My stance is wrong. Too high. Weight in the wrong place. Like my body is waiting for a hit that isn’t coming instead of doing its job.
The stadium noise should sharpen me. It always does. Roaring crowds. Lights. The big, clean adrenaline spike that turns thinking into instinct.
Today it’s just noise.
The field feels tilted. Foreign. Like I’m wearing someone else’s cleats.
I move a half-beat late.
That half-beat costs me.
I miss a block I could make in my sleep. The defender slips past, and our guy takes the hit because I’m slow. The sound of pads colliding is loud enough to make my teeth hurt.
Next play.
I run my route crisp out of habit, hands ready.
The pass comes in.
And I drop it.
It hits my gloves and bounces off like I’ve never caught a football in my life.
A groan rolls through the stands. The kind that doesn’t boo, exactly—just disapproves.
I jog back, face blank, stomach twisting.
Coach is already yelling at someone. Maybe me. Maybe the universe.
I try to reset. I tell myself I’m fine.
The thought underneath everything doesn’t let me.
I walked out.
I walked out of her life like she was a room I could exit and lock behind me.
The next drive, I overrun a route so badly the timing collapses. I see the quarterback’s eyes flick toward me, confused, then angry. Coach throws his headset down on the sideline like it personally betrayed him.
I don’t blame him.
Every mistake lands like a physical blow. But none of them hurt as much as the one stupid sentence on repeat beneath every play.
She wanted me gone.
The whistle blows and we line up again.
My legs feel heavy. My hands feel wrong. My breathing is shallow in a way that has nothing to do with cardio.
I look up into the stands without meaning to.
A sea of faces. Noise. Motion.
No Lila.
Of course she isn’t here.
Why would she be?
