That took the fight out of me.
“I know,” I said.
She leaned up and kissed the corner of my mouth, careful not to smudge her lipstick. “Just be present tonight. Two hours. Then we can leave.”
Two hours was nothing.
Two hours was also an entire season when my skin already felt too tight and my phone had buzzed twelve times in five minutes and I was trying to remember if I’d put tomorrow’s drill sheet in my notebook before I left the arena.
I had. I thought.
No, I had. I’d done it in the locker room. Old sheet in recycling. New sheet in notebook. I’d even checked it twice and Roman had asked if I was preparing for a court deposition.
Vanessa stepped back and smiled at us in the mirror.
We looked good.
That was the weird part. We always looked good.
At the event, I did what I was supposed to do.
I smiled for photos. I put my hand on Vanessa’s lower back at the right time. I posted the story and tagged the correct accountafter checking the handle three times because my brain kept trying to swap two letters around. I shook hands with men in expensive jackets who talked to me like I was both a person and a product, depending on who was listening.
The room was loud in layers. Music under voices under laughter under camera shutters under my phone vibrating in my pocket. The lights were too white. Someone’s perfume had a sugary chemical bite that caught in the back of my throat every time she walked past. My collar sat wrong no matter how many times I tugged at it, and every time I shifted my weight, Vanessa’s fingers brushed my sleeve like a reminder to stay still.
A woman from the brand team appeared with a headset and a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
“We’re going to get a quick couple shot by the logo wall, then maybe one of you holding the product bag,” she said to me. “More relaxed, less athlete. Think supportive boyfriend, not franchise centerpiece.”
I nodded like that sentence had not made my molars ache.
“Perfect,” she said. “And if you could avoid looking too intense? We want approachable.”
Vanessa laughed lightly. “He tries. He’s impossible, but we love him.”
Everyone laughed because it was the kind of joke people were supposed to laugh at.
I laughed too.
Or I made a sound close enough.
Impossible.
It was small. It was nothing. Vanessa said things like that all the time and most days I fired back because that was how we worked in public. She didn’t mean it like a diagnosis. She meant charmingly difficult. Boyfriend content. A little rough edge to make the polish feel real.
But my head was already crowded, and the word landed in the mess like a puck fired into traffic.
Impossible.
Difficult.
Disruptive when disengaged.
Brilliant when he decides to care.
My smile stayed on. My hand stayed on Vanessa’s back. I turned toward the camera and angled my shoulders the way Tessa had drilled into us during media training. I didn’t snap. I didn’t embarrass her. I didn’t become the headline everyone was half waiting for me to be.
But the room narrowed.
