Once I step outside the training facility, the night air hits cold and sharp. The parking lot is mostly empty, just a handful of cars under the glow of security lights. I scan automatically for her blue hatchback even though I already know it’s gone. I drag a hand through my hair, exhaling into the dark. The cold bites at my cheeks. It is still not enough to numb any of this.
I tell myself to go home, get some sleep, and stop making everything about her. But I don’t move because for the first time in my life, I have everything I’m supposed to want. My name. My jersey. My shot.
And somehow, without her, it still feels like I’m losing.
Therapy Session
Kyle
Dr. Shah sits in her usual chair, legs crossed, notebook balanced on one knee, waiting for me to settle. But I don’t settle, I don’t think I could even if I wanted to.
She glances at the clock, then back at me. “How did the week go, Kyle?”
“Which part do you want first?” I scoff, my chest full of things that don’t fit anymore. “The part where the entire world thinks I’m dating someone I can’t have, or the part where I almost threw away her career because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut?”
Her expression doesn’t shift. That’s the thing about her: She gives me nothing to react to except myself. “Before we dive into that, did you try the observation homework?”
“Yeah,” I mutter, scrubbing a hand down my face. “I did.”
“And what did you notice?”
“Everything. Too damn much. It’s like my body’s been waiting for permission to tell on me.”
“What did it tell you?”
“That I’m completely and utterly gone for her.”
Her pen stills, but she doesn’t look surprised, just present. “Where do you feel that?”
“In my chest.” My fist presses against it instinctively. “It feels like someone took a hot knife and carved her name behind my ribs. When she’s close, it… settles. My body thinks she’s the cure to something I didn’t even know was wrong. And when she pulls away, it feels like something inside me slips.”
“Tell me about the moments when she walked away.”
“It was like watching her close a door on us. Even though there isn’t an ‘us.’ Even though I’m not allowed to want it.” I stare at the floor because looking anywhere else is too much. “But I do. God, I do.”
She lets the silence breathe, letting me sit in everything I’m feeling, which is almost worse. “Tell me what happened this week.”
“There was a press conference. Some asshole reporter made a joke—one of those backhanded comments that aren’t technically insults, but they might as well be.” My voice hardens as I drag a shaky breath in. “She flinched like he slapped her. It wasn’t anything big, but I noticed. Fuck, I felt it.”
“And what did you feel at that moment?”
“Anger, white-hot and fast, like someone lit a fuse inside me.” I swallow, but it doesn’t go down. “It wasn’t normal anger. I couldn’t breathe through it. It hit all at once, like my whole body went electric and someone reached inside my chest, twisting something sharp.”
“Where?”
“Everywhere. My skin got tight. My vision tunneled. I couldn’t hear anything but my pulse in my ears, loud and hard, like a crowd booing. My whole body saidMove—do something—fix it. I couldn’t stand still and watch her be humiliated.”
My hands ball into fists, and the tendons in my hand strain as my voice fractures. “I didn’t even think. It was instinct. She was the only thing in the room that mattered, and everything else went blurry.”
“And afterward?”
“Everything fucking exploded.” The words rip out of me, rough at the edges. “Cameras. Reactions. Headlines. People shouting over each other like a feeding frenzy. And she just… took it.”
The memory slams into me. Alycia’s stiff shoulders. Her eyes dimming. The way she tried so damn hard not to show she was gutted.
“She stood there while the world decided she was part of the joke, and I’m the one who put her there.”
A sound slips out of me—small, uneven—like the breath you let go when you finally stop pretending you’re fine.
