Then she pulls her own phone, glances at the screen, and just stands there, shoulders slumping as the news hits her.
She says nothing. For once, the woman with a line for everything has no line. She sits on the edge of the bench, clipboard resting on her knees, and just breathes.
The rest of the team tries to process. Some guys check other news feeds, hoping for a correction, a retraction, a “just kidding.” Others sit in silence, eyes fixed on nothing.
I think about every conversation I ever had with Caleb. I think about his smile, his easy laugh, the way he told stories about Cap that nobody else knew.
I think about the way he hugged me, desperate, and how I never once thought he was anything but another casualty of the violence, another brother in the fraternity of the lost.
I feel my hands go numb. The stick is still on the floor. I stare at it, willing myself to pick it up, to act like nothing has changed. But everything has.
Next to me, Ash is breathing too fast, nostrils flaring, sweat beading on his temples. He doesn’t look up.
I want to say something to him, anything, but the words are jammed behind my teeth.
Coach finally speaks, voice flat. “Practice is cancelled. Everyone out. Go home, stay together, don’t talk to press. If you need anything, you call me.”
Nobody argues. We stand, one by one, some grabbing their shit, some just wandering out in a fog.
Ash waits for me by the exit. His face is gray, eyes rimmed in red. He doesn’t say anything, just bumps his shoulder into mine as we walk to the parking lot.
Outside, the world is colder than it should be. The cars look like tombstones, the sky heavy and blank.
I slide into the passenger seat of Ash’s car. He puts the key in the ignition, but doesn’t start it.
We sit in silence, the only sound the ping of the car door reminder, relentless and stupid.
After a while, Ash speaks.
“You okay?”
I want to scream at him, tell him that nothing is okay, that the whole world is fucked and will never be right again. Instead, I just shake my head.
“Me neither,” he says.
We sit like that for a long time, parked in the dead lot, the world spinning off its axis outside the windows.
I think about the last six weeks, about the way we built ourselves back up, piece by piece, routine by routine.
I think about how easy it is to pretend you know someone, and how impossible it is to ever really know.
I look at Ash. His hands are clenched on the steering wheel, white-knuckled, like he’s holding onto the last piece of sanity.
I want to reach out, touch him, say something that matters.
But I don’t.
Because nothing makes sense anymore.
Not even us.
———
The city outside my window is a smear of light and fog, the skyline blurred by rain that sticks to the glass and refuses to let go.
It’s almost midnight, but the world below is still awake, headlights moving in slow motion down Mercer, the hum of a police siren in the distance, the neon smear of a falafel place that never closes.
I sit on the floor, back against the cold radiator, knees hugged to my chest. My phone is in my hand, but I’m not looking at it. I’m just letting the blue glow paint my face and the backs of my eyelids.
