The line goes still.
Coleson’s grin falters a fraction, but he recovers fast. “Yes, sir.”
Kai doesn’t blink. “Good.”
Coach nods in approval and blows the whistle. “Back to work.”
We run conditioning.
My legs burn. My lungs scrape. My vision goes a little edge-blurry, the way it does when your body is close to its limit.
That part feels good.
Physical pain? I understand.
And the whole time, underneath it, the truth keeps pulsing through my chest like a second heartbeat?—
I’m going to have to tell her.
After practice, I go to the training room and get taped for a bruise that shouldn’t matter. I sit there while the athletic trainer talks about hydration and rest, as if I don’t already know their spiel by heart.
I nod at the right places, but I don’t actually hear any of it, because my head is fully consumed by one image.
Harlow’s face when she realizes that I’m the guy she’s been talking to online since late August.
Not the moment she figures it out—she’s already close. I’ve felt her edging toward it in the way she would wait long periods between responses, in the way she’s been pulling back from the forum more and more, the way her words have become careful like she’s afraid to break something.
The moment she hears it from me, with all the weight that comes with a name and a face and the fact that I’ve been safe for her in the dark but also in the daylight.
I leave the training room and start walking across campus toward the edge, where it’s quieter, where trees seem to swallow sound, where there are benches and space and exits you cansee. The place I’d choose if I were her. Because if I’m going to tell Harlow the truth, I need to do it in a place where she can breathe through it.
Somewhere neutral. Somewhere public enough she doesn’t feel trapped, and quiet enough she doesn’t feel watched.
I sit on a bench and stare at my hands. They look normal, not like the hands of a guy who might be about to blow up someone’s safe place. They’re just hands.
And that’s the thing.
I didn’t mean to do this, but intent doesn’t erase the outcome, and now that I know for sure, now that I’ve put the pieces together and there’s no plausible denial left, every day I delay telling her becomes selfish. I’m keeping the comfort, keeping the connection, keeping the door open in the dark while I reach for her in the light.
Owen would tell me to stop being a coward, and not gently. He’d make a joke. He’d probably steal my fries while he said it, and then he’d tell me the truth I’m trying not to face.
If she trusted you with the worst parts of her, you don’t get to protect yourself by hiding.
I pull my phone out, thumb hovering over the forum icon.
My chest throbs with a different kind of ache. There’s a message waiting. The same way it’s been waiting for over a week. I don’t open it, not yet. It’s not that I don’t want to, but if I open it, I’ll answer. I’ll keep being him. I’ll keep being safe. And then what? I’ll show up to tell her the truth and shatter her with my face.
No.
I slip my phone back into my pocket and take a few calming breaths.
I have to tell her today. Not tomorrow, not after I’ve spent the night running through the perfect things to say to at least attempt to make this better.
Today.
She deserves the truth, and she deserves the rawest version of the truth, led by whatever it is I’m feeling in that moment.
My legs are heavy and my mind loud, but it’s loud in a way that feels like forward motion instead of spiraling. The truth is coming, and I’m done pretending I can skate around it forever.
