Walked it off. That was good. That meant Seth was fine. That meant he was still playing, still moving, still?—
He’s back in. He’s good. Just looked rough for a second. Might want to make sure his ice packs are in the freezer though.
I made myself breathe. Made myself set the phone down. Made myself pick up the controller and start another match, even though my hands were shaking enough that my aim went to shit.
I’m not his mom. If he’s going to need ice, he should’ve thought about that sooner.
The reaction didn’t make sense. I barely knew the guy. Two months of sharing an apartment didn’t explain the way my chest had seized up at Hunter’s text, the way I couldn’t stop thinking about the wordshaky.
I tried to get back into the zone, but I couldn’t stop my mind from racing. I tossed my controller to the other end of the couch and grabbed my backpack. Might as well get some work done.
The engineering building was empty, the same as it was most weekends. Most of the campus was either at the game or doing something that didn’t involve running impact tests on prototype helmet padding. I swiped my student ID to get into the lab, dropped my bag by the door, and pulled up the data from Thursday’s test sequence on my laptop.
This was better. This made sense. Columns of numbers, graphs showing force distribution, and measurements of energyabsorption across different padding configurations. This was something I could control.
My current prototype sat on the workbench, a skeleton of a helmet with modular padding inserts I could swap in and out. I’d been testing variations on a design that used overlapping layers of different materials, each one calibrated to absorb impact at different velocities. The idea was that a single catastrophic hit and multiple smaller impacts over time both created risk, so the padding needed to handle both scenarios. If I could bring my vision to life and prove it worked, the sport would have a helmet that could be customized not only by position but also by players’ history and risk of future injury.
I swapped out the padding configuration for the next test sequence. The work was methodical, precise, exactly the kind of thing that required enough focus that I couldn’t think about anything else.
Couldn’t think about whether the game was over yet.
Couldn’t think about whether Seth was okay.
Couldn’t think about how many hits constituted “too many,” even if they all looked fine at the time.
My phone stayed dark in my pocket. Maybe my snippy reply had finally gotten through to Hunter. If I’d wanted to know what was going on with the game, I would’ve watched.
I ran the next test sequence. Documented the results. Adjusted the calibration on the impact machine. Ran another sequence. The numbers were good. Better than the last configuration. The overlapping layers were distributing the force more evenly, reducing the peak impact measurement by another six percent.
Six percent that might matter. Might not. The only way to know was to keep testing, keep iterating, keep trying to build something that could protect people from the consequences of the sport it seemed like half the damned country was obsessed with. That the game players couldn’t seem to quit, even as the risks became clearer and clearer.
The sport that had turned my father’s brain into something that couldn’t recognize his own son.
I stayed in the lab until the data started blurring together, until I’d run enough sequences that I’d have material to analyze for days. When I finally checked my phone, it was past six. The game had been over for at least three hours.
No messages from Hunter. That was good. That meant nothing worth reporting had happened.
No messages from Seth either. Not that I’d expected any. Not that I’d been checking.
I packed up my equipment, locked the lab, and walked back to the apartment as the sun started sinking behind the buildings. The campus was alive with the post-game energy that always came with a win. People were smiling, laughing, and wearing Gray Wolves gear with the kind of pride that saidwe beat someone today.
Our apartment was on the fourth floor of a building that mostly housed graduate students and seniors who’d gotten tired of dorm life. I’d needed a new roommate after mine graduated—couldn’t afford the place alone on the little bit I had left over from financial aid. Seth had been looking for somewhere off campus, and Hunter had suggested we might be a good fit. At thetime, I’d figured it was just Hunter being practical, connecting two people who needed the same thing.
It had seemed practical at the time. Seth was Hunter’s friend and former teammate. We’d crossed paths a handful of times before, but I hadn’t really known him until the day Hunter sent him to the apartment after Dad died.
I’d been sitting on the kitchen floor, unable to move, unable to do anything except stare at the wall and try to remember how to breathe. Seth had knocked, and when I didn’t answer, he’d let himself in with the spare key Hunter must have told him how to find. He hadn’t said much. Hadn’t tried to fix anything or offer empty words about how it would get easier. He’d just sat on the floor next to me and stayed there until I could stand again.
He’d shown up for the funeral too, standing in the back row even though he barely knew my family. Checked in on me in the weeks after, never pushing, never making it weird. Just there in a way I hadn’t expected from someone I’d barely spoken to.
I hadn’t expected much from the roommate arrangement. Hadn’t expected him to be so easy to live with, so willing to give me space without making it weird.
Hadn’t expected to notice when he wasn’t home.
I let myself into the apartment and dumped my bag by the door. The place was still empty, still quiet. I grabbed a Coke from the fridge and settled on the couch with my laptop, pulling up the data from today’s tests.
The numbers scrolled past. Force measurements, energy absorption rates, material stress points. My brain cataloged it all, flagged the outliers, and started building the framework for the next round of modifications.
I was three spreadsheets deep when I heard footsteps in the hallway outside.
