Relief hits so sharp it almost hurts—one small, selfish pocket of air in my suffocating lungs. He’s not here. I can breathe—mostly.
The group is still loud, chaotic, and terrifyingly large. I’m pinned on one side by Clara, on the other by the aisle, this long table of men and noise stretching out in front of me. My spoon clinks against the bowl when I pick it up; the sound echoes in my chest like a countdown to something inevitable.
Before I can settle, before I can breathe, Zoë says, “Okay, tell us now—I’ve been dying. How bad was it?”
Adrian’s glare snaps to her so fast she flinches. “Zoë. No.”
Zoë’s hands go up. “I’m just asking—”
“Don’t.” His voice is quiet, controlled. Captain-mode. The kind that ends conversations, not starts them.
“Subtle, Hale,” she mutters but backs off.
Clara leans in toward me. “We were waiting for you before talking about anything. Maya’s got the real story.”
Maya’s notebook is already open beside her tray, pen tucked behind her ear. She doesn’t look up when she says, “I was in Coach Addison’s office yesterday. Interview for the mid-season article.”
My chest tightens. Of course she was there. Of course she heard something.
Maya continues, voice even. “Coach came in after it happened. Called a staff meeting and canceled today’s practice.” She finally lifts her gaze to me. Calm. Direct. “So I asked questions.”
Adrian exhales sharply but doesn’t shut her down.
Maya taps the edge of her notebook. “Here are the facts.”
The wordfactsfreezes the whole table. Even the guys go still.
She looks straight at me. “Rylan was talking about you. Loudly. In the locker room. He called you ‘sweet’ and ‘quiet’ and said he’d ‘like to find out what you’re really like.’”
My stomach pitches. Heat rises, then drops to ice.
And then the guilt hits.
It crashes into me like a physical weight, collapsing my lungs.
Me.
It was me. I did this.
I went to the bar. I sat with them. I let myself be seen. And because I was there, Rylan spoke. Because I existed in their space, the machine broke.
I am the contamination. I am the fracture.
I stare at my soup, nausea rolling in a cold tide. I dragged my chaos into their world, and now it’s exploding.
Gio shifts, rubbing a hand over his face. “Yeah,” he mutters. “He said that shit. I told him to shut up.”
Zoë’s eyebrows shoot up. “Hold on, weren’t you two, like, close?”
Gio cuts her a look, sharp and tired. “Not anymore. Not after I realized he’s a walking dumpster fire. You don’t talk about someone like that. Not at our table. Not anywhere.”
Zoë sits back, chastened. “Okay. Point taken.”
Maya goes on. “Declan heard it. And he reacted.”
“Reacted?” Zoë echoes, bracing.
Adrian’s voice slices in before Maya can answer. “He didn’t hit him.”
