How’s Sophie?
I stare at it for a second too long, thumb hovering.
She shouldn’t have to carry this. None of this is on her.
She’ll be okay. I’ll talk to her more after school.
I’m tempted to add “I miss you,” but that would only make things harder right now.
I hit send, then exhale. The truth is, I don’t regret being with Charlotte—just the timing of how it came out.
I’ve played countless games under pressure, but none prepared me for this—being the reason Sophie and Charlotte are both hurting in different ways.
The training room’s quiet when I get there. Usually the hum of the cooling units fades into background noise, but today it fills the whole room.
The sharp scent of eucalyptus and disinfectant hits as soon as I walk in, clean and sterile, nothing like the chaos in my head.
Charlotte’s at the counter, restocking tape rolls. When she looks up, something flickers across her face—tension, then relief, then a quiet kind of resolve.
“Morning,” she says.
“Hey.”
Her shoulders ease a little. “You’re early.”
“Couldn’t sleep.”
She gives a small nod. “Me neither.”
For a second we just stand there, the quiet thick with everything we didn’t say over text. Then she gestures to the bike. “Let’s get started.”
I swing my leg over and settle onto the seat, brace stiff against my leg.
“Any pain today?” she asks.
“No.”
“Good.”
She adjusts the brace strap again, slower this time. “Declan… we should talk about last night.”
“I know.”
Her eyes stay on the brace. “If anyone finds out—”
Her voice drops, like she’s afraid saying it out loud will make it real.
“We’ll make sure they won’t.”
That stops her. She looks up, jaw tight.
“You make it sound easy.”
“It’s not,” I say. “But panicking won’t help either.”
Her mouth presses into a line, then softens. “I’m sorry I left so fast.”
“You were giving me space to talk to Sophie,” I say. “That’s never the wrong call.”
