Then his teammates were there again, surrounding him and congratulating him and pulling him into hugs, and Gasperini was walking onto the pitch with that calm satisfaction on his face, and when he reached Demien he grabbed both his shoulders and looked him in the eyes.
"This is just the beginning," the manager said, his voice cutting through the noise. "Remember that. This is just the beginning."
"Yes, Coach," Demien managed to say through the emotion clogging his throat.
Gasperini smiled and patted his cheek once before moving to congratulate the other players, and Demien turned toward the stands where he could see Isabella still crying, Marco still celebrating, Luca still jumping around like a lunatic.
He waved to them and they waved back, and even from this distance he could see his mother's face clearly—pure joy, pure pride, pure love—and something inside his chest cracked open because this was real, this had actually happened, and she'd been there to see it.
