Tiff
Are you seeing this???
Maria
ANSWER YOUR PHONE. RIGHT FUCKING NOW.
My heart stutters, then kicks into a sprint. The last time they both texted like this was the day the charity clip went viral. I can’t open any of the notifications. I’m hanging by a thread as it is. I flip the phone back over and set it aside because I have to. I reread the top of the statement one more time.
This is my decision. No one has coerced me…
Not in the legal sense, but in the quieter way years of conditioning turn into a hand at your back, pushing you toward the fire until you forget you could have stepped aside. Still, someone has to be the shield. I breathe in, moving the cursor to the “Post” button. It glows blue, ready for me to sacrifice myself with one click.
“Alycia—don’t post anything.” Janine barrels into my office, out of breath, hair slightly out of place, with a tablet clutched in a white-knuckled grip.
“What—”
She sets the tablet on my desk with a thud, taps the screen, and swivels it toward me. I don’t understand what I’m looking at, just a paused video frame, until my gaze lands on Kyle’s face, front and center. He’s wearing a simple tee, shoulders squared, jaw braced,eyes so devastatingly open it feels like a hand wraps around my ribs and squeezes.
“What is this?” My voice comes out airless.
Janine’s gaze softens in a way that makes my throat tighten. “You should watch it.”
I hit Play, and his voice pours into my office, low and rough at the edges, threaded with a vulnerability I’ve never heard him use with anyone but me.
“My name is Kyle Hendrix, and I’m done lying.”
He doesn’t sound like a man reading a prepared statement. He sounds like a man walking toward a cliff he’s decided to jump off, eyes wide open. He saysmy namewith reverence and care, like the syllables themselves are something he’s been holding on to for dear life. He tells them it was PR, and it shouldn’t have been. He tells them it stopped being fake for him a long time ago.
My hands fly to my mouth as the tears climb my throat so fast I can’t swallow them back. Then he says the line that slices every defense I’ve ever built clean in half:“She doesn’t owe anyone an apology. I do.”
This man, whom I tried to push away to protect him and who walked away last night because he wouldn’t trap me, is standing in front of the entire world to protect me. It’s as if something inside me that’s been twisted tight for years starts to come undone, one thread at a time.
“I love her,”he says, voice fraying, face raw, gaze unwavering.“I’m done hiding it.”
By the time the video ends, I am shaking so hard the chair beneath me trembles.
Janine touches my wrist—careful, like she’s handling something fragile.
“Alycia.” Her voice is softer than I’ve ever heard it. “Look at the comments.”
I blink the tears back enough to see the tablet again. Half of the major sports accounts and more fan profiles than I can count have already reposted the video. My stomach clenches as I steel myself for the worst, but it doesn’t come.
Of course, there are a few circling, like always, saying the predictable things—PR stunt, attention, messy, unprofessional. I expected those, but they’re buried. Above them are people neither of us knows, choosing to believe him.
Fans telling him they’re proud.
Women saying they’ve worked in offices and that what I’m facing is bullshit.
People threading long comments about accountability that doesn’t require a woman’s public execution.
Old clips from behind-the-scenes Timberwolves content where I’m in the background, arms full of binders, mouth tight in focus.
Someone has pulled a still frame of my face from the charity footage, blown it up, and written:“She looks tired. Not calculating. Protect her at all costs.”
I was prepared for mockery and cruelty, people dissecting my competence and worth in 280 characters. I did not prepare for strangers on the internet to meethis confession with something like kindness. And just when I’m barely holding on, my phone buzzes again, vibrating so hard against the desk it nearly jumps.
Janine releases my wrist long enough to slide it closer with two fingers. “Take it.”
