“Yesterday,” I said. “Session was short. Unnoteworthy.”
Ivy nodded once. “She’s sharper than most.”
“She should be,” Noah said. “You brought her in, right?”
Ivy didn’t answer with words. She nodded. Of course she had. Ivy didn’t just work with people—she vetted them. She staked her name on them. If Dr. Sloane Mercer was here, it was because Ivy believed she was one of the best.
Noah leaned back and tilted his bottle toward me. “She asked me what emotion or thing I associate with competition. It was fun. I had a great chat with her. I like her.”
I paused, one brow raised. “And?”
“And what?” He tilted his hair, his curly hair falling over his face. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“What did you respond with?”
“Oh,” he said, laughing. “Chicken wings, obviously.”
That pulled a laugh out of me. But before I could ask why the hell he said that, he smiled and said, “Spicy. Unpredictable. Usually messy.”
Ivy chuckled. “You said that out loud with your mouth?”
“Yeah,” Noah said. “She said it was the most creative answer she heard and that she liked how it showed my personality. So, judge all you want, but I’m on track to be Doc’s favorite.”
I let the smile hang there a second longer than usual. I hadn't stopped thinking about her. About that room. About the way Dr. Mercer watched me with her sharp eyes and kind expression. She wasn’t pushy, despite me being disrespectful toward her.She didn’t deserve me storming out of her office, and regret clawed at me. She’d been doing her job. I gripped the back of my neck, sighing. “She’s different.”
Ivy straightened slightly, the way she did when she was locking in. “Different how?”
I didn’t answer right away. I ran my thumb across the seam on the shake bottle. “She didn’t startle, even when I got defensive and started pushing back.”
Noah tilted his head, frown forming. “What’d you say, man? Were you an asshole about it?”
I winced. “Probably. I just… said I didn’t need fixing and for her to clear me.”
Ivy didn’t flinch. “And what did she say?”
I shrugged. “That she wasn’t here to fix me. To make sure the game didn’t take more than it already had. I swore she saw through me in the fifteen minutes I sat with her. It was unnerving.”
“That’s what makes her great,” Ivy said. “She doesn’t ask surface-level shit. She doesn’t care what you look like on the stat sheet. She cares what happens when the lights go off. Open up to her, Oli. It’s healthy.”
Noah leaned forward, elbows on his knees, eyes focused for once. “That mess with your chest last week… it scared us, man. You didn’t say anything. You went home like it was normal.”
“Itisnormal,” I said, sharper than I meant to.
“That’s the problem, Oli,” Ivy said, pushing off the wall and sighing.
If any two other people on the were staff here, I’d shut up and get out. But these two were comfortable, and I trusted them.They couldn’t carry all my burdens, but admitting a little weakness to them felt okay.
“I’m not trying to be reckless,” I said. “I’m not out here wanting to collapse. I just… I’ve worked too hard to get here. Tostart. To be trusted. To be relied on by the team. I don’t want to lose all of it because I get dizzy sometimes. It’s fucking stupid.”
I looked down at my hands, still curled around the bottle, the plastic warm from my grip. I didn’t speak right away. My pulse was steady, but I was too aware. That hum beneath my skin never fully shut off. I closed my eyes and let it pass.
It always did.
“I need more time,” I said quietly. “I’ll figure it out. I always do.”
“You’ve had time,” Ivy said. “Years of bending the truth enough to keep yourself eligible. But this season? You’re starting. You’re on every promo reel. Every post-game headline. There’s less room to disappear.”
Football was the only place I ever felt like I made sense. Like I was worth something. Not because I was the fastest or the strongest—but because I survived. Because I didn’t quit. Even when I should have.
