INTRODUCTION

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"I have to be careful, because there is something terribly self-destructive within me."

-unknown

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Dallas Gunther has everything any 18 year old boy would want - a fast car, good grades, supreme popularity, and most importantly, unparalleled athletic talent. Every Division I school in the country is recruiting him to come to their football team. None of that seems to matter to Dallas's father, who is intent on having Dallas go to Ivy League (and so not a football school) Cornell University as a legacy, keeping him chained to New England forever.

It doesn't help that Dallas's longtime academic rival Kaia Greene is breathing down his neck for the Valedictorian title and has her field hockey team fighting Dallas's football team for practice field time. Kaia seems to be on every corner Dallas turns, but at one point or another, he realizes he might actually like it.

A cocktail of injuries, pressure to perform, painkillers, and teenage drama has Dallas quickly spiraling out of control. But in his tiny, affluent suburban Connecticut town, one misstep spells disaster for Dallas, who until now has been driven by blind ambition and the desire to keep the status quo intact - the one where he's king atop a delicate high school hierarchy. He can't shake the feeling that there's something going terribly wrong within him, but Dallas soon realizes that when you have everything, you also have everything to lose.


- underage drinking and drug use, dumb teenagers, and overuse of the word 'fuck'

- healthy bromance

- actual football stuff

- the best kind of enemies to lovers

- character-driven storylines

- a shared universe with w1ldflow3r's THE HALO EFFECT

- good grammar

- probably not a happy ending





- Despite the fact that I literally cannot write about anything other than addiction and sports, this takes a different approach to it than I usually do. Addiction is not the driving core of this story like my other stories are, but rather a puzzle piece of a larger picture. This is also very far from your typical "sports romance." Instead, this story focuses in on overlooked social issues in sports, such as pain management - in especially football - and mental health in athletes, as well as the treatment of high school athletes versus other students in school, and the treatment of male versus female athletes.

- As a lot of you also know, I'm big on trope twisting and anti-cliches, as well as male mental health representation and narration, so the entire story will be from Dallas's POV. As with all of my boys, he's a handful, which mean's he's crude, not always reliable as a narrator, and his views may not always align with my own.

- This is loosely based on a true story

- This is a first draft - meaning it is checked for spelling and grammar, but plot, voice, and continuity will be edited when the story is complete. If you see any typos or anything like that, please feel free to point them out.

- current draft started October 25, 2020 | completed December 16, 2021 [approx 110,000 words]

- please refrain from making ☆ fandom references ☆ of any kind, they make me cry

Copyright 2018-2022 (moonraess) | All Rights Reserved

This story in its entirety may not be reproduced, downloaded, disseminated, published, or transferred in any form by any means, except with explicit permission by its creator. Don't steal my shit. I'll find out.

This is a work of fiction. Any and all characters, locations, and situations are a creation of my own. Any resemblance to real people or places is purely coincidental.

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Leave your FTR (first time reader) in the comments below if this is your first time here, or if you've come here from one of my other stories! Let me know where you're from, what you're doing right now, etc! xoxo


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