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"Let’s go, sweetheart"

Fifty feet in, we find our first piece of graffiti on the concrete wall In faded black spray paint, it reads "College Is Okay If You," then the writing gets too faded to read, leaving the secret to et to the split, I have Nell choose, and she picks the middle

We stumble upon a zombie horde painted on the wall, and I squeeze her arh The sound echoes eerily off the walls around us and causes a twinge of pain in my head

Nell sees it

"We shouldn’t have done this"

"I’ Maybe the Batcave is somewhere down here Or the Chamber of Secrets"

She doesn’t react to h I know she’s read the series because I saw them on a shelf in her room Stubbornly, she says, "You’re not fine I did so You said you’ve had concussions before And with each one, no matter how mild, your risk for brain trauma increases The next tiht not go away for months or at all They could be permanent I read an article about one football player who not only can’t play anymore, but he has to have a tutor in all of his classes even though he used to be a straight-A student He can’t concentrate Can’t retain facts And it’s been three years since his last concussion He can’t play football, and football haselse"

"I know, Nell"

She stops abruptly, pulling her ar this is some kind of betrayal

"Yeah, I know it’s risky But I’h-and-tumble tackler I don’t take frequent hits to the head"

"Frequent enough," she says

"In a good gaht to ten Some of those don’t even end in a tackle And yes, I’ot several days before the next ga care of that" Though I’ like I did today One bad practice is fine, but any ht jeopardize my chance to play this weekend even if I don’t mention the concussion

"It only takes one hit, Mateo Just one I get that you’re this big, strong athlete and you think you should just tough it out, but you’re wrong This game can’t possibly be that i and she’s dropped my arm to square off with me in this dark and dreary corridor