Stella pushes off the wall slowly, like she already knows I’m one wrong word away from splintering.
She doesn’t call my name.
Doesn’t ask if I’m okay.
Doesn’t do any of the bright, hopeful things people do when they’re trying to help and accidentally make grief feel smaller.
She just opens her arms.
That’s it.
That’s all.
And God.
I go.
Suit bag drops to the floor with a heavy thud I barely hear. I cross the distance in three strides and fold into her like my body has been waiting all night for permission to stop holding itself together.
She catches me.
One arm around my ribs.
The other hand sliding up into my hair.
Her face tucking into the side of my neck like she knows exactly where to put herself to steady a man without making him feel handled.
The first breath I take in her arms is ragged enough to embarrass me.
The second is easier.
Then she whispers, warm against my skin, “I know.”
And there it is.
Not consolation.
Not perspective.
Not that hideous phrase about it just being a game.
Athlete language.
The only kind that works in the first minutes after something dies.
My hands fist in the back of her hoodie.
I close my eyes.
The arena noise is still there somewhere—distant, muted, unreal now—but in the space between her body and mine, it all goes dim.
For one selfish, weak, necessary second, I let all the fight leave my shoulders.
Not because I can’t carry it.
Because I don’t have to carry it alone.
When I finally lean back, her hands stay on me.
