Teddy is a 13-year-old football player who has been injured during football camp the summer before his freshman year of high school. Though Teddy serves as the catalyst for the narrative, he doesn’t speak until the novel’s end. Teddy spends the novel in a coma, and his viewpoint is illustrated throughout the narration as ear-witness to a procession of family and friends who visit him in the hospital, express their sorrow and concern for his health, and unburden their anxieties and fears.

Teddy’s character is revealed through 13 fragments of his memory as he sorts through what has happened to him. These fragments are delivered with haiku-like precision set it italics and identified only as “Inside.” Since the novel ends as Teddy wakes from his coma, the narrative leaves open the consequences of his near-fatal brain injury .

Teddy’s passion for football is influenced by his father’s emotional investment in football, and Teddy’s awareness in his coma is shaped entirely by his hunger for the game his father loves. The mantras he chants during his unconscious state reflect his time on the football field, as he tells himself to not be a girl and to hit someone.