“It was fucked, what I did to Dominic.” His voice sounds completely different now, stripped down to something raw. “That’s the truth. That’s the thing I’ve never said out loud to anyone except my sponsor and my wife, and now I guess to you.” He takes a breath. “Dominic didn’t know.”
My hand tightens around the phone. Even though I’ve suspected it ever since Aberdeen, since Eddie Kovacs looked me in the eye and admitted he’d lied, the words still land like a fist to the sternum.
“He didn’t know,” I repeat, and the words taste bitter on my tongue.
“No. I got the stuff from someone outside the gym, a guy I knew from way back. I kept it completely hidden, and Dominic never saw anything. When it all came out, I was so ashamed and so scared that I just...” He pauses. “I dunno, it made me look better if people thought my coach was maybe pushing it, maybe looking the other way. Everyone was fucking coming for me until that point, and then suddenly the story shifted to him.”
I close my eyes. The city noise fades to a dull roar.
“Why didn’t you ever say anything later then?” My voice comes out steadier than I feel. “Why did you let his career burn?”
“Because I was a coward,” he says. “I was young and stupid and scared, and by the time I got my head on straight enough to understand what I’d done, it felt too late. Dominic had already moved on. I figured reaching out would just open old wounds.”
“It would have cleared his name,” I say, and there’s an edge in my voice now that I can’t quite control.
The anger surprises me with how fast it rises, hot and sudden, and it’s directed at myself first, for not digging deeper the way I should have, the way any decent journalist would have, for letting my personal hatred of Dominic cloud my judgment. But it’s also directed at Miles Webb and Eddie Kovacs, two lying pieces of shit who let an innocent man’s career burn to the ground while they walked away from the wreckage.
“Yeah.” I hear him exhale on the other end. “I’ve thought about that every single day since. I mean, it was terrible, what I did. He was a really good guy too, that’s the thing. That’s what makes it worse. I think that’s part of why he never called me a liar or really defended himself much, because he knew about my home life and all the shit I was dealing with.”
I press my forehead against the brick wall of the dry cleaner’s, the cold rough surface grounding me while everything inside my chest threatens to come apart. The anger is still there, but it’s mixed with something else now, something that feels dangerously close to grief.
For Dominic. For the years of his life that I helped destroy. For all the things he could have been if Miles Webb had been brave enough to tell the truth and I had been smart enough to ask the right questions.
I want to scream or cry or punch someone. Maybe all three.
Before I say something I might regret, I need to end this call. I need to think. I need to figure out what the hell I’m supposed to do with this information now that I have it.
“Thank you, Miles,” I manage. “That... well, that clears things up.”
“What are you going to do?” he asks, sounding curious, and maybe a little nervous.
“I don’t know. I really don’t.” I rub my hand over my face, trying to think straight through the noise in my head. “Can I call you again about this? I don’t know what I need to do yet, or ifDominic should hear it from me or from you, or if there’s some way to...” I trail off because I don’t even know how to finish the sentence.
“Yeah.” His voice is quieter now, the defensiveness long gone. “Yeah, you can call me again.”
“Okay. Goodbye, Miles. And congratulations on your sobriety. I’m happy for you about that, at least.”
“Thanks, Brooke. I appreciate that.” The line goes dead.
I stand there on the sidewalk, phone pressed against my thigh, groceries forgotten, staring at nothing while the city moves around me.
All this time. All these years. Dominic had tried to tell me, and I’d always assumed he was a liar, had rolled my eyes and shut him down every single time, because I was so certain I already knew the truth.
I had a source and a story and a decade of resentment telling me he was guilty, and I didn’t push past any of it. I didn’t ask the hard questions. I didn’t follow the threads that didn’t fit the narrative I wanted to be true. I just wrote the article and cashed the check and moved to Manhattan and told myself I’d done good journalism.
Mexico City is next week, and I have no fucking idea what to do.
CHAPTER 21
Dominic
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is a reminder that the fasten seatbelt sign is still on. Please remain in your seats with your seatbelts securely fastened until the captain turns off the sign.”
The flight attendant’s voice crackles through the speakers, and the Spanish translation follows while the plane shudders hard enough to rattle the overhead bins. I close my phone and shove it in my pocket. The wifi’s been useless for the past twenty minutes anyway, cutting in and out too much to load Roman’s training notes, and lightning flickers outside the windows in bright white flashes that make the whole cabin feel like a strobe light.
Six rows ahead, Brooke leans into the aisle, craning her neck to look out the window on the other side of the plane. We’d both been shocked to run into each other at the Houston gate, boarding the same connection to Mexico City.
The small talk while we waited had been awkward at best, neither of us quite sure what to say after everything thathappened in New York, and eventually we’d just stopped trying, retreating to our phones like strangers.
