Later, in the locker room:
Pickle:bar down. breakaway. didn’t even think about it.
Adrian:I wish I could have seen it.
Pickle:it was DISGUSTING, adrian. in the best way.
Adrian:There he is.
The bus hummed through the dark somewhere past Toledo. Most of the guys were asleep. Jake had passed out against Evan’s shoulder, making little snoring sounds. The seat beside me dipped.
Hog settled into the space with the patient certainty of a Saint Bernard who’d decided you needed rescuing. He didn’t ask if it was taken. He stretched his legs out and stared at the seat back in front of him.
I waited. Hog wasn’t a man who did things by accident.
“You’re playing differently,” he said finally.
I braced for the but. “Bad different?”
“Good different. Controlled. Like a crazy driver who finally figured out where the brake pedal is.”
“I have a brake pedal?”
“Apparently.”
I picked at the foam leaking from the armrest. “I don’t know what changed. I’m just… not doing all the extra stuff. The overthinking.”
“That’s the thing.” Hog shifted, the seat creaking. “That is different. For you.”
He wasn’t wrong. For three seasons, I’d shown up to every practice like it was an audition. Every shift was a chance to prove I belonged. Every mistake was evidence that I didn’t.
“In Kalamazoo,” I said slowly, “I had this moment. Usually, my brain is—” I made an explosion gesture near my temple. “There it wasn’t. It was quiet. And I thought I was about to fall apart, but I didn’t.”
“What happened next?”
“I had space, room to move.” I shrugged. “It was like I stopped trying to prove I belonged. I just… decided I did.”
Hog was quiet for a long moment.
“Belonging isn’t something someone gives you,” he said. “It’s something you claim.”
The words landed in my gut and stayed there.
“I mean, you’ve spent all your time here waiting for permission.” His voice softened. “Waiting for Coach to say you were good enough. Waiting for someone to tap you on the shoulder and say you’re one of us.”
I wanted to argue. I couldn’t. He was describing me with surgical precision.
“So what changed?”
His mouth twitched. “You tell me.”
Adrian’s face flashed behind my eyes. Adrian calling me someone worth watching. Adrian in the car, telling me I wasn’t too much. Adrian asking how I felt instead of how I played.
“I guess it’s—” I said quietly. “Having someone who sees me. The real me. And he doesn’t flinch.”
“That’ll do it.”
“Do what?”
