Demon promises Coach to follow medical orders and gets cleared to return four weeks after his knee injury. He suits up late against Northwood to electrify the crowd, then prepares for tougher opponents, lifting what he can. On the field he’s dulled by Lortabs, Percocets, and OxyContin; Coach shifts plays away from him. Demon tries cutting back and is slammed by withdrawals—aches, vomiting, and sudden diarrhea—so he resumes oxys on the clock, dreading homecoming in white uniforms.

Homecoming pressure brings gifts and explicit photos, including a thong from Vicki Strout, which he refuses. Dori finds him at Coach’s house, checks his pill bottles, and gifts him a lone surviving chick from her dad’s feed store mishap. She visits daily; they bond as she confides her father’s advanced cancer. Dori helps him buy a new jacket for the dance, arranging a sitter for her dad.

On game day Demon takes all prescribed pills, feels detached, and gives Dori an orchid before kickoff. At halftime they’re crowned king and queen; Dori hints she’s saved her first time for him. They lose the game and make a brief appearance at the dance, where Demon avoids dancing and Keg Barnes steals a quick slow dance with Dori.

Leaving in her father’s Impala, they stop by Dori’s house—Demon stays in the car after her little dog Jip charges him—then drive to a moonlit ridge. There, Dori reveals a fentanyl patch she says is a “present.” She scrapes it, cooks the gel, and prepares a syringe, soothing Demon’s fear of needles by putting a drop under his tongue while injecting herself in her foot.

They likely nod off, then have sex in the back seat. Demon’s memory is fragmented by pills, booze, and fentanyl; he clings to flashes of intimacy and the certainty that Dori is now his girl, even as this night marks a perilous escalation in his drug use.