I growl. A sound I've never made at the Coach before. It rips from my throat like a warning, feral and raw, and Coach flinches back a little, surprised. Like he forgot for a second that I’m not Elias the rookie right now, I’m Elias the animal.
Coach backs off, but then Cole moves. He’s quiet, gentle. I feel his fingers before I hear his voice—threading into my curls, brushing soft through the knots, trying to ground me without breaking me. He sits beside us on the bed… being there. Being him.
Then I hear it, raw and almost trembling. “Baby…” One word, and something inside me fractures. Not violently. Not with noise. But quietly. My chest aches with it, splitting open inch by inch, the pressure building like I’ve been holding back a scream for hours.
“Come on,” Cole murmurs, his hand still in my hair, fingers moving in slow, steady strokes, soft enough to undo me. He’s so careful it makes it worse, like he knows exactly how fragile I am, and he’s terrified one wrong touch might shatter me for good. “Look at me, curls. Just for a second. I need you to look at me.”
I don’t want to. God, I can’t. The thought of lifting my head, of peeling myself away from Damian even a fraction of an inch, feels impossible. My body is lead, grief anchoring me so deep I’m not sure I’ll ever surface again. I don’t want to see anything but him. I don’t want to look away in case he slips further from me the moment I do. I don’t want to see Cole’s face if it’s anything less than hope.
But still, eventually, I do, because it’s Cole. Because his voice cracks like mine and his hands never stop being gentle, evenwhen the world isn’t. My eyes drag upward, heavy and stinging, lids swollen from crying too long, and when I finally manage to focus through the blur and the wreckage, I find his face.
Cole is smiling. It's not the kind of grin he wears when we win or when Shane does something unhinged. But it’s there, barely, a flicker, trembling at the corners of his mouth. A tiny, fragile thing.
“Let’s go grab some water, yeah?” he says, coaxing, “Just five minutes to breathe. We’ll be back before he notices we’re gone.”
I open my mouth. Close it again and shake my head once, hard. I can’t. I can’t leave him.
Cole cups my cheek. “Curls,” he says again, firmer this time. “He’s stable. You heard them, he’s okay. He will wake up. And when he does, don’t you think he’d want to see you standing instead of curled up like the world ended?”
I blink slowly, my lashes sticky from dried tears and exhaustion. Everything stings, my throat burns. Cole’s still there, voice barely above a whisper, soft and coaxing in the kind of way only he can manage when the world is ending. “Come on,” he says. “Just five. That’s all. We’ll grab water, wash our faces, scream at a wall if you need to, but then we come right back together.”
My eyes drag downward again, pulled by gravity and grief and something deeper. He’s still so goddamn still, every breath accounted for only by the machines beeping at his side, mocking me. My heart lurches at the sight of him.
Five minutes. That’s what Cole asked for. Five minutes away from him, but it feels impossible.
I exhale, the sound of it cracked and raw. And slowly, I nod. It’s not agreement. It’s surrender. Temporary and fragile.
Cole squeezes my hand, firm and grounding. “Atta boy,” he murmurs, and somehow those two words hit harder than they should.
He waits patiently, as if he knows I need the moment to shift on my own. As if stepping away from Damian, even for five minutes, means learning how to breathe without lungs. He slides his fingers into mine, lacing them tight in a silent promise: if I slip, if I shatter, if I scream again he won’t let me fall.
“Easy,” he murmurs, rising with me.
My legs shake the second I move. They’ve forgotten how to work. My body doesn’t believe in leaving this bed, leaving him. But Cole’s grip tightens and somehow, I stand.
The room spins once.
Damian’s chest rises slow in the bed, machines still beeping in time with my heartbeat. My vision blurs again. But I stay upright for him.
Cole steps back, still holding my hand, and leads me toward the door. His thumb brushes over mine, each stroke is careful.
We reach the door, and I hesitate for a moment. Long enough to feel the pull in my chest twist sharp and deep, like something tethered to Damian’s bedside is trying to drag me back before I’ve even stepped away. My hand tightens around Cole’s without thinking, and my feet stop moving. It’s a breath caught in the back of my throat, a pause carved out of guilt and the unbearable fear that even five minutes away might be the wrong five minutes.
I glance back, movement slow, eyes locking onto the shape of Damian’s body still wrapped in blankets and wires and silence. My chest twists around the sight, ribs curling inward to protect a heart that never learned how to handle this kind of waiting.
And then Cole tugs with enough pressure to remind me I’m not alone. Enough to keep me tethered to something that isn’t panic. His hand stays steady in mine, warm and sure, and he pulls. “Come on, curls,” he says, soft enough to feel rather than hear. “Just five minutes. Then we come home.”
I don’t speak. I don’t trust my voice to do anything but crack.
But I follow. One step, then another, each one dragging a part of me further from the room where the only thing I care about is still fighting to return. The hallway outside feels too quiet, like someone turned down the volume on the whole world. Too white. Too bright, like the walls are trying to pretend nothing terrible ever happens here.
Every beep behind me echoes in my chest even now, even this far from the room. My hand’s still locked in Cole’s. I don’t think I can let go. I’m not sure I even remember how.
He leads me through the maze of corridors, until he finally stops in front of a bathroom door and nudges it open with his shoulder. “Come on,” he says softly. “Just for a second.”
The lights are too bright. The mirror—fuck the mirror. I can’t look at it. I look like I’ve been to war and back. Bloodshot eyes, red face, shirt soaked from crying on Damian for what felt like hours. I look like I should be sedated or buried.
Cole doesn’t flinch. He turns on the tap, then grabs a paper towel, runs it under the water, and cups my jaw with one hand while the other presses the cloth to my face. “Deep breath,” he murmurs. “Just one.”
