forgave and allowed her habitual reticence only bolstered her affections for him. She never felt the dread of her own introversion when near him. If she had nothing to say, she said nothing, and he didn’t seem to mind.

“Parting is such sweet sorrow,” Dylan said. This broke her silence.

“What?” she asked.

“It’s from Romeo & Juliet.”

“I know. Why’d you say it?”

“I don’t know. I guess I was thinking of the leaves. They’ll fall soon. Which I guess is pretty but also inherently sad. Fall always makes me a bit (1) ______.”

“Isn’t it sort of a(n) (2) ______for a quarterback not to love the fall? Shouldn’t it be your favorite time of year?”

“Who said I don’t love fall? And have you ever listened to anything I’ve said about football?”

“You just said fall made you sad.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t love it. Sometimes sad things are the best things.”

“Makes sense, considering the music you listen to.”

“Please don’t (3) ______my musical integrity. There’s no need to (4)

______me for having a dark, sensitive nature.”

“No, but I can make fun of you for being a total dork who pretends to be a cool football player.”

“Fine. I can make fun of the way you dance.”

At this she smiled and returned to her silence. Their donuts now gone, their hands were free for one another’s2.

1 “Set their hearts afire?” A bit (5) ______, don’t you think? 2 See footnote 1. The night before, she wouldn’t have danced at all had he not been unflinchingly (6) ______in his insistence that she leave the corner and join him on the floor. Her dress was amazing, he had told her. Her hair was perfect. She was there, and she needed to dance. Her refusal was as steadfast as his insistence. She even offered that he was free to dance with other if he’d like. At that he dropped her arms, which he had been gently tugging toward the floor. He leaned in and kissed her cheek.

“But I came to dance with you,” he said.

She knew she could not (7) ______the purity of such a moment, and so they danced3. She managed to fake her way through two fast songs and was relieved when a slow song began. Dylan’s arms around her (8)

______any anxiety she felt about dancing. His embrace was a(n) (9)

______for her misgivings4.

Back on the trail, they walked on for a while, at some point reversing course back toward the cider mill, where they noticed a

Girl Scout troop had set up a table to sell cookies5.

“Ooh, cookies!” Dylan said. Ashley looked at him askance.

“You’re pretty excited about that, huh?” she said.

“I love Girl Scout cookies.”

“We just ate donuts.”

“I only had one. And that was twenty minutes ago.”

Dylan approached the table with glee and asked for two boxes of Tagalongs and one box of Thin Mints. He handed the girls a twenty-dollar bill.

“You know, we actually just set up and don’t have any change ready,” the mom in charge said.

“That’s okay,” Dylan said. “You can keep the extra two dollars. I’m sure it goes to a good cause.”

“Thank you very much.”

As they walked back to the car, Ashley admired Dylan’s easygoing nature and generosity.

“That was very (10) ______of you,” she said.

“That’s no big deal,” he said. “I can always get you to buy me coffee if I run out of money.”

Two nights prior, Ashley stood on the fringes of the student section and thought about geometry. It was hard not to. She didn’t really care about football—she was there solely to support Dylan, who wasn’t even playing. So she stared down at the green

3 Remember those jealous girls from a few episodes ago? Well, now their stares were positively (12) ______. 4 Seriously—see footnote 1. And stop it. 5 There’s a temporal issue here that might require your willing suspension of disbelief. Please play along if you have intimate knowledge of the Girl Scout calendar. expanse that to her was a series of adjacent vertical rectangles (11) ______by one large horizontal rectangle. As the plays unfolded, she kept herself interested with the mathematics at work, such as alignment, distances and angles between players. And she was amused by the play of Smith Ferris, who with every snap attempted to defy geometry’s seminal (13)

______, which dictates that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Smith moved in every direction but a straight line, a physical feat that looked interesting but didn’t seem to please the head coach. Though she didn’t know much about football, she was able to follow along fairly well after a while. Some plays (14)

______her understanding—she couldn’t figure out what was going on during punts, and there was a fake extra point for a two-point conversion that baffled her as well. She cheered as much as she could, though not as vociferously as some of her classmates, who were determined to (15) ______their love for the team at every opportunity. Name: ______

For years, the Franklin Eastern football team held a(n) (1) ______over the rest of the league. The

Falcons dominated their division every year, and they were rarely challenged in crossover games. The second halves of games against their weaker division opponents often became (2) ______—with scores often titled mightily in the Falcons' direction, the coach would replace the starters with lesser talent and run the ball repetitively until time expired and the visitors were mercifully allowed to return to their bus.

Falcon fans—many of them voracious in their allegiance to their hometown team—were known to be (3)

______in their attention to detail. They noticed the slightest issue, the smallest change. They worried about the slightest weakness that might stall the (4) ______of a program that hadn't lost more than three regular-season games in the past five years, and two of those to local powerhouse St. Matthew's.

That fall, the fans noticed a few things that seemed to threaten their football empire. Though the Falcons won every game up through homecoming, there were blown leads, close games, and (5) ______errors where before there had been precision and command. And with upcoming games against the aforementioned St. Matthew's and intracity rival Franklin Central, those in the stands were getting anxious. They concentrated on two key issues. The first was the team's glaringly obvious (6)

______of running backs. So many Falcons had either fumbled handoffs or had gone nowhere when they held on that by the third game the coach opted to use a shotgun set with no one in the backfield. Since the loyal fans had no solution to the running game quandary, they focused their attention on something more ambiguous, something they felt they could, if given the opportunity, control:

Dylan Davies was not the same Dylan Davies. He was not the same quarterback that had had started every game since the second of his sophomore year. He seemed distracted, baffled in situations he had previously controlled. His footwork seemed slower. His passes seemed to lack the zip that had carried the Falcons to the state semifinals a year prior, where they fell in overtime to Jefferson City. In the fans' minds, it was Dylan's languished distraction that led to his recent injury—the Dylan of old could have avoided the crushing sacks that sidelined him, they supposed. And with Smith Ferris playing reasonably well in Dylan's two-game absence, some questioned whether the senior needed to

(7) ______his quarterback throne and give way to the quicker, more dynamic option.

The fans could not discern the cause of Dylan's metamorphosis. Whatever was eating away at Dylan's promise, his potential to go down as one of the greatest Falcons of all time, remained (8) ______. Until a few locals saw him at the Paint

Creek Cider Mill with a girl they didn't recognize. Those who were there looked on in astonishment—the (9)

______Dylan, talking and laughing and talking with a girl when he was supposed to have been at the traditional Sunday film session. At one point they saw him reach out to hold her hand, an image too (10)

______for their pragmatic, joyless eyes. “What in the heck is that young man doing?” one of the locals asked.

The others said nothing, just looked on in (11) ______. They knew whom they'd have to call.

And no matter what Dylan did from that point forward, he would not (12) ______himself in their eyes, not in this town, which had seen generations upon generations wear the Falcon black and gold, where Dylan's number seven jersey was not only sought after but sacred, having been worn by almost every starting quarterback for three decades. To skip a team function was to disrespect the program and in turn, disrespect the town’s past.

In the moments (13) ______first hour, Dylan waited outside Mr. Palazzo’s calculus class for Ashley to arrive. As she rounded the corner and saw him she smiled, and there seemed to be a slightly (14) ______cadence to her steps as she neared.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“I came to see you,” he said as he inhaled just a few seconds longer to gather the (15) ______aroma of her shampoo.

“I figured. What’s up?”

“I wanted to see if you wanted to do something after school today.”

“Sure.”

“You sound hesitant.”

“Don’t you have practice?”

“I’m suspended for two practices.”

“Why?”

“I skipped a film session yesterday.”

“What time was the film session?”

“Noon.”

“When we were at the cider mill?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.”

“So I’ll see you after school?”

“Sure. So you’ll be okay for Friday, right?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ll be allowed to play?”

“Yeah, I’ll be allowed.”

“You sound hesitant.”

“I’m just not sure I’m going to.” Name: ______

Saturday mornings usually found Ashley at the barn. Though she no longer possessed the insatiable love for horses that had defined her middle school years—she hadn’t participated in a(n) (1) ______event since she started high school—she still loved the peace and solitude that came with grooming and tacking and riding her favorite animals. At the barn Ashley could embrace her

(2) ______nature in its fullest. She was free to think without feeling the constant pressure that she should be saying something. Though she no longer dreamed of becoming an Olympic rider, she knew that on some level horses would always provide a(n) (3) ______for her. Plus, disappearing to the barn early in the day was a sound method for going to the mall or the movies or whatever other (4) ______outings her mother might have planned for the day.

Victoria walked quickly across the emptying student lot toward her car. The brisk wind swept across the cracked blacktop, and at once she was overcome with the feeling that fall had ended and the snow would come soon. As she neared her car she glanced a few rows over to see Dylan, whose jet-black Mustang was a(n) (5) ______beauty among the usual array of hand-me- down student beaters. Victoria watched Dylan kiss Ashley and felt a pang of jealousy so strong it was nearly (6)

______. She waited for a moment and as Ashley walked away, Victoria moved in Dylan’s direction. She perhaps for a transitory moment thought better of whatever ploy she was organically hatching, but she continued anyway. She already had a rather (7) ______reputation among her peers, anyway, she thought—why not get what she wants to go along with the scorn? Her classmates’ perception of her character left her (8) ______of any desire to play by the rules. She knew that to interfere with someone else’s relationship was to violate the terms of some unwritten, (9)

______social agreement—but she just didn’t care all that much. She felt a sense of (10)

______from her classmates and their arcane social rules, and with that separation came freedom. She was free to do as she pleased, to bypass the restraints of their (11) ______of expectations.

“Hey, Dylan,” she said. He turned toward her as she neared.

“Oh, hey, Vic,” Dylan said. “What’s up?”

“I locked my keys in my car. Can I have a ride home?”

“Yeah, sure. Hop in.”

And as Victoria opened the passenger door, she repeated Dylan’s playful use of the nickname “Vic” over again in her head. She looked across toward Ashley, who was getting into her own car. Victoria waved and smiled at Ashley, and she wondered how a girl who wore jeans and converse every single day and couldn’t pick out her own homecoming dress had managed to fall in with Dylan Davies. And she got into Dylan’s car, carefully slipping her keys out of sight into the side pocket of her backpack. ***

“You know you’re acting like a baby, right?” Ashley said. Dylan looked at her, surprised to hear her blunt honesty.

“A baby?” he said.

“Yeah. A baby. You’ve played football for how long, since you were five? And you’re going to quit because you got suspended for two practices? You’re going to quit the week the playoffs start?”

“It’s more than that. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time. I’ve told you about it.”

“Yeah, but it hasn’t made any sense.”

“I’m tired of football controlling everything I do. The cider mill thing was just a metaphor for a bigger thing. Football owns me.”

“Maybe, but you signed up for the team.”

“Yeah.”

“So stop acting like football is (12) ______you into some diminished form of yourself. You’re king of the school. Everyone who comes to cheer for you on Friday night are the lowly (13) ______. Isn’t that enough to make you keep going for a few more weeks?”

“I didn’t ask for that role.”

“No, but you’ve got it. And I’ve seen you enjoy it. So you can’t just throw it away because you all of a sudden don’t like it.”

“I just don’t love it any more. It used to be fun. Now it’s like a(n) (14) ______.”

“Fine, whatever. Play your last few games, be a hero for everyone, and then you can walk away.”

“Why do you care so much about football now?”

“I don’t care about football. I think it’s a weird passion of our nation’s combat-driven (15) ______.

It’s all so manly—I don’t get it. But that’s not my point, and that’s not why I care.”

“Why do you care?”

“Because I don’t want to be the reason you quit something.”

“That’s not why I don’t want to play.”

“No, but it’s part of it. And I don’t want to be part of what you regret.”

On Friday night, Dylan led his team from the locker room into the stadium. His teammates swarmed the field with a cacophony of voracious roars, but Dylan maintained a focused quiet. He braced himself against the sharp November chill. He heard the fight song, saw the cheerleaders, glanced up toward the glutted stands. He became aware of the beauty of a Friday night in Michigan in late fall, and he felt lucky to be there. As he took the sidelines for the opening kickoff he glanced behind him toward the student section, hoping to see Ashley. He didn’t, but he did see Victoria smiling at him. She waved, and he looked back toward the field. Name: ______

In 1975, the St. Matthew’s Saints won the inaugural Michigan high school football state championship by a score of 21-3 against

Catholic rival Xavier Prep. In the stands that afternoon was Louis Galloway III, a St. Matt’s alumnus who had more recently graduated from the University of Georgia. He had gone south after high school to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather, the first Louis Galloway, a

Georgia Bulldog who had come north after college to take a job with the burgeoning Ford Motor Company. Both Louis I and Louis II had done well as Ford executives—very well. Louis III had lived in the luxury their success provided. Now that he was back in Michigan with his college diploma in tow, he felt no immediate rush to start his own career. And yet he was bored to tears hanging around the family house, the atmosphere of which resembled a long-vacant church compared to the cacophony of his fraternity house back down in Athens. He was nostalgic to the point of desperation. To pass the time, Louis III renewed his interest in the St. Matt’s football team, for which he had served dutifully as backup quarterback just a few years prior. He went to every game that year, and by the time they won the state championship,

Louis III had hatched an interesting plan that could get his dad quite a tax break and temper his own (1) ______listlessness. That winter, in their post-championship glory, Louis III and the St. Matt’s administration agreed on a plan to install evergreen hedges circumscribing their football field. Lush, (2) ______hedges were a legendary staple of the Georgia stadium. By convincing St. Matt’s to plant a northern version of them in its stadium, Louis III was able to rekindle and relocate some nostalgia from his college years, and the generous Galloway donation that convinced St. Matt’s that hedges were necessary also got the family name inscribed on the stadium for all time.

Three decades later, Dylan Davies led his team through a gap in the St. Matt’s hedges amid a chorus of boos to begin the Falcons’ second playoff game. Franklin Eastern and St. Matt’s were longstanding rivals, their mutual enmity fueled initially by a four-year period in the late 1980s when the schools alternated state championships at the other’s expense. Their yearly contests were legendary, leaving the annual winner in a state of (3) ______until the two schools met again. This year’s regular-season matchup had gone to the Saints, who had capitalized on two Smith Ferris fumbles to keep their season perfect, which it remained to this point. As Dylan took the field, he knew his team was in a(n) (4) ______situation. To beat a perfect St. Matt’s team in their stadium would take both a stalwart team effort and an individual performance from Dylan that might match the expectations his town and school had placed on his shoulders since he threw his first touchdown pass two years and three months ago. Dylan looked around the stadium, heard the boos directed toward his team, and felt a fervor for the sport he hadn’t felt in some time. He was surprised to find himself

(5) ______for victory. He was not ready to bid (6) ______to football. Perhaps his disillusionment with the game this year was some unconscious avoidance of this very moment. By separating himself emotionally all season, maybe he had hoped to avoid the inevitable (7) ______intensity of a final loss. He had attempted to spread that emotion out over the course of a season. He acted as though he hadn’t cared so that he wouldn’t have to care. But it hadn’t worked. He heard the St. Matt’s fight song—an insidious dirge—give way to his own band’s (8) ______anthem, and he was back. He noticed a tightness in his jaw and realized he had been gnawing viciously on his mouth guard. He took a deep breath and waited for kickoff.

Ashley did not enjoy driving Dylan’s Mustang. For one thing, she didn’t care for the stick shift—the precise timing of clutch and gear (9) ______her. She told Dylan as much, though he had insisted on teaching her. She learned fairly quickly, though sitting in his driver’s seat still gave her the feeling she was in some (10) ______environment.

Perhaps it was just the Vanillaroma that was throwing her off. She still hadn’t grown accustomed to its saccharine force, preferred the subtle smell of something like the (11) ______she burned in her bedroom when working on calculus and physics. Or maybe it was the car’s (12) ______appearance—a far cry from her broken-in, handed-down sedan—that made her feel awkward. But tonight she had to drive his car to St. Matt’s. After the game, they would leave together. The plan was pragmatic, so she capitulated to driving his car, though she certainly didn’t like it. In the end, she managed. She pulled slowly into a spot in the far reaches of the St. Matt’s student lot with only a few minutes before kickoff. As she set the parking brake, she heard the (13)

______buzz of a cell phone, not her own. She lifted the center console to find Dylan’s phone glowing on top of an Imagine Dragons CD. She saw the text briefly before the screen went black: “Hey I know your probably not checking your phone right now. But I meant to say good luck and have fun tonight!!! Maybe we can get coffee sometime this week. Let me know!” It was from Victoria

Galloway.

With less than two minutes to play, Franklin Eastern trailed St. Matt’s 7-3 and the world seemed to settle down around Dylan. He assumed a cockiness to which he had no justifiable claim. He was losing, but he wouldn’t lose. He heard the St. Matt’s fight song in the distance and recognized it as a(n) (14) ______for the Saints’ season that was certain to end soon. The uproar from the St. Matt’s section became barely audible. Dylan jogged to the huddle, the last of the game—the Falcons planned to go hurry-up with only one timeout remaining and sixty-five yards to cover. He stepped under center and scanned the linebackers, who looked as intensely focused as they had all game. They were the (15) ______reason Dylan’s offense hadn’t managed more than a field goal. The linebackers had been everywhere all night. When Eastern ran, they cut off the holes before they opened. When Dylan dropped back to pass, the linebackers seamlessly became part of the secondary and eliminated his options.

But as Dylan now looked at them, he smiled to himself because he knew they hadn’t noticed the young man who had lined up in the backfield directly behind him. Why would they? The Falcons’ running game had been nil all season, even less tonight. And so why worry about who’s standing back there? Why pay attention to the fact that there hasn’t been a jersey number one in the game at all so far?

Dylan knew St. Matt’s expected a pass, knew they would get what they expected, but knew they wouldn’t know how they were going to get it. He took the snap and immediately pitched the ball back to Smith, who took two steps forward toward the confused but still approaching defense. Smith stopped short, stepped back, and slung a pass to the far left, where Dylan had escaped.

Dylan would still be running if he hadn’t hit those hedges at the back of the end zone. Name: ______

Victoria Galloway pulled into her driveway and grimaced at the sight of her dad’s SUV. Now that her oldest brother was officially home from college and working at the family business, an automotive supply company her dad had started in the mid 1990s right before she was born, Victoria had seen more of her dad around the house. She and her dad never really feuded, but they were never exactly simpatico.

She hadn’t seen all that much of him growing up, as he kept himself occupied at his business, which had done very well and had afforded her many of the same luxuries her fellow Galloways had enjoyed for generations. She appreciated her dad, but she just never seemed to know what to say to him. She imagined he felt the same way, though at least he tried. That afternoon, he went for his usual line of discourse—he asked about school. He asked about her classes with a specificity that baffled her. She wondered if her classmates were forced to endure the process of recounting every detail of every class upon their arrival home each day. And after several of these encounters she (1)

______that his intense interest in her academics at Franklin Eastern was probably a forced (2)

______meant to mask his disappointment in her now three-year-old decision to not attend Our Lady of

Sorrows, the sister school to St. Matt’s. Mr. Galloway had no way to (3) ______what he considered a foolish decision by his daughter, and he had by then stopped asking her if she wished she had gone to Sorrows instead. At some point his direct questions about her decision had transitioned to awkward sarcasm that teased Victoria into considering how much she wished she had the opportunity to wear a plaid skirt every day. Then he had stopped mentioning it altogether. But Victoria still had the suspicion that she disappointed him in some fundamental way. Her high school choice had disrupted a family tradition—every Galloway since her late grandfather’s generation had graduated from either St. Matt’s or Sorrows. Many of Victoria’s relatives simply could not (4)

______her mostly unstated reasons for breaking the tradition. The topic had (5)

______(6) ______disruptions at family functions until Victoria’s middle brother, who was now a senior in Ann Arbor, lost his temper in defense of his sister, managing to spill a gravy boat in the process. His anger startled the aunts, uncles, and cousins at the table and the discussion was shelved from that point forward.

The Eastern Falcons’ progression into the third round of the state playoffs naturally engendered media attention, and many outlets were duly impressed with the (7) ______of Dylan and Smith’s halfback sweep that had confounded the St.

Matt’s secondary into last-second defeat. The local news stations had picked up the video, turning Dylan into somewhat of a local celebrity for the ensuing week. Dylan’s renewed focus on football and the influx of those willing to (8) ______him for the previous week’s play gave him a more (9) ______swagger that week. As he and Ashley walked to class one morning, he nearly danced beside her.

“Feeling okay?” Ashley said. “Feeling great.”

“Did you accidentally listen to something that wasn’t acoustically depressing this morning?”

“Absolutely not. You know my rule: If it’s not plaintive, it’s tainted.”

“Oh my god. I wish I could call Channel 7 and tell them what a dork you are.”

“They wouldn’t believe you. I’m clearly famous and legendary.”

“Clearly.”

They arrived at her class. He kissed her hand in mock-heroic fashion.

“See you,” he said.

“Yep. See you at lunch.”

Dylan turned to walk away.

“Oh, hey,” Ashley said. Dylan turned around.

“Yeah?” he said.

“Did you let Victoria know?” He paused for a second, destabilized but curious.

“Did I let Victoria know what?”

“That you’re famous and legendary. She’ll probably want to know, since she’s your biggest fan. You should text her.”

He stood there, confused. He knew he hadn’t done anything wrong and didn’t feel the need to defend himself. And Ashley’s tone offered little in the form of anger or jealousy. Instead, she winked at him. There was something (10) ______in her playfulness. It was as though she were telling him that she was too good for such (11) ______nonsense.

Her maturity transcended the situation that really wasn’t even a situation to begin with. He felt his pulse quicken with some sort of admiration he had never felt for anything or anyone.

“See you at lunch,” she said. And she disappeared into class.

Dylan, slightly less buoyant but still standing, smiled after her and turned to go to his own class.

The Franklin Central stadium was always less than (12) ______to its intracity rivals. Tonight, it was downright hostile. The Falcons had opted to dress in their home locker room before the short bus ride west. They existed their buses as a black-and-gold anomaly in a sea of (13) ______. It seemed as though everyone in the Central crowd that night had adorned himself in red from head to toe. Dylan calm led his team through toward the field. As boos cascaded down toward him and his teammates, Dylan raised a solitary index finger above his helmeted head and continued to walk. His gesticulation, though seemingly innocuous, was actually a(n) (14) ______statement from a program that prided itself on understated tradition.

The crowd noticed his finger and booed more loudly. Dylan didn’t care. He was ready to (15) ______Central and move on to the semifinals. Name: ______

The week before Thanksgiving brought an unprecedented amount of early-winter snow to southeastern Michigan. Not only did this snow signal the annual suspension of Dylan’s Mustang days—Mrs. Davies insisted that he store it in the garage for the duration of winter because of its perilous rear-wheel drive—but also it threatened to waylay the Falcons’ hopes at reaching the state finals. With the area already covered in a two-inch glaze of white, the Saturday forecast of even more snow was (1) ______. Any hopes that the meteorologists had gotten it wrong quickly disappeared when Dylan awoke to find the snow falling hard outside his bedroom window. By game time that afternoon, it was clear that the snow would not (2) ______. The Falcons had relied on their passing game all season. Without it, they might (3) ______at the hands of their new foes, the Brooklyn

Drivers, whom they had never played but of whom they had certainly watched plenty of film. Brooklyn was as fast and powerful as their nickname might suggest. Brooklyn did run the ball.

Rather than (4) ______in despair at his team’s diminished chances for victory, Eastern’s coach did what any good leader would do—he (5) ______from his game plan. There was no need to stick to the same approach if it wouldn’t work. And there was no way his team—Dylan Davies at quarterback or not—was going to complete many passes that afternoon. The Falcons needed a running back, and the coach had two options. He could put Smith Ferris in the backfield and hope the young man could hang onto the football. The problem was that Smith’s ability to run successfully was (6) ______even in ideal weather conditions. Handing the ball off to Smith would mean at least one fumble. The other option was Chuck Tanner, the linebacker. Chuck could and would hold the ball. He wasn’t shifty, but what he lacked in mobility he more than made up for in strength. The problem was that Chuck was the defense’s anchor. To keep him on both sides of the ball and deprive him of his accustomed (7)

______of rest would inevitably cause fatigue. All things considered, the coach decided that a tired linebacker was less of a risk than the ball on the snowy ground. And so when Dylan took the field, number forty-forty—complete with his menacing black beard and intense gaze that threatened (8) ______on any defender who might get in his way—lined up behind him.

Though he understood its necessity, Dylan (9) ______this type of game plan. He hated the (10)

______monotony of handing the ball off over and over again. He wanted to drop back, roll out, and pass. He wanted to call a play action and rely on his instincts once the play was in motion. He wanted to work out of the shotgun and pick apart the undersized secondary. But that afternoon he did none of that. He took the ice-cold snap in his gloved hands, handed to Chuck, and watched his fellow senior pummel the Brooklyn defense into its first loss all season.

Dylan went to sleep that night with dreams of throwing touchdown passes next week inside the warmth of Ford Field.

*** Dylan wasn’t sure which was made him more nervous, playing in the state championship in front of tens of thousands of people and on live TV or going to Thanksgiving dinner at Ashley’s house. Mrs. Cassette’s casual invitation the previous week surprised him—she hadn’t said much more than hello to him previously. Dylan immediately and graciously accepted the invitation after making sure the Cassettes’ dinner was scheduled at a different time than his own family’s. The next day, though, the prospect of dining with Ashley’s family created

(11) ______in his psyche. He was afraid he might say the wrong thing. He was afraid he might use the wrong fork. He was afraid Mrs. Cassette might spontaneously decided to (12) ______him for keeping her oldest daughter out too late two weeks ago. He was afraid Ashley’s younger siblings might not like him. Although these fears weren’t (13)

______of the truth, they bothered him nonetheless.

By Wednesday, Dylan began to worry that his unrest concerning the Cassette family dinner might unseat his focus during such an important football week. Reaching the state championship was the (14) ______of his and his teammates’ careers. Was it worth distracting himself because of an unexpected dinner invitation? Shouldn’t he just stay home that day to rest and focus on the upcoming game? Going to dinner at the Cassettes’ was a sort of (15) ______—Dylan felt burdened by the situation. He voiced his apprehension to Ashley, who quickly put the matter to rest.

“Are you being a baby again?” she said. “Relax. It’s just dinner. My dad spends the whole meal looking over his shoulder at the

Lions game, and my mom will be busy keeping the twins in their seats. No one’s going to even know you’re there.”

“Okay.”

“Plus, you get to meet Grandma. She is by far the funniest and my favorite Cassette.” Name: ______

Friday afternoon

Dylan stood under center, his lineman before him in the victory formation. With (1) ______time left on the play clock, he paused to burn a few more seconds. He would only have to kneel twice. Then he would be free to celebrate the Franklin Eastern Falcons’ first state championship since 1997, their fifth in school history. He took a knee and flipped the ball back to the referee. As he did, he attempted to slow the moment, to capture some essence of what was happening. His mind was in a(n) (2) ______state. He had trouble processing his excitement, so he chose to retain his stoic countenance. To his right, the Falcon fans in the Ford Field stands were sustaining an ecstatic (3)

______as they waited for the final snap. To his left, the Marquette fans stood in (4)

______support of their defeated team. He saw tears on both sides. He walked back to the line, crouched, and signaled. The day became a blur. Hugs and high-fives and smiles and speeches (5) ______into one body of celebration.

Saturday morning

It seemed that the snow had not let up since the week before Thanksgiving. The paddock outside the barn and the adjacent fields were one amorphous (6) ______of gleaming white. Ashley, leading her horse from his stall, had to squint just to look out at the sun’s reflection. This morning of (7) ______(8)

______pleased her. With so much snow, with so much excitement in town after the game the night before, no one but her would be at the barn for hours. And after last night’s raucous celebrations, the peace and quiet (9)

______her to assume a(n) (10) ______disposition. Though she was tired from staying up later than she had in years, the (11) ______tasks of the barn—cleaning the stall, throwing new hay out—took on a sort of significance. Celebrating a state championship with her revered quarterback boyfriend was something new for Ashley. Though she had fun, the evening offered a certain (12) ______. She really was not sure how to behave in Chuck Tanner’s crowded basement, where it seemed half the school had gathered. She loved being with

Dylan, but she still wasn’t used to his social life. Working there at the barn that next morning brought her back to her pedestrian, comfortable self. Tending to equine matters was familiar.

*** Monday morning

Dylan’s alarm clock (13) ______him. With the onset of school, the revelry of the Falcons’ championship weekend subsided. He rolled over in bed and felt his (14) ______, week-old stubble scrape against his pillow. Chuck Tanner had convinced all the Falcons not to shave during state championship week as a sign of solidarity, but today the beards would go away.

A while later, Dylan emerged into his kitchen to find his mom sipping coffee and reading the newspaper in the breakfast nook.

“Hey, bud,” she said.

“Hey.”

“You awake yet?”

“Trying.”

“You need a ride today?”

“Yeah, but actually, I was wondering if I could just take your car today.”

“You did, huh?”

“Yeah, I kind of need to pick up Ashley.”

“Ah, I see. Should we have this girl over to dinner, bud?”

“Maybe.”

“Well, then, I guess you’d better take my car. But it does take a bit of (15) ______on your part to assume I wouldn’t need it. Who do you think you are, a football star? Some kind of hometown hero?” She smiled.

“Sorry, I just forgot to ask.”

“It’s fine, bud. The keys are on the hook. Be careful—it’s supposed to snow again later.”

He kissed her on the cheek and was out the door. Name: ______(5 points)

Directions: Fill in each blank with the best word from this week’s list. Use each word once. You may not change a word’s part of speech. You may change a verb’s tense. (1 point each)

Ashley liked method and diligence. She liked to know what she was doing and why. When she worked at the barn, she kept a mental checklist of tasks to be completed. Only when she finished these chores—cleaning stalls, throwing out hay, brushing and tacking the horses—did she allow herself any kind of enjoyment. In warmer months this meant a disciplined trail ride that might last the duration of the afternoon with a stop for lunch along the river. With the recent snowfall, though, Ashley hesitated to ride. Some of the snow would have packed into ice along the trail, and she didn’t want to risk injuring a horse. She settled for eating her peanut butter and jelly on a stool at the edge of the barn before she left for the day. On her way out, she gave each of the horses a small apple she had brought along in her backpack.

She left the barn and headed for school, where an afternoon of math tutoring awaited her. Ashley did not like tutoring. All of the things she loved and found rather simple about math became frustratingly convoluted when she tried to help the students who showed up. At best, she had been paired with underclassmen who simply could not grasp the basic tenets of simple Algebra. These students tried valiantly, but the numbers and variables on the page remained (1) ______. At worst, she had worked with students who channeled their struggles into dispassionate disdain for her favorite subject. As she approached the building that afternoon, she couldn’t muster any enthusiasm for the task before her. She had no interest in (2)

______math’s virtues to people who didn’t want to listen. And yet this was not an occasion when she could retreat into her (3) ______demeanor and wait out the hours—every Saturday so far she had been busy the entire afternoon.

So two steps from the cafeteria doors Ashley turned around. She walked back to her car and drove toward Dylan’s house. She was keenly aware of the vaguely (4) ______endeavor upon which she now embarked. It was silly to think she could simply escape what she didn’t want to face by running to her boyfriend’s house. She would surely face (5)

______from the NHS adviser in charge of tutoring, which perhaps was not a great idea in light of her remaining college applications. But what bothered her more was that Dylan was involved in her decision to skip out on tutoring. The more she thought about this as she drove, the more embarrassed she became. She had always been stoic and (6)

______—whatever she had to deal with, she dealt with. Maybe not with a smile on her face, but she dealt with it anyway. And now she found herself relying on someone else’s presence.

Ashley had vowed at the start of freshman year to never allow her emotions to fall under anyone else’s grasp. This epiphany of sorts had come on the heels of an awkward, weeklong relationship with a(n) (7) ______junior who had (8) ______her freshman anxiety with his dimpled attention—basically he walked her to class a few times and sent her a text or two. He then forgot all about her as the homecoming dance approached. She had missed a day of school due to tearful regret—embarrassment, really—about the situation and had promised herself never to let it happen again. She (9)

______her affections for the young man in cloaked, abbreviated language on Twitter, chalked up her brief attachment to him as a freshman (10) ______, and never looked back. She made sure that such a situation would never replicate itself.

And it hadn’t. Even with Dylan, there had been no illusions, no flowery declarations of any sort. They had each gone about their senior fall the way they might have otherwise—they just simply found themselves doing so in each other’s presence. Now as she drove to his house in a fit of spontaneity, she faced a crisis. Was she breaking their unspoken code of being themselves, allowing their relationship to exist outside the boundaries of the high school drama that so plagued her classmates?

She decided to pull into Starbucks to think about it. She had her calculus book with her—the method and diligence would help her realign herself. As she took her bag from the backseat and swung the door shut, she looked up to see Dylan and Victoria sharing a table near the window. Name: ______(5 points)

As she approached the Starbucks door, Ashley did her best to suppress the (1) ______jealousy that had arisen from her stomach upon seeing Dylan and Victoria engaged in conversation through the window, Victoria laughing at something he’d said, laughing with an animated flip of her hair with a bit too much emphasis to seem plausible. Despite Ashley’s best efforts to be reasonable in this moment, she struggled. Logic told her that there was nothing wrong with Dylan having coffee with anyone he wanted to. Emotional assumption told her otherwise. She paused for another second before opening the door and promised herself that reason would win, that nothing that stood on the other side of the door was worth (2) ______to her emotions. She would rely on her (3) ______to avoid an effusive reaction.

Once inside, she walked to Dylan’s table. He looked up at her and smiled.

“Hey, Ash,” he said. If he was surprised to see her, his voice gave no indication of it. It was as though he was expecting her.

“Hey,” she said. She was out of breath.

“Hey, Ashley,” Victoria said, rising to hug her.

“Hi, Victoria. What are you guys up to?”

“Well,” Victoria said, “I was studying over in the other corner and I saw Dylan come in and sit here. I needed help with my stats homework, so it was great timing.”

“But Dylan sucks at math,” Ashley said. She caught herself, immediately regretting this (4)

______comment. “I mean. I didn’t mean—”

Dylan laughed. “It’s fine, Ash. I just happened to understand this chapter better than the others.”

“Oh. That’s good,” Ashley said.

“Pull up a chair,” Dylan said.

“Yeah, sit here, sweetie,” Victoria said. “I have to get going, anyway. I have a date later.” Her voice was even more disingenuously (5) ______than when Ashley had first approached the table.

“Oh, yeah?” Ashley said, feigning interest.

“Anybody we know?” Dylan said.

“Probably not,” Victoria said. “He goes to St. Matt’s.”

“I hate him,” Dylan said.

“Stop. You don’t even know who he is,” Victoria said.

“If he goes to St. Matt’s, that’s enough for me.” ***

Christmas Eve brought Ashley to the Davieses’ dinner table for the first time. She had attempted to avoid the situation just as

Dylan had attempted to avoid her house at Thanksgiving, but Mrs. Davies was (6) ______in her kindness until Ashley relented.

Once the initial awkwardness of eating at her boyfriend’s house subsided, Ashley enjoyed herself. There was a general comfort to the Davies house that hers always seemed to lack. There were no (7) ______younger siblings in timeout. There were no (8) ______parental disagreements about trivial nonsense.

And so Ashley forgot herself for a while and had fun in others’ company. She found the (9)

______to join the conversation She mentioned her plans for college, offering the benignly (10)

______remark that she planned to study engineering because she liked math. She admitted that she hadn’t been to a high school football game prior to that fall, which invoked a chuckle from Mr. Davies. She liked getting to know

Dylan’s older sisters—the elder was in her medical residency in Detroit, the younger a senior in East Lansing. Dylan’s parents were affable and generous. Ashley was surprised that they even bought her a Christmas gift, a beautiful Tiffany necklace with a horseshoe pendant.

Later that evening, Dylan walked Ashley outside to her car. A new snowstorm was in the forecast, and flakes were just beginning to fall, covering the sidewalks and snow banks with a powdery glimmer. They kissed goodbye, silhouetted by the glow of moon, streetlamps, and Christmas lights.

“I have something for you,” Victoria said.

“You do?”

“A Christmas present.”

“But we said we weren’t going to get each other anything. I thought we were going to do the ski trip instead. I didn’t—”

“I know, I know. Don’t worry, it’s okay. I just saw this and thought of you.”

She opened the trunk. Inside was a vintage record player with a red bow on top.

“Wow,” Dylan said. “I’ve always wanted to play vinyl. This is awesome, Ash.”

“Yeah, I remember you talking about it.” She handed him a wrapped package. “This goes with it,” she said.

He tore off the wrapping paper to find three used Bob Dylan records.

“Wow,” he said.

“I thought you might want to start your collection with your namesake.” Name: ______

January brought all the standard (1) ______of winter to southeastern Michigan. The excitement of the holiday season had subsided, leaving a deep freeze in its wake. Gray clouds (2)

______the sky of sunlight. Shovels, mittens, and failed attempts at snowmen became (3)

______. The warmth of spring was a(n) (4) ______, too far off to imagine.

Every evening the local forecast (5) ______students’ hopes of the year’s first snow day. These hopes were quickly (6) ______each successive morning when no cancellations were announced. Students refreshed the closings list on their phones obsessively until the absolute last minute they had to rise from their warm beds. School buses rolled along snowy roads toward Franklin Eastern. The hallways squeaked with snowy boots.

On one such morning Dylan stepped outside his garage to his mom’s SUV, the cold so (7)

______it made him wince, tears welling in his eyes against a gust of wind. He drove slowly through his subdivision toward Ashley’s house. The accumulation of snow made his neighbors’ houses appear as (8)

______of their former selves. He gazed out the window at the (9) ______suburban landscape—replete yards now dormant, blooming trees and barbeques and mailboxes and basketball hoops now cloaked in a blanket of white.

And yet despite the cold, this was one of Dylan’s favorite times of the year—football ended, lacrosse not yet started—when he could slow his mind down a bit. It was on these cold mornings when he found (10) ______within himself. He didn’t have to impress anyone or be a leader or be involved. He was happy to simply be. He was his most (11)

______self.

That afternoon, Dylan and his teammates left school early to attend an assembly at one of the local elementary schools. The assembly was about working hard or teamwork or something like that, but really it was a chance for the district’s younger kids to meet the state-champion football players, whom they idolized. Dylan was excited to attend. Though he found much of the attention that adults directed toward him and his teammates to be (12) ______at best, a bit (13)

______at worst, he enjoyed hanging out with the kids. He felt that they had the right as children to be

(14) ______in their fondness for the local football team. The kids wore jerseys, many of them number seven—not necessarily for Dylan but for the mythical Eastern quarterback they all wished to become—and cheered happily when the players walked in. The kids’ enjoyment was so righteously linear and unfettered with cynicism that it was almost (15)

______. There was no gray area for them. If they like something, they cheered. Dylan smiled and waved back.

After introducing the players and making a few comments about setting goals and working hard, the principal handed the microphone to Dylan, who would lead his teammates in fielding questions from the audience. Dylan and the other players took turns responding, talking about their favorite parts of playing football, what it felt like to win a state championship, and so on.

After a while the principal came forward and announced that they had time for one final question. She handed the microphone back to Dylan, who pointed to the first hand he saw, quickly realizing it belonged to Billy Cassette, one of Ashley’s twin brothers. His mop of auburn curls bounced as he stood up and took the other microphone from a teacher.

“Hey, Billy,” Dylan said.

“Hi.”

“You have a question, bud?”

“Yeah. Um. Are you going to marry my sister?” Name: ______(5 points)

Dylan (1) ______all week about his grandpa’s invitation to join him Up North that weekend.

He always enjoyed traveling north, but he usually kept his trips to the summer. Grandpa wanted to ice fish, which sounded okay in theory but would prove less than exciting about an hour into a long day out on the frozen lake. Just thinking about it made Dylan anticipate the (2) ______pain in his toes and fingers after drilling a few holes and setting lines. Plus, he would have to be away from Ashley. That this bothered him was not something that he was ready to admit. He had never seen himself as someone who scheduled his life around a girlfriend. He (3) ______himself for this emotion, reminded himself that Ashley would always choose the barn over him, and decided to head Up North.

The air inside the cabin was comfortably inviting. He had been coming here for as long as he could remember, and there were times he felt more at home here than he did at his parents’ house. His mom, who had surprised Dylan by riding shotgun all the way and allowing him to drive, disappeared into the back kitchen area with Grandma, and Dylan was left alone with Grandpa.

“You get skinnier?” Grandpa said.

“No. Grandpa, you just saw me a couple weeks ago at Christmas.”

“Hmm. You look skinny. Haven’t stopped working out, have you?”

“No.”

“You still have to work out, even after the season’s over. You never know when the next recruiter will be there.”

“Yeah, Grandpa, I know. But I’m not sure that any of that is going to work—”

“And you have that fancy game with the sticks in the spring, right?”

“I think you mean lacrosse.”

“Hmm. You could probably still get on the baseball team this year if you tried out. I bet your father could put in a call.

There’s no way your arm should go to waste flinging a rubber ball around with a basket on a stick.”

“Grandpa, I like lacrosse. And I’m better at it than baseball.”

“Hmm.”

“Plus, I have a much better chance of playing college lacrosse than football.”

“Would that mean you’d have to go to college in Canada?”

“You ready to go fishing, Grandpa?”

“Hmm.” Dylan was not the most (4) ______fisherman to ever meander the north woods. He struggled to thread a hook through a worm. Grandpa watching intently, waiting for Dylan’s line to be ready before they continued, didn’t help.

But Grandpa’s strange behavior and sometimes abrasive attitude had long ago stopped (5) ______

Dylan. Even Grandpa’s frequent attempts to (6) ______lacrosse, a sport Dylan had played and loved since seventh grade, didn’t register. At the core of Grandpa’s rough facade was an intelligent gentleman who had been at almost everyone one of Dylan’s games for as long as he could remember. Grandpa sent ten dollars for every “A” Dylan earned in school.

Grandpa called every time Dylan’s favorite Tiger or Red Wing made a great play to make sure his grandson had seen it. Grandpa gave his slightly used Mustang to Dylan on the boy’s sixteenth birthday. Grandpa was (7) ______that all his grandchildren—though some noticed that he favored Dylan especially—enjoy all the comforts he never had as a kid in southeast

Detroit, as a young man turned old on the assembly line at Ford’s River Rouge plant.

Their lines sunk, Grandpa turned over the two buckets he had brought out onto ice and sat down, Dylan following suit.

“You staying up here the rest of the winter, Grandpa?” Dylan said.

“Hmm. You still have that girlfriend I met down there?”

“Yeah. Her name’s Ashley.”

“Hmm.”

Neither said anything for a while until Grandpa broke the silence.

“She’s pretty,” he said.

“Yeah, I know.”

“Be nice to her.”

Late that afternoon Dylan and Grandpa shuffled across the ice toward the cabin, their faces numb and red in the dimming wind. Dylan’s mom and grandma welcomed them into the cabin with the (8) ______aroma of homemade beef stew. The men ate in silence, slowing thawing from their day on the lake. Mom and Grandma exchanged anecdotes about their respective pedestrian routines. Mom talked of the volunteer work she was doing in a nearby warming center. Grandma talked of the new priest at their local church, which was almost an hour away in Manistee.

“I don’t know where this young man came from,” Grandma said, “but he’s a bit cavalier for my taste. Did you know he took all the kneelers out? I come back from communion, and I’m just supposed to sit there?”

“That’s strange,” Dylan’s mom said.

“And his politics. Well, let’s just say that some of his homilies are less than (9) ______in terms of the Church’s teachings. He just thinks and says whatever he wants. I’m thinking of finding somewhere else to go to Mass.”

“You’d have to drive all the way to Traverse City,” Grandpa said. “Just plug your ears and wait it out a few weeks. He’ll transfer somewhere else.” “Well, I’ve been waiting long enough. He’s been here almost three months.”

“Hmm.”

“I’ll do the dishes, Grandma,” Dylan said. “Thanks for the stew.”

“You’re welcome, bud. But you just go on with Grandpa into the family room. He’s been talking about watching the hockey game with you all week.’

“The Wings are on, Grandpa?”

“Hmm.”

Grandpa only lasted only one period before he filled the cabin with snores. Dylan made it through two, his eyes heavy with the memory of cold inside the warm cabin. He drifted off, waking after the game had ended to find his mom covering Grandpa with a blanket.

“You’re going to leave him in his chair?” Dylan said.

“Grandma said he sleeps out here most nights anyway.”

“Okay, I’m going to bed.”

“Okay, bud. See you in the morning.”

Alone in the bedroom in which he had slept for years, Dylan felt tranquility wash over him. He was far from his high school hallways and its (10) ______conversations. He was far from traffic. He was far from the expectations bestowed upon him with his talent and charm, the expectations that sometimes kept him up at night in fear that he was simply waiting around to eventually disappoint everyone.

But that night at the cabin, before he fell asleep, he could see the snow start to swirl outside his window and he felt good.

And he pined for Ashley. Name: ______

Directions: Fill in each blank with the best word from this week’s list. Use each word once. You may not change a word’s part of speech. You may change a verb’s tense. (2 points each, 20 points total)

Though Ashley had maintained equanimity during their recent encounters, she was certainly cognizant of Victoria

Galloway’s (1) ______attempts to (2) ______Dylan. Ashley didn’t like

Victoria, but she also didn’t like high school histrionics. Since her temporary melodramatic meltdown freshman year, Ashley insisted to herself that she would not allow any such sophomoric emotions surface again. And so far she had succeeded. But as she approached

Dylan’s locker from the far end of the hallway that morning in late January, she felt the color in her face change at the sight of

Victoria’s hand resting on the sleeve of Dylan’s varsity jacket.

“Why is your hand making contact with his arm?” Ashley said. She grimaced at her own phrasing. She had meant to (3)

______Victoria—instead her question sounded like it belonged on a basic geometry test.

“What?” Victoria said. “Oh, no, sweetie—I hope you don’t think—”

“Can you please go away now?” Ashley’s tone was more denotative than (4) ______, but it appeared Victoria was getting the point as she stepped forward from the locker, her posture losing its flirtatious slouch.

“Ash, nothing was going on,” Dylan said. “We were talking about—” Ashley looked at him and he stopped talking.

“Ashley, I’m sorry if it looked like that,” Victoria said. “I was just—”

“You’re always ‘just’ something. What, you were talking about stats?”

“Actually, yeah.”

“Fine. Next time do it with touching my boyfriend.”

“Okay, I’m really sorry.” Victoria walked away. Ashley turned to Dylan.

“Sorry,” she said.

“You’re sorry. For what?”

“For losing control of my emotions.”

“You joking? You barely raised your voice. That was awesome.”

“Sorry, she just bothers me. Why are you smiling like that?”

“Nothing, I just like that you called me your boyfriend. You’ve never done that before.”

And so Ashley had unwittingly (5) ______her status as Dylan’s girlfriend. Dylan took out his phone.

“I’m going to change my relationship status on Facebook,” he said. “Cool?”

“Oh my god, please don’t.” “Can we get a joint Twitter? I actually think that could start a trend.”

“I’m going to class.”

She walked away, and he watched her pony tail bounce with her footsteps.

Ashley, having stayed too late at the barn that Friday evening, dressed in (6) ______. Dylan was on his way to pick her up, and she didn’t want to subject him to a lengthy sojourn in her parents’ living room with her dad’s introverted attention to whatever game was on TV and her mother’s subtly accusatory questions. Her hair still wet, Ashley threw on a pair of jeans, mismatched socks, and her Converse. She cascaded down the stairs to meet Dylan, who apparently had just arrived and was in mid-interview with her mother.

“Absolutely, Mrs. Cassette,” he said. “Don’t worry—I’ll keep an eye on her.”

“I hope you’re not talking about me,” Ashley said.

“I was just telling Dylan that I worry about you. You know how I feel about parties.”

“Mom, it’s fine. It’s not even really a party. I think his parents are going to be there.”

“They’d better be,” Mrs. Casette said. “I don’t think you should be going if—”

“No, no, they’ll be there,” Dylan said. “I actually don’t think Mr. Tanner ever comes out of his den except to hunt and fish.”

“Okay, but be careful.”

“Oh, I just thought,” Ashley said. “Am I dressed okay?”

“Yeah, why?” Dylan said. “You look cute.”

“I don’t know. I just have jeans on.”

“Ash, we’re going to Chuck Tanner’s basement. As long as you’re not in a deer costume, you’ll be fine.”

“Basement?” Mrs. Cassette said. “Ashley, you know how I feel about basements.”

“Don’t worry, Mom.—it’s a walkout. We’ll all be safe if there’s a fire drill.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Ashley opened the door. “I know, Mom. We’ll be fine.”

“Home by midnight,” Mrs. Cassette said as she shut the door behind them.

That Dylan and Ashley could see police lights as they rounded the curve toward the Tanner residence did not (7)

______well for the status of the festivities that were supposed to be hosted there. The lone police cruiser in front of the house pulled away as they neared, and Dylan could see Chuck and a few other stragglers on the snowy front lawn, hurling snowballs at each other.

Dylan pulled into the driveway and rolled down his window. “What happened?” he said.

“Who’s that?” Chuck said, walking toward the SUV.

“Dylan.”

“Hey, bud. What’s up? Oh—hey, Ashley.”

“Hey, Chuck,” Ashley said.

“Dylan, get out,” Chuck said. “I need your pro-style arm to (8) ______my team in this snowball fight. Smith keeps pitching the option or fumbling every time he packs one.”

“Heard that,” Smith said.

“Wasn’t trying to hide it,” Chuck said.

“Chuck, what happened to the party?” Dylan said.

“Well, I made a bad decision.”

“What?”

“Well, it was Smith’s fault, actually.”

“Smith?”

“He bet me ten bucks I couldn’t get parents’ sound system loud enough to shake that one deer head off the basement wall.

Neighbors got mad, called the police, end of Tanner-fest”

“Did anyone get in trouble?”

“Nah, we were just making too much noise. The cops warned my dad to keep an eye on us. We’re actually locked out right now. Dad’s pretty upset that he had to come out of his den.”

“That sucks.”

“Yeah. Hey, get out of the car. Join this snowball fight.”

“Nah, I think we’ll take off.”

“What are you guys gonna do?”

“Maybe just drive around, I guess.”

Dylan and Ashley idled in the driveway for a few more minutes, talking about nothing with Chuck. Smith wandered over, curious if Ashley had any cute friends that might want to hang out (she didn’t). Chuck (9) ______Dylan once last time to join the snowball fight (he wouldn’t).

They decided to go back to his house to see what movies they could find. They were in no rush, so Dylan skirted the city limits and turned down a winding gravel road that ran toward the creek. He reached down and turned the heater up all the way, reached up and opened the moon roof.

“What are you doing?” Ashley said. “Just look up,” Dylan said.

Dylan slowed the SUV to a crawl so Ashley could gaze skyward. Above them the canopy of barren branches glistened with the recent snowfall. The weight of the snow pulled the branches so close to the car that it seemed they would collide and splinter. But they did not. The white of the trees and the stars twinkling beyond and the warmth of the car and their hands together engendered some sort of (10) ______. Neither of them spoke, and it took them a long time to get home. Name: ______

Monday

Dylan had always been rather ambivalent about studying history. His dad was a history buff who sometimes stayed up until the small hours of the morning watching Ken Burns documentaries, and there certainly was some of this same fondness for stories of the past embedded in the younger Davies. But many of the history classes Dylan had taken in school had been rather prosaic, and he had grown weary of dates and royal lineages. And so as he settled into his seat in World History 2 to begin his last semester of high school, he didn’t expect much in terms of excitement. He did like the teacher, the intelligent and kind Ms. Harrison, who had left her successful law career and her husband in one fell swoop a few years back to begin a new life at Franklin Eastern.

Dylan didn’t recognize his new classmates—many of them seemed to be sophomores and juniors at first glance—so he didn’t know that the young woman sitting directly to his right was beginning her first day at Eastern. He looked over at her and was struck both by how pretty she was and by how uncomfortable she appeared. Nervousness (1) ______this girl

—her hands fidgeted back and forth. She opened and closed her notebook a few times. She looked around as those she either expected or feared someone’s arrival. And then finally she smiled, seemingly laughing at herself. At this point Dylan decided to (2)

______about her strange behavior, his (3) ______to make new acquaintances getting the best of him.

“You okay?” he said.

She smiled as she turned to him. “Me? Oh, yeah, I’m fine. Why?”

“You seem to be a bit on edge this morning.”

“Oh. No, I’m just a bit nervous.”

“About history?”

She laughed. “No—about starting at a new school.”

“You’re new here?”

“First day.”

“In the middle of the year?”

“Yeah. Kind of strange.”

“A bit. Where’d you come from?”

“Um, Montana, actually.”

“Really? Cool. I’ve definitely never met anyone from Montana.” “I’ve never met anyone from Michigan.”

He reached his hand to her. “I’m Dylan. Now at least you’ve met one person.”

“Thanks, Dylan. I’m Lisa. Nice to meet you.”

“Pleasure’s mine. What brings you all the way from Montana?”

But their conversation was cut short as Ms. Harrison called the class together. Lisa was called out to talk to her counselor before the end of the hour, so Dylan’s question was left unanswered for the time being.

Wednesday

Once a month the high school started an hour later than usual so that teachers could hold meetings and workshops. On these mornings Dylan and Ashley met for breakfast at a small, (4) ______diner that had been downtown since before Dylan’s father was born. While the rest of the town had undergone a contemporary (5) ______, the diner remained the same as it had been since its opening so many decades prior. The red-and-white table cloths were always there, and the archaic snapshots of Franklin were not throwbacks—they’d simply been on the wall forever.

Dylan claimed the western omelet offer a culinary (6) ______unknown to him in any other establishment, but Ashley sensed that Dylan’s old soul—the same one that drew him to his father’s folk music collection—appreciated the diner’s ambience. Dylan didn’t say much during these breakfasts, which didn’t bother Ashley. They usually just relaxed and enjoyed the stolen time.

Friday morning

For a considerable portion of her childhood, Ashley had witnessed her parents arguing on a nearly daily basis. Ashley’s mother always explained that they were simply “(7) ______,” as though this slightly elevated diction would erase Ashley’s negative feelings about the circumstances. Eventually Mr. and Mrs. Cassette reached some sort of impasse in which they silently agreed to disagree. The arguments ceased, and a sometimes unsettling peace pervaded the house. Ashley never knew whether her parents made some sort of pact to get along or whether they simply had grown tired of the process and had opted instead to ignore each other.

Ashley had no intention of being in a relationship with Dylan or with anyone else that involved arguing. Idyllic and naïve as this aspiration may have been, Ashley thought life was too short. She would rather be alone than waste time arguing with someone.

Up until that Friday morning, her days with Dylan had produced no occasion to fight. They’d simply gotten along for no apparent reason at all. And so when faced with Dylan’s unexpected, undiscussed announcement that he would be hanging out with his some of his teammates that night (he actually called it a “bro night,” which she found nauseating but didn’t address) instead of her,

Ashley thought before she spoke. True, he was under no obligation to spend all his time with her—she had never expected him to forsake his individual (8) ______so they could be hand-in-hand twenty-four-seven. Also true was that she had grown accustomed the past few months to spending every Friday and Saturday night with him. He should have told her sooner, she thought but then remembered her pact with herself not to engage in relationship warfare. And she let it go.

Friday night

“Bro night” turned into a trip to an off-campus apartment at the local university. One of Dylan’s teammates knew someone who knew someone and they didn’t have anything else to do, so they went. The apartment was in (9)

______condition, its carpet and walls replete with inexplicable stains, its archaic kitchen table teetering on three legs, its kitchen sink filled with all manner of dish and spoon. Hackneyed party music throbbed from a crackling sound system. Dylan walked back and forth from the living room to the kitchen a few times trying to find a comfortable place to perch and wait out the night until they all went home. He failed in this endeavor, only managing to bump into and benignly jostle with people he didn’t know.

After about twenty minutes of hovering in silence—the music was too loud to even attempt a conversation—Dylan decided to leave. His teammate who’d driven them there seemed to have temporarily disappeared—apparently he’d gone with someone to another gathering in a nearby apartment. Dylan didn’t feel like waiting, so he left.

He braced for February’s chill but felt relief at the fresh air, cold as it was. He pressed his phone to his ear.

“Hey, it’s me.”

“Hey.”

“I’m coming over. That okay?”

“Um, sure. What’s wrong?”

“No, nothing. I just wanna see you. Is it okay if I come over?”

“Yeah, it’s fine. How long?”

“How long does it take to walk from the university?”

“What?”

“I don’t have a ride. I’m walking to you.”

“Dylan, it’s freezing outside. Just hang on. Keep your phone on. I’ll come find you.”

Sunday

The news that his grandfather had died the night before was softened only by the peacefulness of his passing. The old man had fallen asleep sometime during the Wings game and simply didn’t wake up. His death did not come as a complete shock to Dylan —Grandpa had suffered for a few years from a rare illness for which doctors could find no (10) ______.

But knowing this did not make the actuality of his death did not come any easier for Dylan.

The Davieses spent much of that day in each other’s silent presence. Dylan’s sisters returned home in the afternoon. They were all benevolent toward each other but still they didn’t say much. Dylan went to bed that night with the feeling that everything had changed or was changing or something like that which he couldn’t put his finger on. At any rate he felt sad and was relied to feel sleep come to him. Name: ______

The weeks after Grandpa’s death were the most difficult of Dylan’s charmed life. He had never dealt with any sort of loss, and his grief was more visceral and more (1) ______than he could have imagined. Every academic (2)

______set before him became a(n) (3) ______chore. The more complex concepts in his statistics and physics classes absolutely (4) ______him. He sat in silence, aware that his teachers probably knew about his Grandpa and were letting him slide for the time being. Though he had always liked his classes, he found himself longing to join the (5) ______who ditched class at every opportunity.

Two things kept Dylan going. One was the memory of Grandpa, who had always been a(n) (6)

______of reason and maturity, whom Dylan had idolized as a figure of integrity and diligence for as long as he could remember. Grandpa was a(n) (7) ______man, and Dylan propelled himself forward through his sadness because he knew the elder man would want him to.

The second was the promise of attending the Valentine’s dance with Ashley. Dylan and Ashley’s daily (8)

______had subsided temporarily during Dylan’s mourning, and as the weekend approached he felt his

(9) ______lift a bit at the thought of dancing with Ashley, who had sat with him during both Grandpa’s visitation and his funeral, who had the uncanny ability to just be quiet and hold his hand and not utter euphemistic platitudes in the face of actual irrevocable loss.

On the morning of the dance, his (10) ______must have appeared brighter to his classmates.

He felt their relief at his lighter steps, his smile as he approached his locker. He appreciated that despite any objection he might have to his state-champion quarterback status he did indeed serve as some sort of metonym for his school’s mood. His classmates smiled at him that morning. Some wished him a happy Valentine’s Day. He met Ashley at her locker and kissed her.

“Do you have a hot pink tie?” Ashley said.

“No,” he said, “but I can get one. Why?”

“To match my dress tonight.”

“You’re wearing a hot pink dress?”

“Bought it last night.”

“Wow. Victoria help you pick it out?”

“Funny. I have to go to class.”

She walked away, and he watched her pony tail bounce with her steps. Name: ______

Sunday night

Dylan walked into the room and encountered an impenetrably awkward silence. He had things to say to Ashley and he intended to say them, but his voice trailed off in impotent wisps of breath every time he opened his mouth. After all, what could he say? He had wronged her, had refused her, had pushed her away in such a manner that nothing he could conjure verbally could serve as consolation for her pain. His words—his penchant for nonchalant eloquence that had served him so well in the past—now slipped away along with his hopes of salvation. Her expressionless gaze was deliberate and effective. He knew she wanted him to leave, and her stoic face—absent of all the laughter and silliness only he had known—banished him like a swift punch to the gut. He searched one last time for something to say, some random thought, something with which to digress from the gravity of the moment, but came up empty. He walked out with only the sound of the door clicking quietly behind him.

Saturday morning (late)

Ashley had seen Victoria’s tweet before she left the house that morning, but her expression as she worked at the barn gave no hint at the turmoil rolling through her abdomen. Certainly there is always a context for everything, but Ashley struggled to fathom how Victoria’s picture could possible make her boyfriend look like anything but a(n) (1) ______liar.

Posted at 1:37 a.m., Dylan smiling, walking next to that new girl from their history class who always wears cowboy boots because she’s from Wyoming or Idaho or something. That new girl, wearing Dylan’s varsity jacket. Victoria’s tweet: “Who’s wearing number

7 these days?”

At the barn that morning Ashley checked and rechecked the tweet, (2) ______the photo for something different than what seemed its obvious truth.

Saturday morning (early)

Smith Ferris’s house was less than a mile from Dylan’s as the crow flies. Dylan knew these subdivisions like the back of his hand, knew which had fences, which were big enough for neighborhood football games, which had sledding hills. He was an excellent guide for Lisa McGuane that night. Dylan and Lisa had talked their way well past midnight at Smith’s house, past the point when

Lisa’s ride had left. In the course of their conversation, Dylan learned that the McGuanes had come all the way from Montana to share a backyard with the Davieses. Dylan simply hadn’t noticed the new neighbors behind his house and might not have until he mowed the lawn in the spring if Lisa hadn’t told him that night where she lived. And so it made sense when both Dylan and Lisa realized that they were stuck at Smith’s that they would join forces and make the frozen trek two subdivisions east.

Stepping outside the basement’s sliding glass door, the wind whipped in front of them like an antagonist. Lisa braced against the winter, her only defense a thin sweater, blue jeans, and cowboy boots.

“Where’s your coat?” Dylan asked.

“I left it in the car. Didn’t know where I’d put it when I got inside. Also didn’t know the car would depart without me.”

“Here.” He handed her his jacket.

“What a (3) ______gentleman,” she said. “Ashley’s lucky.”

“Yeah, well, she might argue with you about that tonight.”

They climbed up and around through the snow to the front yard. Dylan winced at the cold, kept his head down. He didn’t see the last stragglers from Smith’s house making their way to the street. Didn’t notice that Victoria Galloway was among them. Didn’t see her lift her phone. Must have blinked and missed the camera’s flash.

By the time Dylan and Lisa had traversed their first set of backyards, Victoria’s (4) ______and the (5) ______it would create were loosed into the Twittersphere.

Friday night (late)

It was a stupid fight. Most are. Ashley didn’t really want to go the party at Smith Ferris’s house. Dylan did. Or he said he did.

Ashley wanted to leave. Dylan wanted to stay. Ashley sulked. Dylan sulked. Finally:

“Just go,” Dylan said.

“What?”

“Just go if you’re having such a bad time.”

“You’re having a great time? You’re sitting here with me, not saying anything.”

“Whatever. I’ll go hang out with Chuck and those guys. Just go and we’ll see each other tomorrow.”

“You drove me here. My car’s at your house.”

“Take my car. I’ll walk.”

“Fine.”

“The keys are locked in the car. The code’s—”

“I know the code.” And she was gone.

Outside in the frigid air, Ashley felt the stubborn return of her (6) ______identity. She had come this far by herself and was relieved to be alone.

*** Friday night (early)

At the beginning of the year, Ashley might have viewed her introversion as a debilitating (7)

______, something to hide or overcome if she wanted to embark upon the adventures of a “normal” high school senior. But now that she had crossed that threshold, now that she had been to all the football games and had been the subject of much gossip and had frequented parties and bonfires and coffee shops with regularity, she began to see her propensity toward quiet solitude as a strength. Being part of the party had done nothing to make her like the party any more than she ever had. She enjoyed her quiet self, like to be inside her own head, and didn’t care that others saw it as a form of (8) ______. And her introversion hadn’t hurt her relationship with Dylan at all. His talkative, outgoing nature meshed well with her subdued disposition. He was mature and secure enough not to expect her to speak with each breath.

That night, though, wasn’t Dylan and Ashley’s best night. Dylan secretly had been on edge all day since he noticed a Western

Michigan football assistant in the main office, presumably on campus to meet with Cooper Stone, the Falcons’ all-state defensive end who had just recently signed with the Broncos. Western had briefly courted Dylan—as had a number of mid-major schools—but after his mid-season injury no scholarships materialized. Dylan had convinced himself he was okay with this, but for whatever reason the recruiter’s presence in school that morning awakened dormant pangs of jealousy. That morning’s emotions marked the true (9)

______of his football career—unless he wanted to walk on somewhere, which he didn’t, he’d taken his last snap.

Ashley wasn’t there in school that day to notice Dylan’s subtle brooding. She hadn’t spoken to him all day before she met him for dinner, and she wasn’t the best company herself, exhausted from a cross-state trip to a math competition. They didn’t say much during dinner, but perhaps each hoped that the night would (10) ______into something better in one another’s company. Name: ______

The week after Ashley parted ways with Dylan, her longtime friend Sarah came to Michigan for the week. Sarah had grown up two houses down from Ashley. The two had been inseparable through elementary and middle school and both were devastated in the (1) ______, unfettered way that only a seventh-grader can be when Sarah’s father accepted a promotion that moved the family all the way to White Plains, New York. After a while it became clear that Sarah’s departure was not as (2) ______as the girls had so histrionically anticipated. In high school Sarah found she loved taking the train to nearby New York City as often as possible. She morphed into quite a(n) (3) ______young woman, meandering her way to the most chic coffee shops and bookstores and boutiques and theaters Manhattan had to offer. Back in

Michigan without Sarah, Ashley found herself enjoying her solitude and her horses more than she ever had growing up.

Naturally the girls had grown apart—their greetings at Metro Airport became a bit less (4)

______with each passing year. Sarah had always been the social leader of the two—if they were with a group of friends it was certainly because of her initiative. And as she grew up in high school, she became even more outgoing and (5)

______. She dominated the conversation with the persistently quiet Ashley.

Ashley knew it was good to have Sarah around that week. It was good to have another voice to listen to beside’s Dylan’s, which resonated inside her head, still pleading for understanding, still insisting on the (6) ______of his account of the fateful Friday night and Saturday morning when he had found himself fighting with Ashley and talking with Lisa. He shouldn’t have been there with Lisa, he knew, but nothing had happened. But nothing, Ashley thought, can be the worst of all indefinites. And so she had decided to adhere to her father’s favorite idiom: Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. But of course she couldn’t help doubt the situation. Sarah, for the most part, helped drown all that out with her talk of New York and college options and everything else that had accumulated in the year since they’d last hung out. And Ashley certainly didn’t want to talk about Dylan. She mentioned the situation in the vaguest of terms, not wanting to delve into anything akin to (7) ______breakup talk. Ashley forgot about Dylan for the time being.

Except for the Saturday night before Sarah left. Sarah insisted that they attend the Decemberists concert in Detroit. The outing was emotionally (8) ______to an evening spent with Dylan. Ashley knew he liked the

Decemberists—it really was a shame that he couldn’t meet Sarah and talk about their shared (9) ______for folk rock. But the opening act, a solitary flannel-clad man with only an acoustic guitar and harmonica, might have been more interesting to Dylan. Ashley knew enough to know that this singer-songwriter’s style was clearly derivative of Bob Dylan, who according to Mr. Davies was the inspiration for his son’s name. A few songs into the set Ashley began to wonder if this musician’s melancholic folk had ever shuffled through Dylan’s bedroom speakers. She resisted the temptation to text Dylan and ask. She attempted to resist thinking of him at all in that moment, attempted to avoid the sort of emotional dependence she so loathed in her peers. But she quickly (10) ______. It was too soon, she thought, and things were too murky just to forget him. Maybe she should think about Dylan. Maybe it would help. Name: ______

Dylan walked into the gym with a sense of relief. He hoped the onset of lacrosse one-on-one drills would offer some distraction from his turmoil, which had subsided somewhat from its initial acuity but now throbbed like an ubiquitous hum in his consciousness, like a fact of life he couldn't shake. His heartache surprised him. He had listened to enough to sad songs to know that relationships are (1) ______and the individuals who endeavor to enter into them are (2)

______. Things change, people change. But he wondered what if anything had exactly changed. And he wondered if he had in some way been seeking those sad songs. He tried to remember that he had known other girls, tried to invoke the clichéd sea full of fish, but every time he came close to convincing himself he came back to the same truth. They were not like Ashley.

He looked around the gym at the many faces he knew, some he didn't, and wished only for the drills to begin. He led stretches and warm-up runs with his co-captains and fellow defensemen, Chuck Tanner and Cooper Stone, and then they all lined up.

Dylan looked from his line of defensemen toward the corresponding attackmen, who had been depleted by graduation into a seriously undersized and under-skilled group of neophytes. He had seen these guys around school, donning their Warrior lanyards like overt (3)

______of their supposed lax-ness. Dylan and his defensive core were good enough to win a state championship, if you ignored or somehow surmounted the habitually excellent St. Matt's team that sent players to eastern universities every year. But the attackmen that waited to challenge them in one-on-one drills looked weak enough to make sure there was an ambulance on call. The structure of the drills (4) ______the team into opposing factions of what could be and what would never be.

Normally the attackmen in one-on-one drills had to worry about the physical prowess exhibited first by Cooper, the defensive end headed to Western after graduation, and second Chuck, the linebacker headed to the forest to wrangle bucks. Dylan was the best of all three, but his acumen lay in his stick work and mental precision. He was as good with his long stick as many were with their short sticks, and he rarely made excessive physical contact with his opponent.

But tonight Dylan entered into some other realm. Every attackman that approached him walked away demoralized. Most ended up on the gym floor first. A few had to retrieve their sticks after quick, vicious swipes. It was as though Dylan imagined that every act of aggression might (5) ______the effects of Ashley's departure. And with no coaches present at the voluntary preseason workout, his aggression saw no consequences. Perhaps he had some sense that taking out his broken heart on a group of diminutive underclassmen was a moral failure on his part—he had always prided himself on both his (6)

______and his (7) ______. Perhaps he knew it wasn't fair to exploit his athleticism to make himself feel better. But he also knew it wasn't fair to be framed into a breakup by a disingenuous twitpic and the ensuing swirl of (8) ______stories. And tonight in the gym he was determined to care about neither. Luckily for the attackmen one of Dylan's coaches did show up. But it wasn't his lacrosse coach. Coach Harrison, the varsity football coach, stood in the north end of the gym with a man Dylan had never seen before. The man was tall and thin and wore a

Michigan State football jacket.

"Dylan," Coach Harrison said, "Come over here."

As the Michigan State coach began to speak, the reason for his visit remained (9) ______—

Dylan hadn’t touched a football for months, had eradicated its presence from his future. He was having trouble understanding why the

MSU quarterbacks coach was talking to him. But the specificity of the coach’s explanation induced clarity.

Michigan State had lost two quarterback commits in the past month—one had decided to stay close to home and play for

UCLA, the other chose to enter the Major League Baseball draft—and needed to fill the slots. The MSU coach who had come to the gym that night was an old friend of Coach Harrison’s who had shown some interest in Dylan at the end of his junior year but nothing besides a form letter had ever come of it. The coach had attended the state championship game in which Dylan threw for more than three hundred yards en route to victory. The coach had recently reviewed all of Dylan’s game film and had a hunch. Dylan had an outstanding arm, excellent field awareness, and at six-three, one-ninety, his athletic frame hadn’t filled out yet. In short Dylan had all the tools to become a college quarterback but wasn’t there yet and had been overlooked because of his senior-year injury. MSU would offer him preferred walk-on status, which gave him no scholarship but put him immediately on the roster. Dylan would miss MSU’s spring practice but would move onto campus May 3—the day after prom—to start working out with the team and enroll in classes. He would miss the last month of his senior year. He would have to forgo lacrosse.

Dylan thanked the coach and they agreed to talk the next day. He felt a bit wobbly as he exited the gym toward the parking lot. He heard Chuck yell for him as he left but he ignored the call. The girls soccer team was coming back inside from a preseason run.

Victoria stepped away from her teammates toward Dylan.

“Hey, Dylan,” she said.

He said nothing and sidestepped her advance. He walked into the cold parking lot and drove home.

A few hours later he sat at the kitchen table with his parents, weighing his options.

“Well,” Mrs. Davies said, “you’ve got a difficult decision, bud.”

“I’m going,” Dylan said. “I’m leaving.”

Dylan couldn’t sleep that night. Football had been gone—he had washed his hands of it. Now it was changing his life.

Perhaps, he thought, nothing was (10) ______. Perhaps given the right circumstances anything can be re-imagined. Name: ______

Ashley approached her college decision with the same pragmatic (1) ______that defined her other pursuits. She hadn’t known what to say at the end of her junior year when her guidance counselor asked her to list her “dream school” on the perfunctory senior questionnaire. She knew she wanted to study engineering and she took diligent steps to apply to as many universities as was reasonable and appropriate to her geographic and financial situation. But she harbored little of the zeal demonstrated by some of her classmates for a particular school. Her parents had attended college in separate places out of state, so she hadn’t grown up with any sort of alumni–esque reverie that might cause her to (2) ______any one campus. This indifference was denotative at heart—she did not think her lack of fervent interest in the college selection process made her any more (3) ______than her classmates. It was not a display of haughty disdain. It just was what she felt. She filled out applications, visited Ann Arbor and East Lansing, talked with her parents, and considered her options carefully.

In the end the horses decided for her. She would attend Oakland University, which had offered her a scholarship. She would live on campus but could continue her weekly Saturdays at the barn. Her solitude and her love for horses would continue to be her (4)

______from the subtle melancholy that had been a(n) (5) ______of her daily life, now more so than ever without Dylan.

“Hey, quitter.”

Dylan turned from his locker, the back of which he had been staring at intently for what seemed minutes, to see Cooper

Stone.

“Oh, hey, Coop. What’s up?” They shook hands.

“Nothing. Thanks for bailing on us. Season’s looking brighter than ever.”

“Ha. No problem,” Dylan said. “Thought you could use an extra challenge.”

Dylan knew Cooper’s comments were mere (6) ______, but they stung anyway. He couldn’t remember ever having not finished what he started. He was excited to move to East Lansing but he knew he’d always regret missing his senior season of lacrosse.

“So you’re working out every day again?” Cooper said.

“Yeah, I have to. I’m not exactly in game shape. Never thought I’d play football again.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you’ll do fine. I’ll see you in there after school.” “Cool.”

“When do you leave for State?”

“First Sunday in May.”

“Oh, that reminds me. I was talking to a couple people. If we reserve a bus or limo or whatever now, it’s way cheaper.

You’re still going to prom, right?”

Dylan paused. He didn’t need to (7) ______Cooper’s innocuously loaded question because he might not have even heard it. He watched Ashley walk past on her way to calculus. She was moving quickly, trying to beat the tardy bell. In her haste she dropped her calculator. He moved to pick it up for her but she beat him to it and was gone before she could even notice him there. He wished he could stop her. He wished he could tell her that she doesn’t have to worry, that it would be okay to get a tardy, that it doesn’t matter at this point, so late in a year that had flashed in an instant and threatened never to exist at all if they didn’t pay attention.

Dylan sat at the cafeteria table by himself—his class had switched lunches that day, and he didn’t feel like looking around for someone he knew. He stared at the cafeteria tray in front of him, loaded with at least twice its usual allotment. The MSU coaches who had been in contact with him had been blunt. His arm was strong and precise, his vision accurate, his decision-making sound. His weaknesses lie in his physical stature. Some of the plays he had made at Franklin Eastern were simply too (8)

______. He needed to added bulk to give himself the option in the pocket to muscle out of certain situations. He had always relied on his athleticism and intelligence. Now he needed physical prowess if he wanted to be more than a practice player at MSU.

The problem was that he had never been a particularly big eater. Certainly there were certain foods he liked, and he always looked forward to his mom’s meals, but he also (9) ______the feeling of being too full. He felt sluggish and tired after a big meal. And so he pushed around the food and did his best to follow his coaches’ orders.

“Hey.”

Ashley stood before him.

“Hey,” he said.

“I heard you’re leaving.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

“When?”

“First week of May.”

“You excited?”

“I am. Nervous, actually.” “You’ll be fine.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“You decide yet?”

“Oh, right. Yeah, I’m going to OU.”

“The horses will be happy.”

She smiled.

“I have to go,” she said.

“Okay.”

“I’m happy for you.”

Dylan felt all the (10) ______possibilities of life rush back into him like a flood. He waded in the wake of her half utterances. He watched her pony tail bounce as she walked away. Name: ______

The math team’s chartered bus rolled slowly but steadily through an early March snowstorm on the Ohio Turnpike. From her seat toward the back Ashley gazed out at the swirling snowflakes that obscured the flat dreariness of the Ohio landscape. She wondered if she had brought the right clothes. She hadn’t exactly packed for a tropical beach but she also hadn’t brought any of her most combative winter gear. She had anticipated that the same slow thaw they’d been enduring in Michigan would extend all the way east to New York City. The rapid climatic (1) ______they encountered just shy of Cleveland was unexpected and unwelcome. Ashley thought about her suitcase’s (2) ______contents for a while longer and decided to let it go—after all, she had her dad’s credit card if she needed to make an emergency clothing purchase. She couldn’t think about all that might come. She couldn’t go back and repack. All she could do was sit comfortably in the (3)

______moments. The bus was monotonously comfortable and Ashley grew weary staring at the snowy flatness and beyond and she drifted in and out of a restless slumber until the bus hissed to a stop at a Pennsylvania rest stop somewhere north of Happy Valley.

Dylan sat in his sprawling basement and watched MSU practice films with a mixture of awe and terror. He was never one to

(4) ______his own abilities but the athleticism and intelligence of the current quarterback cohort was beyond impressive in comparison to the standards which had guided Dylan’s play at Eastern. Certainly no one expected Dylan to be that good in his first year, more likely never at all considering his walk-on status, but he couldn’t shake the (5)

______that (6) ______in his chest like a self-perpetuating catalyst of fear. Would he have the courage to throw a pass in practice? Would he have the vision and agility to avoid the assortment of behemoth defensive ends, linebackers, and safeties that would threaten his life with every practice snap? Are walk-on quarterbacks allowed red jerseys or was he considered practice food? Since he had announced his decision to attend MSU a steady stream of envious congratulations had (7) ______Dylan into believing he had just stumbled into the opportunity of a lifetime. He wondered there in the basement at one in the morning if this would be the way he’d one day look back at what was to come. Was it in fact the opportunity of a lifetime? Or would he fade into oblivion amid a series of early mornings, bruises, and doubts?

*** By the time they crossed the Pennsylvania-New Jersey border the snow had stopped. They had driven through the night and the eastern sun crept toward the approaching bus with a momentum Ashley could not fathom. She shielded her eyes and groped around the front pocket of her book bag for her sunglasses.

Two hours later Ashley leaned forward as Manhattan appeared.

Dylan awoke to his phone’s alarm. It took him a moment to realize he was still in the basement. He rose and walked to the stairs. The thought of school (8) ______him. He had slept little and knew he’d battle drowsiness all day.

But he had no reason not to go. He could stay home and no one would know or care but that wasn’t the way he was. He knew that. He ascended two sets of stairs, showered, dressed, came back down stairs, kissed him mom goodbye, and found the keys to his—actually,

Grandpa’s—Mustang. Grandpa, who sometimes had gone years at a time without missing a single day of work. Dylan stepped into the car and pressed the clutch, the engine roaring to life. Maybe this morning was its own opportunity of a lifetime. He drove to school and greeted the day with (9) ______.

Ashley and a few acquaintances—she hesitated to call them friends, not out of any sort of spite but simply because she didn’t know any of them all that well—walked south from Times Square. They had joined forces in search of a coffee shop, their conversation (10) ______from lack of sleep on the bus. After they found coffee they decided to continue walking for a while. They wanted to see a bit of New York that was not the glowing touristy throb of Times Square. So they walked. They passed Penn Station, bustling with the morning rush, and drifted through Chelsea into Greenwich Village and over to

NYU. Ashley felt an unprecedented excitement as she walked among the apartments and storefronts and coffee shops. Everything was close enough to touch but taken as a whole the city seemed a vast frontier of endless possibility. Name: ______

Ashley’s ambivalence toward English class had recently sharpened into something more akin to actual distaste. For one thing, Mr. Thomas insisted on taking way too long to meander through Shakespeare’s Hamlet and its titular prince’s (1) ______, (2) ______musings, pausing almost daily to inculcate the weary seniors with a reminder of the play’s fundamental humanistic connections. These didactic forays into what the students should be feeling and will be feeling given enough time and experience were often accompanied by some sort of musical segue, generally a melancholic folk–esque song that did little to invoke Ashley’s poetic sensibilities. She appreciated the way in which Mr. Thomas (3) ______Shakespeare’s words but couldn’t muster the same passion. She was at least willing to play along with this literary game but the class ultimately had turned sour for her with the presence of Lisa and her Montana cowboy boots and her appearance in the locally viral tweet that had sunk Dylan and Ashley’s relationship. Lisa had approached Ashley after that fateful weekend to explain that nothing had happened, that her donning Dylan’s jacket was simply a friendly act of pragmatism, that the very nature of her conversation with Dylan that night was innocuous and centered both on Dylan’s relationship with Ashley and the relationship Lisa had left behind in Montana. Ashley had no reason to suspect that the story was (4) ______but if she believed Lisa entirely she would be admitting that she had in some part erroneously cast off Dylan. Ashley’s mature side recognized the invalid nature of her animosity toward Lisa. Her stubborn, visceral side just wanted Lisa to go away. On the Friday before spring break Mr. Thomas announced the groups he had selected for the class’s final projects, which would take the entirety of fourth quarter to create and deliver. He explained that the groupings were entirely randomized to reflect the eclectic, capricious nature of the friendships the students would enter into upon their departure from Franklin Eastern, a rationale that seemed logical enough to Ashley but didn’t reduce the acidic feeling in her stomach when her and Lisa’s names were the first two called. Ashley recognized that she was not as worried about working with Lisa as she was concerned that their proximity might force her to realize what she didn’t want to realize, that perhaps the dissolution of her and Dylan’s happy days had come at the hands of the high school gossip machine she’d sought so fervently to avoid. Victoria’s tweet, which seemed permanently (5) ______in its immediate aftermath, had now come and gone, lost in the annals of what had happened way back when during senior year. But Ashley’s separation from Dylan was as tangible as her assumption upon first seeing that tweet. Ashley didn’t want to see that she had allowed an innocuous incident to (6) ______both Dylan and her relationship with him. And though she wasn’t quite ready to (7) ______her forgiveness for him and wasn’t even sure she’d accept it, her logical mind began to turn in that direction. *** The weekend before spring break found Dylan in a quandary. He had no particular interest in spending a week in Punta Cana —hot beaches conflicted with his cold-weather disposition—but had acquiesced to the plans out of some semblance of responsibility. With the help of teammates and friends he had been encouraged to recognize his role in the school’s social structure. His quarterback/captain status brought with it the (8) ______understanding that he would be involved in spring break and prom and all things collectively deemed “fun” and “part of high school,” or so his peers had suggested. For the most part he had no trouble meeting these expectations—he was no stranger to the parties that popped up on game nights and he’d spent a considerable portion of the late summer traveling to and from his parents’ lake house with a group of friends in tow. Dylan’s parents’ (9) ______—both financially and emotionally—had allowed Dylan the luxury to do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted. But as the snow dwindled into slushy mud across southeastern Michigan and his departure for East Lansing loomed, Dylan grew wary of the social scene. He had spent so much time pondering what was to come once he left Eastern that his previous allegiances and interests now began to seem (10) ______. There was an expanse of life waiting and part of him had already departed. On Sunday night Dylan decided he wouldn’t be joining everyone on the beach. If there was any hint of regret lurking beneath the surface of this decision it was too far buried or gone for him to notice. He managed to transfer his plane ticket to one of his teammates who had only recently come up with the money for the trip. They figured the Dominican hotel wouldn’t know or care if it really wasn’t Dylan Davies checking into the shared room anyway. Dylan called his grandma, said he’d be stopping by the cottage for a day or two, and climbed into bed not knowing what he might do with the rest of the vacated week. Just as his eyelids grew heavy, his phone buzzed on the nightstand. He looked to the glow and saw Ashley’s name staring back at him. “Hey,” he said. “Hey.” “How are you?” “Good. You?” “Good.” “I need your help.” “Okay.” “Can you come to the barn tomorrow after school? I need someone strong to help trailer one of the horses.” “Sure.” “Thanks. And Lisa will be there.” “She will?” “Yeah, she actually knows a lot about horses. I guess that makes sense since she grew up in Montana.” “Okay.” “So I’ll see you then?” “Sure.” “Maybe I’ll see you before then. Maybe I’ll see you before school.” “Okay, good.” “Good night.” “Good night.” Name: ______

Dylan sat at the kitchen table facing a dilemma. He couldn’t take his Mustang to East Lansing. Freshmen weren’t allowed to have cars on campus. He learned after a few (1) ______but polite phone calls that this was a(n) (2)

______policy—and if they did bend the rules for anyone, he was pretty sure his lowly status as walk-on quarterback wouldn’t get him very far. Beyond the parking policy, Dylan wasn’t even sure he’d want to have the Mustang as his vehicle in the mid-Michigan winter.

“Remember that Grandpa said when he gave it to you that you could sell it any time,” his mom said.

“I know,” Dylan said. “It just doesn’t feel right. Maybe I should just store it here for a while.”

“You know your father doesn’t want another vehicle in his garage. Between the boat and our cars, we’re maxed out. Truth be told, I can’t give you any (3) ______that Dad won’t sell it as soon as you’re gone.” She laughed.

“I guess I can check around to see what I’d get for it. What would I do with the money?”

“Keep it.”

“You think that’s okay? Shouldn’t I give it to Grandma or something?”

“Grandma’s doing fine. Keep it until you have something special to spend it on. Grandpa would be happy with that.”

“Okay, I’ll think about it.”

Ashley walked from stall to stall completing her (4) ______barn chores. She was always happy to be alone at the barn but that day she found herself submerged in melancholy at the recent departure of her favorite horse. None of the horses technically belonged to her but she had grown particularly fond of a few over the years. Scottie, a ten-year-old paint who had actually been foaled at the barn, was by and large her favorite. Now Scottie roamed a field on the west side of the state. When she and Dylan and Lisa had trailered her the week before Ashley cried for a few minutes, the first time she had shed any tears in front of

Dylan. This had been a strange and (5) ______moment for Ashley. She was overwhelmed with both joy to be back near Dylan and its (6) ______, sadness, for her horse.

Dylan and Ashley never spoke of their relationship’s hiatus. Probably both silently acknowledged that the (7)

______details surrounding their temporary split were (8) ______at best, nonexistent at worst. With Dylan leaving for East Lansing in two weeks, neither wished to waste time discussing whatever had happened. To do so would be prodigal (9) ______. They each simply let their time apart drift into the spring air. With their days numbered, they endured some of their most peacefully bittersweet moments. If either wondered or despaired at what was to come, neither spoke of these feelings. Long afterward both would look back on those two weeks with a sense of nostalgic reverie.

After helping her at the barn that night, Dylan invited her back to his house for dinner. Mrs. Davies paused briefly and smiled warmly from her preparations at the counter when Ashley followed Dylan into the kitchen. Mrs. Davies understood the tenuous (10)

______of young relationships. She had been disappointed to see them break up and was happy to see them find their way back to each other.

The next morning Dylan kissed Ashley at her locker and they walked in opposite directions. He turned to watch her pony tail and then he went to class. A few minutes later he felt his phone buzz.

“You didn’t even have to ask,” Ashley texted.

“I just wanted to make sure,” he texted.

“What color dress should I wear?”

“Your call. Just let me know so I have the right vest and tie.”

He put his phone down and smiled. A few hallways over, Ashley did the same. She looked down at the stuffed horse Dylan had left on her desk. Around the horse’s neck was a silver chain, its pendant engraved with “Prom?” Name: ______

Ashley rolled over and looked from her bed to the window. The fickle Michigan weather had turned away from spring back toward winter overnight, leaving in its wake a steady drizzle and a(n) (1) ______sky replete with charcoal clouds. She felt a(n) (2) ______spirit creep toward her. The weather was bad, prom would be mired in rain, Dylan was leaving. But this sort of (3) ______pessimism did nothing for her—she remembered her (4) ______spirit and her pact with Dylan that their last days together would be (5)

______to sorrow, that they would be happy just to be there with each other. Certainly there would always be (6) ______reasons to dwell in negativity but she invoked her inner (7)

______and remained steadfast in appreciating everything for exactly what it was—yet another miracle of an opportunity to wake up, do something she had never done before, and keep going. Maybe this was what all of Dylan’s sad songs were all about after all. Maybe it wasn’t that everything was inherently sad but that everything was inherently beautiful and it took all of your resolve just to pay attention before it fled.

She descended to the kitchen slowly, hoping with each step that her mother had already left for her Saturday errands. Ashley sought to avoid the multitude of questions that her encounter with Mom would (8) ______. Is her dress ready? How would she do her hair? Where are pictures? Who’s going in the limo? Who has a date and who doesn’t? Recently it seemed that the end of high school had awakened in Mrs. Cassette an interest in Ashley’s life that had lain dormant for some time. It was a season of fleeting possibility for all, Ashley mused. She heard her mother humming to a classical piece and thought maybe she should just turn around and head back upstairs. But she hadn’t slept enough and the cold dark rain pattering on the windows induced a

(9) ______effect. She needed coffee. And so she went into the kitchen and said good morning.

Dylan watched the sky above him drift and shift as he and Lisa waited. It had rained all morning, stopping only as he pulled the parking brake on the Mustang for the last time. He looked at his phone, up the road, and back toward the sky.

“Do you still think he’s coming?” Lisa said.

“Yeah, I’m sure he will. My dad knows his family pretty well.”

“Okay.”

“Thanks for your help. Sorry to make you do this on prom day.”

“No problem.” Then an SUV pulled into the lot and drove toward Dylan and Lisa and the Mustang. A young man wearing a St. Matt’s hoodie got out of the passenger seat.

“You Dylan?” he said.

“Yep, that’s me.”

A while later—papers signed, keys handed over—Dylan climbed into the passenger seat of Lisa’s truck. He looked over at

Grandpa’s Mustang as they pulled away. He listened to the empty trailer bouncing behind the truck.

Later that spring when Dylan would lie awake at night in his bunk in East Lansing trying to remember the litany of plays and signals his new coaches had thrown at him, he inevitably would think of Ashley. And he would remember the rest of prom weekend, from the time he sold the Mustang to moment he kissed Ashley goodbye in his parents’ driveway the next morning, as a fragmented swirl of lyrical images: The clouds giving way to a hint of blue as he left his house to pick her up. A flush of warm breeze across the municipal park where they all met to take pictures. In the limo with time to spare, meandering the city past all of their subdivisions, all the fields where they played baseball and soccer and football all those years, all the grocery stores where they were dragged by their parents, the restaurants where they ate on Friday nights, the churches in which they sat every Sunday morning, the sidewalks that led to and from Franklin Eastern, and above everything the lights that lined the streets, connecting everything.

And he would see Ashley, (10) ______and stunning in her prom dress.

That Sunday morning Ashley was beyond tired but she longed for the solitude of the barn. The blue sky that had peeked through the afternoon before now blazed in full May glory above the pastures. The ground was soft but drying as she made her way to the stalls to begin cleaning and feeding.

It was not until she had worked her way up the center row that she noticed the stall that had been left vacant when her favorite horse departed was no longer empty. She put down the bucket she was holding and made her way to its occupant.

“Who are you?” she said, reaching out to the horse’s muzzle.

The horse sniffed eagerly. He was a beautiful paint marked with swaths of deep chocolate and gleaming white.

“How’d you get here?”

Then she noticed the stall plate:

HORSE’S NAME: TBD OWNER’S NAME: Ashley Cassette VET’S NAME: TBD FARRIER’S NAME: TBD SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS: Love, Dylan