1: Gage. 

On the way to my new tutor’s dorm room, I want to punch a hole 

in the hallway wall. 

It’s like this all the time now. The relentless anger slithers inside 

of me like oily snakes. I’ve worked myself to the bone on the 

football field in an attempt to exhaust the roiling emotions 

inside of me, but nothing ever gives. There’s a bowling ball sitting on my chest, pressing down, down, so hard that I can’t breathe sometimes and the only thing that relieves it for even a moment is destruction. Breaking shit. Acting out as my college counselor calls it. 

She can call it whatever she wants–it feels good. 

Rebelling is the only thing that helps melt the resentment lately. 

On my way past a room of students, they look up from their phones and gasp. 

“Is that Gage Weston?” 

Yeah, it’s me, assholes. Take a good look. 

During my first three years of school, I would have waved and 

flashed them a smile that’s going to earn me millions of dollars 

in endorsement deals one day, when I’ve been drafted to the 

NFL. But now? I give them the finger and keep `walking, the 

constant roaring in my ears growing louder. I already hate this 

fucking tutor. Stella McCartney. She’s going to be smug as hell, 

I bet. She’s the only thing standing between me and the championship game next week. If I don’t pass my Western Civilization test, I don’t play. I’m already skating on thin ice aft getting picked up by the cops for being drunk and disorderly in public. Breaking into a few cars, just because I could. Because I 

needed to distract myself from the pain.