That hit harder than anything Coach said.
Harder than the loss. Than the press. Than the fight.
Because she was right.
I closed my eyes and dropped onto the bed, elbows on my knees, jaw tight.
“It’s just…” I exhaled. “I don’t know how to not be angry anymore. It’s like it’s the only thing keeping me upright. If I let go of it, I fall apart.”
Silence.
Then the bed creaked softly. Her bare feet padded across the carpet.
A moment later, she was kneeling in front of me.
Her hand slid gently up my arm, warm and grounding. “You don’t have to carry it alone.”
I opened my eyes. Her face was right there, close and soft and steady. The calm in my chaos.
“I’m not trying to fix it,” she whispered. “I just didn’t want you to be alone tonight.”
Something cracked in me.
Not loud.
Not dramatic.
Just… a quiet breaking.
And I nodded.
Because the truth was—I didn’t want to be alone either.
Not with this.
Not with her.
I leaned forward, hands laced together as I stared at the carpet. “Soccer wasn’t even my dream,” I said, voice low. “It was just the only thing we could afford. No equipment, no fancy camps—just a ball and space to run. My parents worked too much to take me anywhere. It was my grandma who dragged me out to tryouts.” I let out a breath, the memory creeping in like fog. “She didn’t know a damn thing about the sport, but she showed up to every single game. Sat on the sidelines in this massive sunhat, screaming at refs and calling offside when it wasn’t. She just… believed I’d be something. And I guess I kept chasing that because no one else ever looked at me like I mattered that much.”
Daphne didn’t say anything at first. She just gave me that look—soft, but not pitying. Like she actually saw me. Then she glanced down and traced her finger along the seam of the blanket.
“That’s… really good,” she murmured. “Like, rooted.” A small pause, then a smirk tugged at her mouth. “Mine’s way less heartwarming.”
I raised a brow. “Yeah?”
“I only got into this job because of my ex-fiancé,” she said, eyes rolling toward the ceiling like it physically pained her to admit it. “He was obsessed with soccer. I’m talking stats, fantasy leagues, 5am matches in languages he didn’t even speak. I figured if I wanted to keep up, I had to show interest. So I took a media internship covering college games. And I just… kept doing it. Turns out I liked it way more than I liked him.”
That got a laugh out of me, but she wasn’t finished.
“Funny part?” she added, crossing her legs under her. “He went to a conference in Barcelona and hooked up with one of Juan Ruiz’s old situationships. Came home acting like he’d won the Ballon d’Or himself.” She shook her head. “I ended it on the spot.”
I blinked. “Wait—Ruiz’s actual situationship?”
“Alleged,” she said with a little shrug, like she didn’t care if it was true or not. “But yeah. I like to joke that I kept soccer in the split because she ditched him a few weeks later, and nobody else wanted him.”
That made me laugh—really laugh. For the first time that night, the tension in my chest cracked open. “Remind me never to piss you off.”
“Good plan,” she said, eyes dancing. “You wouldn’t survive it.”
