Anatomy of Us (Seattle Emeralds #1)

Chapter 1

Zoe

The car engine has been running for fifteen minutes, and I can’t make myself turn it off.

Ten a.m. In January, Seattle cold bites straight through your clothes and into your bones. The sky hangs low and gray, like it’s warning me to turn around.

In the rearview mirror, I watch Wesley sleep in his car seat, head tipped at an angle that looks painful. Fifteen different moms have sworn to me it’s normal. I still want to fix it with my hands.

Twelve months since I’ve set foot here.

My appointment with the club’s medical staff is tomorrow. Technically, I shouldn’t even be here today.

But I need to see the building. I need to remember why I do this every day: the pelvic floor exercises that make me feel like my body is a bad science project, the fight with abs that were split open to make room for a tiny human, the way I stand in front of the mirror and pretend I recognize the woman staring back.

I need to believe my spot is still waiting for me.

There aren’t many cars in the parking lot. Probably staff. Or one player who can’t wait for preseason to start.

That used to be me.

I used to be the first one in, stealing at least thirty extra minutes in the weight room, chasing the title of fittest on the roster like it was a trophy.

I used to be a legend.

I used to control the tempo of every match, see passes other players didn’t even process. Olympic champion. World champion. Locked-in starter for the national team. Six league titles. League MVP four times.

Shit.

It feels like another lifetime.

Now I shake like a leaf trying to do a push-up.

When I finally cut the engine, the silence hits fast and hard, broken only by Wesley’s soft breathing.

The reason I’ve spent a whole year not playing.

The reason I watched last season on TV while commentators said my name and wondered out loud if I’d ever step onto a soccer field again, while my minutes went to someone else.

It hurt.

Every game from my couch. Every time they said “Zoe Méndez” and let doubt drip into their voices, it hurt like someone sliding a knife under my ribs and twisting.

And I would do it a million times over.

Because every time Wesley smiles at me, every time I watch him sleep, something inside me goes quiet and sure. Like, yes. This. This was worth it.

When I lift him out of the car, he doesn’t even wake.

He just curls into my neck, warm and heavy, his breath damp on my skin.

He’s huge. Sometimes I wonder when he stopped being that sleepy little newborn who spent whole days folded into my chest. Soon he’ll walk, and with his personality, I’m already scared.

I go into the locker room on instinct. My feet remember. My hands remember. Even my lungs remember.

Nothing has changed. Same smell—cleaner, sweat, old rubber, a faint bite of menthol from the training room down the hall. Same rows of lockers. Same benches that always feel too cold through leggings.

At least they kept my jersey number. Iris Vance told me my replacement asked for it more than once.

“Zoe?”

Shit.

I freeze where I stand. Hades. The last person I want to run into.

“Coach,” I say, and I paste on a smile like it belongs to me.

This morning I didn't talk to anyone except Wesley, and I don’t think babbling at a baby counts as real conversation. Even if he’s the best listener I’ve ever had.

“Is that Wesley?” she asks, stepping closer and pointing at him with one finger.

“Yes. This is Wes,” I say.

For a second, I swear something like a smile tugs at her mouth. Then it’s gone, and I decide my brain made it up out of hunger and nerves. The nickname didn’t come from nowhere.

“He looks like you. Same chin.” Her eyes flick over me, sharp and fast. “You know you don’t have to be here until tomorrow, right? Come on. Break room. You need coffee.”

It isn’t a question. Diana Creed doesn’t ask questions. She gives orders, and the world learns to follow them. Even when it’s just coffee.

I walk behind her through hallways I know better than the streets in my own neighborhood.

We pass the gym, where I used to spend hours until my arms shook for a different reason.

We pass the medical area, and my stomach tightens, because I already know I’ll live in there for a while this preseason—checkups, treatment tables, hands pressing into sore muscle, someone judging what my body can do now.

It feels like coming home and trespassing at the same time.

The break room is empty. Diana points at a chair. I sit. Wesley stays tucked against my neck, his cheek soft against my collarbone.

Diana starts the coffee without asking how I take it, because she already knows. Seven years playing for her means she knows my coffee order, my tells, the way I shut down when my thoughts get too loud. She knows what kind of pep talk works when I’m spiraling.

She knows everything about me.

“Tomorrow is your medical test,” she says as she hands me a mug.

Espresso. Two sugars. Perfect.

“Are you ready?”

“If I’m honest? No.” I grip the warm mug like it’s a lifeline. “I don’t even know what ready means. It feels like I climbed into someone else’s body. Like it’s been years, not one.”

“Laura Dinaris had twins,” Diana says. “About your age. Everybody said she was done. She came back. She played three more seasons.”

“Laura was built like a tank,” I say. “She didn’t even get hurt. I’m not her.”

“No.” Diana takes a slow drink, watching me over the rim.

“You’re not. You’re better than she was.

You always were. Maybe not as tough, but better.

But, Zoe, you have to want this. You can’t go back on the field just because you think you should.

Or because you’re bored. And not because you’re trying to prove something to people who don’t get to matter anymore. Like your ex-husband.”

My jaw tightens. Heat crawls up my neck, right under Wesley’s warm weight.

“You have to come back because you still love this sport,” she continues, “more than you hate how hard it’s going to be. Because getting back to your old level will be hell. I promise you that.”

Wesley shifts against my throat like he understands her. Both of us go still, waiting for the cry.

It doesn’t come.

Just a tiny sigh, and he melts back into sleep.

“My contract ends this year,” I say. The words taste like metal. “If I can’t prove I can still play at the level I had before…”

“Then we don’t renew,” Diana cuts in, and she shrugs like she’s talking about the weather.

Hades doesn’t sugarcoat. She never has.

“Look, Zoe. I’m not going to lie to you.

You know we only play to win. My job depends on it.

My reputation depends on it. Your salaries are higher than those of most teams. You’ve been here a long time.

You know spots are earned. I’m not giving you minutes out of sentiment.

Not because you’re a legend. I need to know you’ll bring more than the player replacing you.

If you don’t, you’ll spend the season on the bench. ”

I already know. Knowing doesn’t stop me from almost choking on my coffee.

“Understood,” I say, and the sigh that leaves me feels like it drags my lungs with it.

“Do you?” Diana leans forward, elbows on the table. “Because the team changed this last year. Jade Herrera has been waiting two years for her shot. She took it. She’s good, Zoe. Really good. She won’t step aside just because the legend is back.”

Jade Herrera. Twenty-five. Two-time Hermann Trophy winner. Fast as wind and starving for trophies.

She reminds me too much of me at that age, and that’s why it stings.

“I know she won’t step aside,” I say.

“Good.” Diana leans back. The chair creaks. “Then, when you pass your medical tomorrow…”

“If I pass,” I cut in.

“When you pass,” she repeats, voice flat, unmovable. “We integrate you slowly. Rehab first. Then partial training with the group. Then we see where you are as preseason goes. No shortcuts. No exceptions because you used to be the best. Clear?”

“Crystal.”

That’s when Wesley wakes up and wails, the sound climbing fast from complaint to demand.

“I should go,” I say, bouncing him gently, trying to calm him. “He needs to eat. And he probably needs a diaper change.”

“Tomorrow at nine,” Diana says. “Evaluation. The new head of medical will handle the whole return-to-competition protocol.”

“New head?” My stomach drops. “Joe isn’t there anymore?”

“No.” Diana’s eyes don’t blink much. “No one told you? We’ve got some changes this season. You’ll be fine with her. She’s one of the best in sports medicine.”

Shit.

A new head of medical. Another person who doesn’t know me. Who maybe never watched what I could do at my peak. Who will only see the body I have now and decide if it’s enough.

“I’ll be here,” I say, and it has to sound like a goodbye and a promise at the same time.

**

My phone buzzes the second I shut the car door. The name on the screen—my lawyer—tells me it won’t be good news. Yvonne never calls to say something you want to hear.

“Talk to me, Yvonne,” I say instead of hello.

“Your ex filed a modification of the parenting plan,” she says, no warm-up.

“What did you just say?”

“He claims you’re insisting on continuing your sports career, and that the constant travel tied to your job makes you unable to provide the stable home environment a baby needs.”

“Jesus, Yvonne. I gave birth to his son and he still hates me,” I say, and my voice cracks on the last word.

“I know,” she says. “And we’re going to argue that, among other things. But Zoe, this isn’t only him trying to get revenge for the divorce. His new girlfriend is an idiot. One of those social media influencers. She needs the baby to sell the perfect-family image. At least a few days a week.”

Nate.

My ex-husband.

A nightmare with good hair and a smile that used to fool people.

The man I married because he was there, at the right time, in the right place, after Tessa broke my heart into clean pieces and I didn’t know what to do with the bleeding.

He was charming. And I’d never even been into men, not really, not in the way that mattered. Not until I convinced myself I could be. Not until it became easier to say yes than to sit with the truth.

Then he realized being married to Zoe Méndez meant living in my shadow.

Then our marriage turned toxic.

Then all we had left was Wesley and a pile of bad memories.

“When is the hearing?” I ask.

“Three months. Mid-April.”

April.

With the season started—if I even make it back as a starter. Right when I’ll need to prove I deserve a new contract.

“What do you need from me?”

“Documentation. Everything. Anything that shows you’re a good mother. Feeding schedules, pediatric visits. You know. Anything that helps.”

In the back seat, my son is asleep again. Car rides always calm him. He rests in his car seat, mouth a little open, lashes dark against his cheeks, unaware he’s become a pawn in a war that's already started between his parents.

This is going to be a damn nightmare.

Two fronts. I have to fight on two fronts at once: get my career back and win the custody fight for my son.

And Nate knows exactly what he’s doing. If I train too hard and win my spot back, I’m a bad mother who picks soccer over her baby. If I step away from the sport to focus on Wesley, I prove I can’t do both.

No matter what I do, he wins.