Breathing the same air.
His eyes search mine with something complicated in them.
Something I do not want to decode right now.
So I don’t.
I smile instead.
Chapter Five
ISA
By the timethey finally release me, the pain meds have blurred the edges off everything except the part that hurts most.
My leg.
My pride.
And the kiss.
Not in that order.
I’m back in my dorm room with my left leg propped on three pillows, an industrial-sized ice pack strapped over my hamstring, and my whole body wrapped in the specific misery that comes after adrenaline leaves and reality clocks back in.
It is quiet in here.
Too quiet.
The kind of quiet that lets thoughts get mean.
The curtains are half drawn against the dark. My desk lamp is on, throwing a warm little circle of light over textbooks I’m not touching and a half-empty water bottle and the packet of discharge papers folded like they’re somehow less real if I don’t spread them out.
Partial tear.
Further imaging tomorrow.
Out indefinitely.
Those are the words the doctor used.
Not season over.
Not yet.
But close enough that the phrase keeps circling anyway, sharp as broken glass.
I lie there in Stanford sweats and one of my oldest sleep shirts, hair in a wrecked knot, face scrubbed bare of everything except the remains of mascara and self-control, and stare at the ceiling.
My roommate, Becca, had gone out to get me more ice and some actual food because apparently athletes are biologically incapable of keeping proper sick-person snacks on hand.
So it’s just me.
Me, the hum of the mini fridge, the cold bite sinking through the back of my leg, and the dangerous warmth of one thought I absolutely should not be holding this tightly.
Tristan came.
He vaulted a fence.
