Nate comes home from school to an empty house. Although his mom is working all the time now, she still managed to make him a plate of cookies. The cookies are an attempt to say, “things were still normal in the house, even though they both knew differently” (189). He eats the cookies and goes outside to practice throwing the football into the target—something he does every day now. While Nate doesn’t know if he’ll be his team’s quarterback anymore this season, he knows that at least he can improve his skills through practice. He’s reminded how Coach always says “to worry only about the things in sports that you could control” (190). Nate has decided to change his outlook and ultimately his outcome:

The only way to get himself right again […] was to stop complaining about the pressure of it all, even to himself. He wasn’t going to talk about pressure or whine about it. Or run form it. He was going to accept it, same as he had being a wide receiver for the rest of the season if that’s the way things were going to roll out (191).

He realizes that even though his parents and Abby have it a lot worse than him, they never complain, and he shouldn’t either.