I swipe my badge. The gate chirps green, then red, like it can’t decide how it feels about me. The guard’s eyes flick from my face to the screen, sympathy soft around the edges. I nod, because we all have jobs to do.
The elevator doors slide open. I catch my reflection in the mirrored walls—ponytail tight, eyes tired, mouth set. I straighten my collar, square my shoulders, and rehearse professionalism out loud: “Good morning, team.” “Let’s focus on treatment plans.” “No, I can’t discuss anything unrelated toplayer care.” The lines sit in my mouth like tongue depressors—awkward, necessary.
Sophie bumps my hip with hers. “You’ve got this,” she says. “And if anyone asks for a quote, I’m prepared to deploy the fern.”
I snort, breath loosening just enough to be useful. The elevator chimes the training floor. Doors part to a corridor lined with framed jerseys and the low hum of gossip waiting to happen. I step out and let my heels announce me before my voice does.
The corridor smells like eucalyptus gel and laundry steam. The jerseys on the wall watch with fixed smiles while real faces try not to. Conversations dip, then rearrange into innocuous shapes as I pass—weather, sticks, playoffs—like I don’t know the sound of gossip putting on a different hat.
“Morning,” I say to the room at large, trainer-neutral. “Treatment board updates in five.” My voice doesn’t crack. Victory.
A pair of rookies at the far end snap their eyes to their laces so fast I’m surprised they don’t sprain a retina. One of them mumbles, “Morning, Ms. Lane,” like I’m a vice principal and he’s late for chem. Good. Fear me for the right reasons.
My phone buzzes in my pocket—a short, ugly vibration that feels like a mosquito bite on a sunburn. I don’t look. I move. Clipboard. Tape drawer. I check the ultrasound gel even though we aren’t doing scans here today; I check everything I can control because the list of things I can’t is tap-dancing in steel-toed boots.
“Riley.” Dr. Adams appears in the doorway like a lifeline wearing reading glasses. His tone is casual enough to pass for small talk; his eyes are not. “You have a minute?”
“Two,” I say, stepping into the med office. Sophie hovers in the hall like a benevolent gargoyle and then pointedly turns her back to play bouncer.
Adams closes the door most of the way, leaves it open enough to be compliant and kind. “You good?” he asks, which in doctor-language means: do I need to start throwing elbows in rooms you aren’t in.
“I’m vertical,” I answer. “We’re getting counsel. We’re…handling it.” I swallow the part where my hands shook over the sink this morning. “I’ll need a referral. Independent OB.”
He nods once. “Text me names you’re considering. I’ll add three I trust. Off the record stays off the record.”
“Thank you.” The words come out steadier than the relief they’re covering. I step back into the hall before gratitude makes me do something rash like cry at work.
Buzz. Another text. My pocket is a hornet’s nest now; if I don’t look, I’ll crawl out of my skin. I angle the clipboard as a shield and slide the phone up under it.
Unknown number:Trainer sleeping with star? Nice ethics.
A second text before I can breathe:Hope the baby has a morals clause.
For a split second the world narrows to the width of the screen and the whiteness of my knuckles. I feel the floor tilt under the stupid, small weight of two sentences typed by a stranger who will forget me by lunch. My stomach flips. Air goes weird in my lungs.
I lock the screen. Slide the phone face down on the counter like it can’t find me if it can’t see me. Shoulders back. Chin level. Not because they deserve my spine but because I do.
Sophie clocks the move and materializes at my elbow with a casual ferocity I want to put in a bottle. She nudges the phone farther from the edge with one finger. “Block the number,” she says, light on the surface, iron underneath. “Then eat a granola bar or I’m going to start making threats about blood sugar.”
“I’m fine,” I say, which is only half a lie. “Board in two.”
She leans in, voice pitched for my ear only. “I know what anonymous looks like. Let me carry some of it.”
“I am,” I say, and that is true. “By letting you stand here while I do my job.”
We share a look that says everything else. Her mouth softens. “Atta girl,” she murmurs, then peels off toward the rookies like a heat-seeking missile looking for anyone who needs a reminder that I built this room brick by brick.
I breathe. Tape. Charts. Names. Calm. The daily miracle of turning bodies back into machines that can do impossible things. I center on it until my hands stop wanting to shake.
“Board’s up,” I call, pinning the day’s schedule. “If your name is starred, you’re mine first. Questions about rumors go to PR, questions about pain go to me.”
A few laughs crack the tension. The hum of work begins. For a minute, the only thing in the world is treatment plans and the rasp of athletic tape.
Then my email pings. Subject line:ADMIN NOTICE: STATUS UPDATE.
I already know the shape of the words inside.I open the email in the space between breaths.
SUBJECT:ADMIN NOTICE: STATUS UPDATE
