The Hard Count

<p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>Nico Medina's world is eleven miles away from mine. During the day it's a place where doors are open-where homes are lived in and neighbors love. But when the sun sets it becomes a place where young boys are afraid where eyes watch from idling cars that hide in the shadows and wicked smoke flows from pipes. </span></p><p></p><p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>West End is the kind of place that people survive. It buries them-one at a time one way or another. And when Nico was a little boy his mom always told him to run.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>I'm Reagan Prescott-coach's daughter sister to the prodigal son daughter in the perfect family. </span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>Life on top. </span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>Lies.</span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>My world is the ugly one. Private school politics and one of the best high school football programs in the country can break even the toughest souls. Our darkness plays out in whispers and rumors and money and status trump all. I would know-I've watched it kill my family slowly strangling us for years. </span></p><p></p><p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>In our twisted world a boy from West End is the only shining light.</span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>Quarterback. </span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>Hero.</span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>Heart.</span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>Good.</span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>I hated him before I needed him.</span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>I fell for him fast.</span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>I loved him when it was almost too late. </span></p><p></p><p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>When two ugly worlds collide even the strongest fall. But my world...it hasn't met the boy from West End.</span></p><p></p>