Milton:
Lincoln’s typing bubble pops up immediately, then disappears, then pops up again, because he’s probably overthinking his words just like he overthinks every goddamn thing.
Lincoln: You sure? Milton said you were ready to kill Philips.
Me: He deserved it. End of story.
Milton’s typing bubble appears next.
Milton: You went quiet the rest of the day. And that’s weird even for you.
I grit my teeth. Of course he noticed. Milton notices everything. He watches without looking like he’s watching, something that makes it impossible to breathe sometimes. I have to get this under control. I have to shut this down before they sniff out the real reason I’m acting like a malfunctioning robot.
I force my thumb to type something easy. Something believable. Something safe.
Me: Just tired. Practice sucked. The team sucked. The coach sucked. Same old shit.
Milton reacts with a thumbs-up emoji, but it’s not a supportive thumbs-up. It’s the “I don’t believe your bullshit but I’m giving you room to dig your own grave” thumbs-up.
Lincoln doesn’t answer right away.
A full minute passes.
Lincoln: Look… if this is about the picture, we didn’t know anyone took it.
I slam my thumb down on the keyboard before he can finish.
Me: It’s not about the damn picture.
And it isn’t. Not really. It’s everything around it. Everything I don’t want to fucking feel but do, anyway.
Lincoln sends another message.
Lincoln: Okay. I’ll take your word for it. But if you ever want to talk…
Me: I don’t.
The typing bubble on their end freezes. Silence settles into the group chat.
Good.
That’s what I need. Silence, distance, space. Because if I don’t get a handle on this soon, it’s going to blow up in all our faces. And she—Bayleigh—doesn’t deserve to get caught in the blast radius of my screwed-up head.
I toss the phone onto the bed next to me just as it vibrates once against the blanket.
A separate notification flashes across the screen—a little symbol that I don’t recognize. I open and my heart stops beating, my stomach rolls, and I just know this is the end for me.
Bayleigh Lennox.
I stare at it as if the thing might explode. I shouldn’t open it. I shouldn’t even look. But my hand moves on its own. The message is just one word. One simple thing she typed, probably without thinking.
Bayleigh: Thanks.
That’s it.
No explanation, no context, no reason to send it to me.
Just…thanks. My chest tightens like someone tied a rope around it and pulled. And the worst part? I type back before I can stop myself.
