Page 183 of Colliding with Ten

I moved toward her, the walk becoming a jog. The jog became a run. When I reached her, I didn’t stop. I dropped low, wrapped my arms around her thighs, and lifted her off the ground.

She gasped, and then she laughed. I spun with her, and she threw her arms high above her head, fingers spread wide, toes pointed, her body arching back as if it were a planned dance piece. She was above the crowd, looking like the girl in the photograph, the one in the pink leotard, caught in the air by someone who loved her.

Camera shutters fired. Later, I’d learn the photograph went viral. Every sports page and entertainment site featured it for a week. But I didn’t know any of that yet. I just knew the weight of her in my arms and her laughing above me.

I lowered her, her body sliding against mine until her feet touched the turf. Her hands landed on my chest, and mine stayed on her waist.

“You did it!”

“We did it.”

She shook her head, pressing her fingers against my chest plate. “No. You. This is yours, Lennox. You earned this.”

I thought about everything that had led here, each one a yard gained, moving us closer to this end zone. “It’s ours.”

They called my name for the trophy ceremony. An official with a headset was waving me toward the stage. I squeezed Ayla’s hand before I let go.

She beamed at me. “Go get your trophy.”

I kissed her forehead, jaw, cheeks, and lips. Then I turned and walked toward the stage. The commissioner shook my hand. Jace was beside me, along with our coach and the owner. They handed me the trophy, and I lifted it above my head. The stadium erupted.

What I remember about holding the trophy is how much lighter it felt than I expected. Physically, it was substantial. I had told myself it would answer all the questions I ever had about whether I was enough, but that sense of weight was missing. It was just a trophy—beautiful and well deserved, but just a trophy. Ayla was proud of me, and I didn’t need the trophy for her to feel that way.

The trophy was my dream, but she was my life. For years, I believed success would bring perspective—that the ring would fill the gap left by injury, that the win would silence my doubters. And in some ways, it did. It marked the end of a phase, but Ayla was the beginning of everything else.

I wouldn’t change a single thing. I would go through everything again that brought me to this point because I was the man she chose. That was worth more than any trophy I’d ever held.

THE GRAND FINALE

EPILOGUE II

EIGHT MONTHS LATER

AYLA

The USC Keck School of Medicine smelled like industrial floor cleaner and formaldehyde from the anatomy lab. It was a far cry from fresh-cut grass and stadium popcorn in New York, but I still loved it.

I hunched over a wooden table in the back of the Norris Medical Library, my laptop screen glowing with a 3D rendering of the human musculoskeletal system. My neck ached, and I was pretty sure my blood was seventy percent caffeine.

I rotated the model on the screen, isolating the knee joint and ligaments. The medial collateral ligament sat on the inside of the knee, a thick band connecting the femur to the tibia, stabilizing the joint against force from the outside. I followed its path with my finger on the screen, following the fibers from origin to insertion.

I knew this ligament from the night a quarterback landed on me and my MCL absorbed the impact. Now, I was studying the science of it, looking at a diagram of the anatomy that changed my life. It was labeled and color-coded, reduced to structures and terminology I’d be tested on Monday. The injury that ended one part of my life was teaching the next part how to heal other people. I stared at the MCL, then moved on to the lateral collateral ligament and kept studying.

My phone vibrated against the table.

lennox

Check the tracker.

I smiled, my heart doing a familiar little skip it only ever did for him. I opened the delivery app; the little car icon was pulling in close to the library. I packed my tablet and scrubbed a hand over my tired eyes before heading outside. The Los Angeles sun was bright, a stark contrast to the dim library stacks. The person standing next to a blacked-out SUV wasn’t a delivery driver. It was Lennox.

He wore a simple grey hoodie and joggers, sunglasses hiding those blue eyes. But there was no mistaking him for anyone else.

“You’re not a delivery driver.”

He leaned against the stone pillar as I reached him.

“The driver was too slow.” Lennox pulled me into his space. He smelled like mint, aftershave, and home. He handed me a massive green juice and a brown paper bag that smelled like the gluten-free sandwiches I liked from a bakery three miles away.