Disclaimer: Friday Night Lights is not mine, nor is the title which comes from Delta Spirits's 'Devil Knows You're Dead' lyrics.
And the road may it rise to meet your feet
.x.
When Lyla's father drops her off at Vanderbilt he hugs her tight and says "try not to miss Texas too much, hun," and she laughs and smiles and says "I won't," but it's already a lie, her fingers grasping onto his old shirt, this last piece of home, dusted and faded.
.x.
She starts out undecided. She takes a class in literature, because she enjoys it, in math, because she was good at it, in Spanish, because it might be worth it, and in sociology because why not.
She takes a class in history because it's a requirement; it's about World War I and long simmering tensions that explode out of a single event.
Cause and effect, consequences, a shot, like a bad tackle, can change an entire world.
She rules out history as a major. The past will remain unchanged, but the future still needs to be shaped.
.x.
Her roommate is from Rhode Island and has never been to a football game.
"I mean, they had them at my school and everything, but I just never went. I mean, watching a bunch of guys get pummeled about just doesn't seem like good entertainment, you know what I'm saying?"
She chews a lot of bubble-gum and smacks it as she talks, and Lyla's always on the verge of telling her how annoying it is but never does. For the most part, she's a good roommate.
Instead she says, "I was a cheerleader, actually, for a while."
Her roommate laughs and says "I'm totally not surprised, you look like just the type. Did you date all those football players too?"
She thinks of Jason in New York in a wheelchair, thinks of that tackle and of a city that must be everything Dillon was not.
She thinks of Tim in Texas, and a call from her father that said he was back in Dillon and of a recruitment video they had made for him once that didn't matter anymore.
"Nah," she ends up saying, "Real life is never like it seems in the movies."
.x.
For Fall Break she goes back to Dillon.
When she comes back her roommate asks her how it was.
"Oh, you know, the same old, same old," she says, with Tim's laugh still ringing in her ears, his kiss still warm on her forehead, dust and faded jeans.
She thinks about calling him, then remembers all those left behind voicemails and doesn't. Instead she writes an e-mail to Jason; tells him how worried she is about her upcoming midterms, how she accidently signed up for too many clubs, asks him how Noah is doing and what life is like in the city.
She tells him that the lights in Nashville are bright, but there aren't as many stars as there were in Dillon, and is New York like that too?
After all, they're both a long way from home.
.x.
Around November applications are due for summer study abroad programs. Lyla applies to one in Madrid.
"Madrid?! Hunny, what does Madrid got for the summer that Dillon doesn't?" her father yells on the phone.
A part of her feels bad for her dad, remembers coming home for Fall Break and seeing how lonely he looked, oddly small for a man with such a giant personality, in that barren old apartment.
(And a part of her remembers Tim in that dingy trailer, and how maybe he's always looked a little lost, and how maybe she could find a way in sociology to write about how small towns can produce the loneliest, the most lost people in the world.)
"Opportunities," she says instead and remembers that it's time to live for herself.
.x.
The thing is, Lyla realizes one day, is that Texas Forever is a big thing to commit to when you are so young.
She used to spend a lot of time wondering how her life might have been if The Accident (always thought of as an event, an axis upon which a world was changed, never just an occurrence or a moment) hadn't happened. Would she have still been with Jason, would she have been married now? Or would they have fallen apart anyway, gradually as old high school sweethearts do?
Would she have kissed Tim anyway?
Now she thinks, the answers don't really matter. If they belong to anyone, it is to a Lyla she isn't anymore, a Lyla she can never become, and that's ok.
She has her own life to start living.
A/N: Finally watched Friday Night Lights this summer, oh my goodness it is so good.