The next morning, I was on time.
Not early enough to be impressive. Not late enough to be me. Just on time, which felt like walking through a door that usually slammed on my ankle.
Recovery was quiet. Bikes. Stretching. Guys talking in low voices because nobody had enough energy yet to be fully obnoxious. Roman was lying on a mat with a band around his foot, glaring at the ceiling like it had personally failed him.
“You survived influencer prom,” he said.
“Barely.”
“Did you network?”
“I held a bag.”
“Heroic.”
I kicked his mat lightly and went to refill my water.
Coach Reid caught me in the hall outside the training room. He had a tablet tucked under one arm, black quarter-zip, beard trimmed, eyes taking in too much the way they always did. He didn’t stop me with a hand or raise his voice. He just said my name, and my body listened before my attitude could object.
“Holloway.”
I turned. “Coach.”
“You left on time?”
“Ten-twenty-eight.”
“Food?”
“Turkey sandwich. Sad but compliant.”
His mouth almost moved. “You communicated early. Good.”
That was it.
One word at the end, controlled and low, not even meant to be a big deal.
My whole stupid chest opened around it.
I hated it immediately.
I took a drink of water to give myself something to do. Too pleased. Too relieved. Like I’d been waiting all morning for a grade and had gotten one I didn’t know I needed.
“Yeah,” I said, aiming for casual and landing somewhere near concussed. “I can occasionally follow directions.”
“I’m aware.”
He walked away before I could answer.
That should have been the end of it. Instead, the good sat under my skin wrong. I carried it through warmups, through the first set of drills, through a clean zone entry where I held support exactly where he wanted it. Every time I did the thing right, some part of me checked for him.
Not the assistant running the drill. Not Roman. Him.
By the second half of practice, I was irritated enough to do something about it.
Reid shifted us into a neutral-zone regroup drill. Simple. Repetitive. The kind where my brain started looking for exits because doing the same thing six times made my bones itch.
On the fourth rep, I stretched early.
