“One more kick return guys, and then we will take a break," coach bellows.

I hope this is kicked to me because I’m going to take it to the house. Henry kicks the ball way over my head, so I sprint back and pick it up and do a three sixty trun to see the defenders. I scan the whole field, so I see that a lot of kids have gotten past their blockers. I’m gonna have to do this by myself. The first kids I come up to I make a sharp cut the other way, getting space between me and them. Pip, who is on the kicking team, sprints up to me next and dives for my legs, so I stiff arm his helmet to the ground and break the tackle. Everything slows down for a second, feeling pain in my right thumb that I have never felt before. Looking at my thumb, I notice it looks broken because it’s pushed in and out.

I stumble up to coach and say shakily, “I think I broke my thumb pretty bad.” I just start walking to my dad to go to the hospital. The pain feels horrible. I promise myself I will not cry. My dad sees me and tells me, “Devin it’s okay to cry.” I mumble no and I went to get in the car and buckle up.

We speed to the hospital. We walk in through the doors, and I still have all of my pads on because I'm not able to take them off. I feel like I’m on fire because they are so heavy on me, so it makes it really hot for me.. When we go up to check in, they tell us we are in the wrong spot that we have to go across the whole building to get to the emergency room.

Laying on the hospital bed, I feel really hot. I don't know why, but it is really hot in there for me. The guy comes in and says,“That is one of the worst dislocations I have ever seen.” I laugh because I was texting a friend of mine right before practice, and we both said we have never gotten hurt. I got hurt right after I said that which I thought was pretty ironic. He breaks my thoughts with saying, “Devin sadly you're going to need something to numb your thumb. Then you will need an x-ray, and we’ll pop it back into place plus give you more x-rays to make sure it's not broken.”

He brings the shots in, and they are the biggest things I have ever seen. My dad sees me worried so he sincerely says, “Don't worry, they are only going to put the front in.” The doctor says, “Actually we are going to put it in deeper.” He stabs the shots in, and it hurts like crazy. You know what a bee sting feels like? It was like that but getting that pain for ten seconds long twice. I don't want to do the second shot because the first one hurts so bad I don’t think I can do it again. My dad can tell it hurts me a lot by the face I make.

Finally it is time for them to pop it back into place. My thumb was kinda numb, so it wouldn't be as bad as it would if they didn't numb it. He starts yanking on my fat thumb, and my dad spins because he doesn’t want to witness it. When he stops yanking on it I ask him if it went into place or if he has to do it again. He gets it back in like five seconds. I'm trying not to jump with delight when he gets it in because I can finally go and get something to eat. Then my dad tells me, “Well, at least now you will be able to work on your left handed dribbling.” That kinda makes me mad because I just got done with them yanking on my thumb and hearing that I am not going to be able to play football. But I remember one thing that is almost the most important thing. I have to post it on Instagram.

It amazes me on how quickly I got hurt. We were just doing the last kick return and then we would have been done. But I got hurt, and it was out of nowhere. How am I going to do stuff at school without my right hand? Will I be back for basketball ? And how am I going to shower? Things are about to get real.