A/N: I didn't remember that the guy at the party Tami mentioned to Julie had a name (Doug Odom), so I made up the name Boone. Rather than back track and correct it in all the previous chapters, I'll stick with the invented name for this story. Thanks to everyone for all the comments thus far. They are very encouraging! Please keep commenting.

[*]

On Thursday, Rankin High School was abuzz with anticipation. Between first and second period, Tony Sullivan, linebacker and one of Mo's best buddies, ran down the center of the hall, flexing his muscles and screaming, "Twenty-six hours until Staaaaaaate!"

From beside Tami, Kimberley laughed. "He can't add very well, can he?"

Jack came up behind them and put a hand on Kimberley's shoulder. "Maybe he's thinking of when the bus is leaving, give or take two hours."

"I wouldn't give him that much credit," Kimberley said. She turned back her head to kiss him. Jack kissed back, briefly, but then pulled away. "Don't be afraid of PDA in front of Tami," Kimberley told him. "You should have seen her and Mo sucking face by her locker earlier this morning."

"Where is Mo?" Jack asked. "I haven't seen Eric, either."

"Maybe they went to class already." Kimberley leaned back against Jack's chest. "I'm going to come watch you at practice today."

"Then you better stay behind the line. Coach is getting ticked off by how many girls are starting to hang out around the practice field. So he drew a line. Literally."

Kimberley pouted. "Fine. Then I'll stay in my place. I just want to support you."

Jack smiled down at her.

The warning bell rang. Just as it did, the door at the end of the hall, a few feet from where Tami stood, was thrust open. A burst of cool air shot in. Mo came in, and, after him, Eric.

"We good?" Mo asked.

"Yeah. We're cool," Eric said, though he looked irritated.

They shook hands. Mo tapped him twice on the side of his shoulder. "See you at practice."

When Mo caught sight of Tami, he came and draped his arm around her shoulders.

"What was that all about?" she asked as they began walking toward class.

"Ah, I just heard a rumor he's been coming on to you behind my back."

"That's absurd," Tami said. "Why didn't you just ask me? I could have told you that's not true."

"We had to handle it man to man, that's all. Don't worry. We got it all cleared up." He kissed her and smiled. "Hey," he said in an excited whisper, "We're going to State tomorrow!"

[*]

Tami walked across the street from the school to the spot where her father usually picked her up to take her to the church office to work. She couldn't wait until she had her own car, in less than four weeks.

The Reverend rolled down the window when she approached. "They're fumigating the office today," he said, "so we can't work. I'm headed home to spend some quality time with your mother. Why don't you stay and watch Mo's practice and then hitch a ride home with him?"

"I can just come with you now," Tami said. Practice didn't really excite her. It wasn't like a game.

"No, go on, go ahead. Enjoy yourself. Don't you want to watch the last practice before State?"

"I don't really like practice."

"Shelley isn't going to be home," he said. "She's got dance practice."

"So?" Tami asked.

"I want to spend some quality time with your mother."

"Oh." Tami did not want to picture that scene. "I'll stay for practice then."

Her father cranked up the window and drove off.

Tami made her way to the field, where the players were just beginning to emerge. She watched them do their warm-up laps. Eric glanced at her as he jogged by, and then seemed to speed up. She waited for Mo, so she could blow a kiss to him, but she didn't see him there. She crossed the line the watching girls were not supposed to cross, and asked Coach Tanner, who was writing something on a clipboard, where Mo was.

"Get back ten feet if you want to gawk, young lady," he said. "And Mo forgot his playbook in his school locker of all places. He ran back inside to get it. And he better be quick about it, too, because if he's any later for practice today than he was on Monday, he's going to be benched for all of State."

Late for practice? Mo could be a bit scattered about due dates, but Tami hadn't imagined he would ever be late for anything so important as practice, and twice in one week, no less. She made her way into the school to let Mo know that Coach Tanner seemed pissed off and that he better run back. He was probably searching around in that mess of books and papers in his locker.

Mo's locker was in the upstairs hall, and Tami took a rarely used stairwell to get there. As she climbed the first flight of stairs, she saw a pair of jean-clad legs, ending in black leather boots, through the bars on the landing of the second flight.

She heard the loud smacking of lips and was about to turn around and leave the couple alone when she recognized Mo's groan: "God, yeah, Oh yeah. You're not wearing a bra. Bad girl."

Then Anita Nisbeth's voice: "You want it right here, baby? Right now?"

"I'm going to be late. I - Ohhhhhh….God."

"You're so hard, baby." Anita slid to her knees, and Tami could see, just above the cheerleader's head, the black uniform pants, with the orange stripe down the side.

Mo's hand fell to Anita's hair. "If I'm gonna be late," he said, "this better be even better than the last one."

Without a word, Tami turned and fled the stairwell.

[*]

She didn't cry right away. Tami stood outside the door where the stairwell exited, her back against the scratchy brick wall of the school, not quite believing what she had just seen and heard.

She was in a state of shock.

Some part of her knew that she and Mo had been drifting apart, and she could imagine an end to their relationship, but she couldn't imagine it like this. A completely meaningless blow job from Anita Nisbeth? In the stairwell for Christ's sake? And not the first one, apparently.

Who the hell was Mo McArnold?

How long had this been going on? How far had it gone? How often had it gone there? How long had he lied to her? How long had she believed his lies?

Mo was supposed to be one of the good ones. Mo was no Boone. If Mo was like this…were they all like this? Every boy? Every man? Had even her own father cheated on her mother once? Was that why her mother had sometimes seemed so bitter and moralistic? Was that why they had really gone to marriage counseling?

It wasn't just her relationship with Mo that died in that stairwell. Tami's faith – her faith in love, in men, in her own sense of perception, in the words people say – her faith itself snapped loose from its anchor and spiraled into space.