NumberEleven: because you like it.
LittleTooMuch: I do not.
NumberEleven: liar.
My chest is warm. My brain is quieter than it’s been all day.
I type, softer.
LittleTooMuch: Thank you.
LittleTooMuch: For being…a constant I didn’t know I needed.
A long pause.
NumberEleven: anytime.
NumberEleven: i mean it.
I set my phone down.
I think about the dining hall. About Grayson Bennett and his quiet humor and his careful space.
I think about a stranger behind a username who makes me feel less alone at night.
I pick my phone back up and type:
LittleTooMuch: Goodnight, revolutionary.
NumberEleven: Goodnight, LittleTooMuch.
I let my eyes drift closed. My brain is still loud, but it’s a little less cruel.
And for now…
That counts.
11
GRAYSON
Friday morning practice is sponsored by spite.
Not my spite.
Coach Graves’.
Because apparently the man woke up today and chose violence.
We’re twenty minutes in, and my lungs already feel like they’re filing a complaint. Weston is chirping through drills, like his vocal cords are indestructible; Asher is calm in that infuriating way goalies always are; and Kai is doing his usualI will simply erase you from existencething on the center.
Meanwhile, my brain is half on the ice and half somewhere else?—
Stuck on a plain bagel.
Which is not a thought I ever expected to have.
The thing is, I didn’t mean for yesterday to be…anything. I saw Harlow freeze in the dining hall like the buffet line had personally threatened her, and my body did the same thing it always does when something looks off:
