I nod. “And you’re the one who connected him with Dominic.”
“I called him myself.” Delgado leans back in his chair. “Roman was outgrowing Pete Garza’s gym, and I knew Dominic’s reputation. Figured it was worth a shot.”
“What made you think he’d say yes?”
“Honestly? I didn’t.” He chuckles. “But Dominic drove over to Pete’s that same week. Watched one sparring session and told me he’d take him on. Just like that.”
That doesn’t surprise me. For all the things I could say about Dominic Midnight, and I could say plenty, indecisive has never been one of them. When he commits to something, he commits completely.
“Come on,” Delgado says, pushing back from his desk. “Let me show you the trophy case.”
I follow him into the gymnasium lobby. The case stretches the length of one wall, decades of hardware behind the glass. Trophies of every size and shape, team photos going back to what looks like the seventies based on the haircuts, championship banners and medal displays. The whole history of Dark River High athletics, condensed into one long shrine.
Delgado walks me to Roman’s trophies, his team photos, talking the whole time about records and tournaments and the night Roman pinned his opponent in under thirty seconds to clinch the state title.
I take photos with my phone and make notes and let him talk, because sometimes the best thing a journalist can do is get out of the way and let people tell their stories.
“Dominic’s actually got some old trophies in here too,” Delgado says, walking me further along the case. “Back row, there. They keep getting pushed back as we add new stuff, but they’re still around.”
He points to where Dominic’s hardware has been relegated to the back of the display by newer additions. State wrestling championships, boxing trophies, a few team photos. Next to the trophies, there’s a photo that makes me stop mid-step.
Dominic at eighteen, in a wrestling singlet, one arm raised in victory after a match. He’s leaner than he is now, not yet filled out into the broad-shouldered man he’d become, but the same sharp jaw and dark serious eyes. The same intensity radiating off him even in a still image.
My brain immediately places the photo. Senior year, late January, the match where he pinned his opponent in the third period. I was in the stands that night, tucked into the back row where none of my friends would see me, pretending I was there to support the team in general and not one specific wrestler in particular.
This was before everything went to hell with the scholarship, back when we were still sneaking around and pretending we hated each other in public and then meeting up in secret.
Afterward I’d snuck out to the parking lot and waited by his truck, and when he came out with his gym bag over his shoulder and saw me standing there, neither of us said a word. He just unlocked the door and I climbed in and we fogged up the windows for an hour with the whole truck rocking on its suspension.
My face goes warm and I look away from the photo. Delgado walks me through the rest of the trophy case, pointing out state championships and team photos. I take notes, ask follow-up questions, and do the job. But part of my brain is still stuck on that photo of Dominic, trying to reconcile the boy in the picture with the man I saw yesterday.
Eventually we wind down, the conversation circling back to things we’ve already covered, the pauses stretching a little longer. I thank him for his time and he shakes my hand firmly.
“Roman’s the best kid I’ve ever coached,” he says, pride evident in his voice. “You’d better write something that does him justice.”
“I will,” I say.
“And tell Dom I said hello,” he adds with a grin.
“I’ll pass it along,” I say.
He heads back toward his office with a wave over his shoulder. I stay where I am for a moment, alone in the quiet of the gymnasium lobby, and let my eyes drift back to the trophy case. Dominic’s eighteen-year-old face stares out at me from behind the glass, frozen mid-victory. We were so young. Both of us. Young and stupid and so sure we knew exactly what we were doing.
I head for the exit. The hallway stretches out ahead of me and everything looks smaller than I remember, with the ceilings lower and the lockers narrower, the whole building shrunk down like someone washed it on the wrong setting. It’s disorienting.
I was a completely different person the last time I walked these halls. Full of big plans and blind spots and the unshakeable belief that getting out of this town would fix everything wrong with my life. Turns out you can move three thousand miles away and still drag all your damage with you. Geography doesn’t fix shit. It just gives you more interesting bars to cry in.
The warm afternoon air hits me when I push through the front doors. I stand on the steps for a second, breathing. The parking lot stretches out in front of me, mostly empty except for a woman loading a kid into a minivan near the side entrance. I’m halfway to my rental car when a voice stops me.
“Oh my god. Brooke? Brooke Bennett?”
I turn to find the woman from the minivan walking toward me, a toddler balanced on one hip and a diaper bag threatening to slide off her shoulder. It takes me a second to place her, and then the features click into focus like a photograph developing.Blonde hair, heart-shaped face, the same bright smile she had when we were seventeen and she sat behind me in AP English.
“Jessica Moreno?” I say, a smile spreading across my face. “Oh my god, hi!”
“I can’t believe it’s you!” She shifts the toddler higher on her hip and beams at me. The kid is maybe two, with her mother’s round cheeks. “When did you get back to town?”
“I’m back in town for work, actually. Writing a piece on Roman Kincaid.” I step closer and she meets me halfway with a hug. Jessica was one of those people in high school who was genuinely kind to everyone.
