He froze mid-sentence, then pivoted his chair toward me. His expression carried the delight of someone who had just discovered a loophole they couldn’t wait to exploit.
“Oh really?” he said, pushing his glasses up. “We’re doing this?”
I sat up straighter. “I’m just saying you’re overstating it. That’s all.”
“No, no, don’t back out now. Please, enlighten me. Tell me how athletes are emotionally balanced, communicative beams of shining light.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You implied it.”
“I meant we’re not repressed.”
He blinked twice, then leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Liam, you haven’t expressed a single vulnerable thought since the day we met.”
“That’s not true.”
“Really? Have you been stressed this week?”
I shrugged. “Dunno. Not really.”
“You’ve been waking up at 3 AM. You get out of bed, walk around, sit at your desk. Last night you were up for an hour just staring at your phone.”
I felt my jaw tighten. “I had to pee.”
“For an hour?”
“I couldn’t fall back asleep.”
“Right. And the night before that? And the night before that?” Noah raised an eyebrow. “Liam, you’ve gotten up every singlenight this week. Same time. Like clockwork. That’s not insomnia—that’s your brain trying to process something you won’t deal with during the day.”
I looked away. He wasn’t wrong. I’d been waking up in the middle of the night all week. My heart racing and Alex’s face burned into my mind.
“That’s just... a phase. Sleep schedule’s off.”
“It’s a stress tell,” Noah said, leaning in. “Your body’s trying to tell you something and you’re ignoring it.”
“You’re being dramatic.”
“And you… are repressing everything.”
“I’m not repressing anything,” I shot back, though even as I said it, the tension in my shoulders gave me away.
“So you’re... what? Fine?”
“I didn’t say that.”
Noah raised both eyebrows. “But you also won’t say you’re not.”
“I just don’t think it’s your business.”
“It’s my business, because I’m your friend and because your entire emotional landscape is like observing a volcano that insists it’s a decorative hill.”
I stared at him. “What does that even mean?”
Noah threw his hands up. “It means that you are the perfect example of exactly what my debate is arguing.”
I grabbed a pillow and threw it at him. It hit him square in the face and dropped to the floor. He had that smug look on his face because we both knew he’d won.
