My world had stopped.
The roar of the crowd, the chaos of the final whistle, the triumphant march towards our fans... it all compressed into a single, silent point of focus. The tablet. Sarah was holding it out to me, her hands trembling slightly, her eyes shining with a wild, impossible light. The screen glowed in the twilight of the stadium, a beacon in the gathering dark.
I read the table once, twice, a third time. The numbers swam, refusing to settle, refusing to make sense. It was like trying to read a foreign language, a language of dreams.
7th. Crystal Palace. 51 points.
The air left my lungs in a rush. I looked up from the screen, my eyes finding Sarah's. My mouth was dry, my own voice a stranger in my ears.
"Is this right?" I whispered.
