“It’s not illegal,” Luca said. “It’s just depressing.”
We stood there in the dark for a second before Coach finally walked in.
No whistle.
No clipboard.
Just him.
That was worse.
“You all saw it,” he said.
Nobody asked what “it” was.
We all knew.
The media fallout. The posts. The article. The noise that wouldn’t stop multiplying.
Coach leaned against the wall.
“This is the part where most teams fall apart,” he said.
Silence.
“Not because of skill,” he added. “Because of attention.”
His eyes landed on me.
Not long.
Just enough.
I already knew what he was thinking.
I just didn’t know how to fix it.
ROWAN
Mia dragged me into a study room before I could even sit down.
“Okay,” she said. “We need rules.”
“For what?”
“This situation.”
“It’s not a situation.”
“It is now.”
She opened her laptop like she was preparing for war.
Rule one appeared on screen:
No reacting to external commentary without verification.
I frowned. “That’s just journalism.”
