CHAPTER 9
EMILY
Nathan sits on the bench across from mine.
Not beside me.
Across.
A careful distance. A respectful distance. A distance so obviously chosen that it makes me want to tell him the room does not hand out trophies for basic spatial awareness.
I glance at the wall clock.
2:14.
Five minutes means 2:19.
Not 2:20.
Not until this starts feeling like anything other than a mistake.
The side room hums around us. Vending machine. Cold therapy unit. Someone laughing down the hall, then a door clicking shut. The air smells like melting ice, vinyl benches, citrus cleaner, and training gear someone should have washed yesterday.
The ice pack crackles under my hand.
Nathan looks at the crooked hydration poster on the wall.
Not at the ice.
Not at my left side.
At the poster.
He is trying so hard that I almost want to throw the ice pack at him.
“You’re staring at hydration guidance with unusual commitment,” I say.
His mouth moves. Not quite a smile. “It’s an important topic.”
“It says pee pale, play strong.”
“I’m absorbing the message.”
“Deeply?”
“Spiritually.”
A laugh climbs into my throat.
I swallow it.
This is not a laughing room. This is a five-minute room. There are rules. Several were created without notice and are still legally binding.
Nathan glances at me.
At my face.
Good.
Bare minimum, Bellows.
“Is sitting here helping or making it worse?” he asks.
I narrow my eyes. “Did Morgan write that down for you?”
“No.”
“Darius?”
“No.”
“Colton?”
“If Colton wrote it, there would be three metaphors and one snack recommendation.”
Fair.
The ice slips lower against my side. I adjust it. Too fast.
Pain answers.
My jaw locks for half a second.
Nathan’s fingers twitch against his knee.
Then stop.
He looks back at the poster.
Fine.
That counts.
“You’re medium annoying,” I say.
His shoulders ease by a fraction. “That’s my best review this week.”
“Do not get ambitious.”
“I’ll stay humble.”
“You won a Global Cup three days ago.”
“Emotionally humble.”
“Suspicious category.”
“Underused.”
The clock ticks to 2:15.
The quiet stretches, but it does not snap.
I keep the ice pack pressed high under my ribs. Cold seeps through my shirt and into the sore line beneath. The edge of the pack bites into my palm. A drop slides down my wrist, over the bone, and onto the bench.
Nathan notices the drop.
Then looks away.
Again.
I stare at the resistance bands tangled in a crate under the hydration poster. Blue, red, green, all twisted together. Someone should sort them. Someone should cap the marker drying out on the table. Someone should fix the poster hanging crooked by one piece of tired tape.
Instead, both of us sit here pretending the room is not holding its breath.
Nathan shifts once.
The bench squeaks.
He freezes like the sound has broken a law.
I almost laugh again.
Very inconvenient.
The ice pack crackles as I press it tighter.
My breath catches.
Small.
Not dramatic.
Nathan hears it anyway.
His eyes come to my face and stay there.
Not my side.
My face.
He says nothing.
The silence keeps going until it starts asking questions.
“You know this isn’t the first time I’ve played hurt,” I say.
His answer comes quietly. “I figured.”
That is all.
I wait for the rest.
It doesn't come.
No warning.
No lecture.
No careful little speech about long-term consequences.
Just the vending machine hum and Nathan Bellows sitting across from me with every question locked behind his teeth.
Fine.
If he is going to be decent about it, I can be difficult enough for both of us.
“I’ve played with taped ribs,” I say. “Bruised hips. Swollen ankles. Once with a shoulder that screamed every time I lifted my arm to organize the line.”
His jaw shifts.
Still no speech.
“A goalkeeper stepped on my foot in stoppage time during a qualifier,” I add. “Full studs. I finished the match, then lost the toenail two days later. Very glamorous. Excellent career highlight.”
Nathan winces. “That sounds awful.”
“It was soccer.”
“It can be both.”
I adjust the ice pack again. “This is manageable.”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t.”
“You looked like you thought about it.”
“I’m trying to keep my thoughts inside my face.”
“Try harder.”
His mouth moves again.
That smaller almost-smile.
The big grin is easy. Interviews. Teammates. Kids at clinics. Colton’s ridiculous commentary.
The small one is more dangerous.
It looks like rain on old grass.
He leans back against the wall. “That list.”
I lift my eyes.
“Taped ribs. Bruised hips. Shoulder. Foot.” He pauses. “That sounds lonely.”
The room changes before I do.
The vending machine hum grows louder. The ice burns my fingers. My whole hand has gone numb, but I keep holding on.
I expected concern.
I expected admiration.
I expected a neat little You’re tough I could kick back across the room.
Not lonely.
“It was soccer,” I say.
Nathan’s voice stays low. “Sometimes soccer is lonely.”
I look at the door.
The clock says 2:16.
Three minutes left.
Too many.
“Do you remember the rain scrimmage?” Nathan asks.
My hand tightens around the ice pack.
He notices.
Of course he notices.
I look at him slowly. “Which rain scrimmage?”
His eyebrows lift. “Emily.”
“We played many games in poor weather.”
“You missed one clearance and acted like the entire national program should file a complaint.”
The room disappears in pieces.
Rain hammering the metal roof of the equipment shed.
Mud swallowing the white lines.
My socks soaked through.
One ball under my arm, another against my foot, another rolling away because my fingers are too cold to grip properly.
Everyone else inside.
Me still on the field because going inside means sitting down, and sitting down means the missed clearance has room to get louder.
Then Nathan by the sideline, hood half off, two balls under one arm.
“If you’re filing a complaint against yourself,” he says, “I’d like to be copied.”
“Go inside.”
“Can’t. I’m emotionally invested in ball collection.”
Rain runs off his nose.
His cleats sink into the mud when he walks toward me.
Later, the clubhouse smells like wet socks, old wood, and vending-machine hot chocolate. Beige water in a paper cup. His hoodie around my shoulders after I say three times that I am not cold.
He doesn't ask me to stop being angry.
He just stays.
The ice pack slips against my side.
I fix it myself.
Nathan doesn't move.
“I was setting standards,” I say.
“You were terrifying.”
“You’ve said that before.”
“It remains true.”
“You bought terrible hot chocolate.”
“I bought available hot chocolate.”
“It was mostly beige water.”
“It was eighty cents.”
“You overpaid.”
“I was seventeen and financially reckless.”
“You also gave me your hoodie after I said I wasn’t cold.”
“You were shivering hard enough to vibrate.”
“I was not.”
“You looked like a very angry phone on silent.”
The laugh escapes before I catch it.
Small.
Real.
Bad idea.
Nathan’s face changes when he hears it.
Not smug.
Not triumphant.
Struck.
Like the sound has hit him somewhere unguarded.
My laugh dies.
The clock says 2:17.
The old memory sits between us in wet cleats and muddy socks.
My side throbs under the ice.
Current pain. Current room. Current Nathan.
That helps.
Barely.
The question comes out before I can rehearse it.
“Why did you stop answering me?”
Nathan goes still.
There.
No more jokes.
No more poster.
No more five-minute room with safe objects and crooked tape.
His eyes drop to the floor.
I see the first answer arrive before he speaks.
The careful one.
The one with clean edges.
“My mom was getting worse,” he says. “Morgan was young. Things at home were complicated, and I was trying to hold everything together.”
The ice drips onto my wrist.
Cold tracks down to my sleeve.
I do not move.
“I know what happened around you,” I say.
He looks up.
I lower the ice pack to my lap. Cold air hits the damp patch under my shirt, and pain sparks along my left side.
My back stays straight.
Nathan’s eyes catch the movement.
He does not comment.
Good.
Not enough.
“I didn’t ask what happened around you,” I say. “I asked why you stopped answering me.”
His mouth closes.
The polish cracks before he can smooth it back into place.
He leans forward, elbows on his knees, hands loosely clasped. There is a scrape near one knuckle. He rubs his thumb over it once, then stops.
“I don’t have a clean answer,” he says.
“I didn’t ask for one.”
“No.” His breath leaves slowly. “You didn’t.”
The clock says 2:18.
One minute.
Neither of us moves.
“At first, I told myself I was too busy,” he says.
My fingers tighten around the ice pack.
“I’d answer later. Then later turned into the next day. Then the next.” He looks at his hands. “Every time I didn’t answer, answering got bigger.”
I taste rain.
Not real rain.
Memory rain. Vending-machine sugar. Wet sleeves. The metallic bite of checking my phone under a stadium light after training and finding nothing.
One missed reply, I explained.
Two, I excused.
By the fifth, I stopped carrying my phone in my hand.
By the tenth, I hated myself for still checking it.
Nathan’s voice stays rough. “Then I started telling myself you were better off. You were getting call-ups. You were going places. I was home with hospital schedules and bills and Morgan trying to pretend she didn’t need anything because she thought needing things made it worse for me.”
His voice catches on Morgan’s name.
I do not rescue him from it.
“You could have told me that,” I say.
“I know.”
“Did you?”
His eyes lift.
There is the answer.
No.
He did not.
His hands tighten once, then open. “I thought if I answered you, I’d want to keep answering.”
My breath stills.
Nathan looks at me now.
Not at the floor.
Not at the wall.
At me.
“Because answering you would have made me want something I didn’t think I was allowed to keep.”
The clock clicks to 2:19.
Time is up.
I should move.
I do not.
The sentence sits in the room with us, messy and late and too heavy for the small bench between us.
I press the ice pack back against my side too hard.
Cold bites through my shirt.
Good.
Physical pain knows how to behave.
“That’s very moving,” I say.
His mouth tightens. “Emily.”
“No, really. Excellent emotional timing. Only took you several years and a facility recovery room.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I do.”
“No.” I stand.
Too fast.
Pain flashes white under my ribs.
My face stays still.
Nathan stands too.
Then stops himself halfway, like his body has received a command too late.
Good.
I grip the ice pack in one hand. It drips steadily onto the floor.
“I waited,” I say.
The words are quiet.
Too quiet.
Nathan’s face changes.
“I waited after training. I waited after call-ups. I waited in airports. I waited in hotel rooms with one bar of service and told myself maybe your phone died.” My fingers curl tighter around the ice pack. “Then I stopped waiting out loud.”
He does not look away.
That is something.
It is also nothing.
“And now you’re telling me you wanted me, but still chose to disappear?”
His answer comes without shelter.
“Yes.”
One word.
No explanation wrapped around it.
No noble lighting.
The ice pack drips between us.
I move toward the door.
Five minutes are over.
The whole concept of minutes is over.
Nathan does not block me.
He does not reach for my arm.
He does not step into the space between me and the hallway.
I hate that I notice.
At the doorway, my left side pulls sharp enough that I pause with one hand on the frame.
Only because of the pain.
Only that.
“Nathan,” I say without turning. “Don’t.”
“I didn’t leave because I stopped wanting you.”
The sentence lands behind me.
Not loud.
Not pleading.
Just there.
My fingers tighten around the doorframe.
Down the hall, a cart rattles over tile. Someone laughs near the training exit. The facility keeps moving like nothing has happened.
Like one old wound has not just changed shape.
I stare at the bright strip of hallway in front of my shoes.
If I turn around, he will see too much.
If I stay, I will ask the next question.
And I am not ready to hear what else he chose.
So I step into the hall.
“That makes it worse.”
Then I walk away.
***