“I just need a day,” I say quietly. “One day where I don’t have to beon. Or charming. Or fast. Or okay.”
Silence stretches.
Then Ty sighs and stands. “I’ll tell Harris you’re sick.”
“You don’t have to?—”
“I do,” he cuts in gently. “Because if you don’t show, they’ll come looking. And I don’t think you’re up for that.”
He pauses at the door. “Text me if you need anything. Food. Water. A distraction. A human sacrifice.”
I almost smile. The door closes. And just like that, the room feels too quiet.
I curl onto my side, staring at the wall, thoughts looping in slow, ugly circles. The last few days replay whether I want them to or not.
Practice has been… different. Not bad. Worse. Because bad would mean yelling, tension, friction—something. Instead, it’s been nothing. Silas—Coach Gray—has gone clinical. All business. Eyes forward. Clipboard up. Voice even.
Too even.
He corrects Peoples. Talks strategy with Colton. Claps Ty on the shoulder when he nails a block. Laughs—actually laughs—at something Micah says during water break.
I might as well be a cone on the field.
No lingering looks or simmering heat. No low-voiced corrections meant just for me. Not even irritation. Just distance. Clean and intentional, as if he took a razor to whatever spark existed between us and cut it out at the root.
It’s stupid that it hurts. It’s worse that it surprises me. I don’t know why I thought he would…push the issue.
I’ve been ignored before. By hookups who didn’t text back and guys who liked me better in the dark than in daylight. And my parents when I didn’t fit into the version of me they prayed for.
I’m supposed to be good at this. At letting it roll off. At turning absence into a joke and desire into something disposable.
So why does this feel like a bruise I keep pressing on?
I squeeze my eyes shut. He hasn’t even glanced my way.
Not when I break a run clean. Not when I fumble and recover. Not when I joke too loud, flirt too openly, act like nothing touches me.
Especially not then.
It’s like I don’t exist.
A small, traitorous piece of me keeps thinking:Good. This is what you wanted.
No labels. No expectations. No risk. It feels like I lost something anyway.
I roll onto my back, staring at the growing light on the ceiling, my chest tight and restless. It’s almost worse than the numbness that keeps trying to pull me under. At least the numbness doesn’t make me feel like I’ve left pieces of myself scattered all over someone else’s hands.
My limbs feel too heavy to move. My brain keeps spinning in slow, jagged spirals ofwhat ifsandwhy did you runandwhat does it matter anyway. I think maybe I’ll stay hereforever. Let the sun move across the sky, let the world keep turning. I’ll just be a ghost under the covers.
Eventually, sleep drags me under again—choppy and dreamless.
I don’t know how much time passes.
But the door slams open with the force of divine judgment.
“Get your princess ass out of bed!” Micah’s voice pierces through the fog in my brain like a cursed trumpet blast. “You’ve had your sad-boy nap. Now it’s time to put on something tight and go grind your issues away.”
I groan into my pillow. “Oh my God, did you float in on a cloud of chaos just to wake me up?”
