Chapter 14 Seth
SETH
I’d been ignoring my phone for three days now—silencing calls, deleting notifications without reading them, pretending the growing number beside my mother’s name was just a glitch in the system. But ignoring something didn’t make it disappear. I’d learned that lesson a long time ago.
Tanner was in the shower. I heard the water running, the muffled thud of a bottle being set down, the same sequence of sounds I’d memorized over months of mornings like this.
He’d been quiet this morning—quiet in a way that had become common over the past few days, like he was somewhere I couldn’t reach.
I picked up the phone. Twenty-three missed calls from home. Fourteen voicemails. And one text from my sister that sat at the top of my messages.
Mom’s losing it. She says you’re ignoring her. Are you coming for Thanksgiving or not? I need to know for the seating chart.
The seating chart. Like that was what mattered.
But that was Emily—always focused on the logistics, the appearances, the things she could control while pretending the dysfunction underneath didn’t exist. She’d perfected the art of being the good daughter by never challenging anything, and some part of me resented her for it even as I understood the survival instinct.
Still figuring it out.
Her response was immediate.
It’s in four days, Seth. Figure faster. And call Mom. I’m tired of being the middleman.
The bathroom door opened. I shoved my phone under the pillow like a teenager hiding contraband, which was ridiculous— Tanner knew about my family, knew the broad strokes of why I dreaded going home. But there was a difference between knowing and seeing the evidence piling up in real time.
Tanner emerged with a towel around his waist, hair dripping onto his shoulders. He moved to his dresser without looking at me, pulling out clothes with the efficiency of someone who’d rather be anywhere else.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Fine.”
The word landed flat. He’d been saying it a lot lately—fine, good, yeah—like he was reading from a script he’d memorized but didn’t believe.
“Tanner.”
He paused, a T-shirt clutched in his hands. “What?”
“Talk to me.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.” He pulled the shirt over his head, disappearing into the fabric for a moment. When he emerged, his expression had smoothed into something neutral. “I’ve got my capstone presentation today. I should focus on that.”
“I know. But you’ve been—” I stopped, not sure how to finish. Distant? Careful? Acting like you’re waiting for something bad to happen? All of it was true. None of it felt right to say.
“I’ve been stressed,” he said. “It’s a stressful time.”
“For both of us.”
His eyes met mine, and I saw something flicker there—acknowledgment, maybe, or guilt. Then it was gone, and he was grabbing his bag from the chair by the door.
“I’ll see you tonight. Good luck at practice.”
He left before I could answer.
Practice was brutal.
Coach had us running drills like we were preparing for a championship game instead of the final regular-season matchup against a team we’d beaten in the past seven meetings.
I understood the logic—momentum mattered, and we needed a convincing win to lock in our bowl position—but understanding didn’t make my lungs burn any less.
“Landry!” Coach’s voice cut across the field. “You’re half a step behind on that route. Again.”
I ran it again. And again. By the fifth repetition, my legs felt like they were filled with sand, but the timing was finally there—crisp, precise, the kind of execution that would make scouts sit up in their seats.
Not that it mattered. Not that I wanted it to matter.
The hit came during the scrimmage portion—a safety who read my route better than he should have, arriving the same moment the ball did.
His shoulder drove into my ribs, right where the bruising from the Ole Miss game had finally started to fade.
I went down hard, the air punched out of my lungs, stars bursting across my vision.
“Landry!” Someone was shouting my name. Hands on my shoulder, my face. “You good?”
I blinked up at Davis, the field tilting around me before it steadied. My ribs screamed when I tried to breathe. “Yeah. I’m good.”
“That was a clean hit, but Jesus.” He helped me sit up, and I had to bite back a groan. “You sure nothing’s broken?”
“Just bruised.” I pushed myself to standing, ignoring the way my left side burned with every step. “I’ve had worse.”
Coach was watching from the sideline, arms crossed. I could see him calculating—how hurt was I really, could I play through it, was I going to be a liability when it mattered. I straightened my spine and jogged back to the huddle, pretending every step didn’t send pain radiating through my torso.
The rest of the practice blurred together—more drills, more repetitions, more of my body reminding me that it had limits I kept ignoring. By the time we finished, the sun was setting and my ribs had settled into a deep, throbbing ache that promised to be worse tomorrow.
I was the last one in the locker room. Took my time in the shower, letting the hot water work at the knots in my shoulders, putting off the moment when I’d have to check my phone again.
When I finally stripped off my practice gear, the bruise on my side had spread into something ugly—purple and black across my ribs.
Two more voicemails waited on my phone. And a text from my father that made my stomach drop.
Your mother is upset. Call her back. This is getting ridiculous.
I stared at the message until the screen went dark.
The apartment was quiet when I got home.
Tanner’s bag was by the door, his laptop open on the coffee table, but he wasn’t in the living room. I found him in the kitchen, standing at the counter with a cup of tea going cold beside him, staring at nothing.
“Hey.”
He startled, turning to face me. “Hey. I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Just got here.” I moved toward him, then stopped. Usually, I’d reach for him automatically—his hip, his shoulder, some point of contact to ground us both. But something in his posture said don’t, so I stayed where I was. “How’d the presentation go?”
“Good. I think.” He lifted one shoulder. “They asked questions I could actually answer. That’s usually a good sign.”
“That’s great.”
“Yeah.”
The silence stretched. His eyes dropped to my side—I’d been holding my arm against my ribs without realizing it, guarding the injury out of habit. I watched him clock the careful way I was standing, the stiffness in my movements.
His expression shifted. The distance was still there, that wall he’d been building all week, but his instincts won out. They always did.
“Sit down,” he said, already moving toward the freezer. “You’re holding yourself like you cracked something.”
“It’s just bruised.”
“Sit.” The word came out sharper than usual, and I sat.
He returned with an ice pack wrapped in a dish towel, the same routine we’d done plenty of times before.
But when he handed it to me instead of pressing it to my ribs himself, I felt the difference.
He was taking care of me because he couldn’t help it, because that’s who he was, but he was doing it from a distance.
Going through the motions without the tenderness that usually came with them.
“Thanks,” I said.
He nodded, stepping back to lean against the counter, arms crossed. “Have you decided? About Thanksgiving?”
“My family wants me home,” I said. “They’ve been calling. A lot.”
“You haven’t mentioned that.”
“I know.” I shifted the ice pack, wincing when it pressed against a new angle of bruised ribs. “I’ve been ignoring them. Hoping they’d stop.”
“And they haven’t.”
“No.” I swallowed. “My dad texted today. Said my mom’s upset. That I’m being ridiculous.” The words tasted bitter. “They don’t support anything I do, but they still expect me to show up and perform the role of grateful son.”
Tanner’s jaw tightened. The absence of his usual warmth sat heavily in my chest. He would have reached for me before, would have said something soft. Now he just waited.
“I’ve been thinking about going.” The words came out before I’d fully decided to say them. “Trying one more time. Maybe if I show up, actually talk to them face-to-face—”
“Maybe what?” His voice had gone careful. Neutral in a way that wasn’t neutral at all. “They’ll suddenly be supportive? Stop making you feel like everything you do is wrong?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
Tanner stepped back, and the distance felt larger than the physical space between us. “You don’t have to go, Seth. You don’t owe them anything.”
“They’re my family.”
“Family that makes you dread picking up the phone.” His jaw tightened. “You deserve better than people who make you feel like a disappointment.”
“I know. But I keep thinking… What if this is the time it’s different? What if I just need to try harder?”
“And what if it’s not different? What if you go home and they spend four days making you feel like shit about everything you’ve chosen?”
“Then at least I’ll know I tried.”
He stared at me, and I watched something in his expression crack. Not anger—something worse. The kind of hurt that doesn't fight back.
"So when you go home." He spoke slowly, carefully, like he was working through it in real time. "You'll sit through their judgment about football. About your major. And the whole time, you'll just... not mention that you’re in a relationship."
"You know why I can't—"
"I know." His voice cracked slightly, and he turned away, gripping the edge of the counter.
"I know exactly why. That doesn't make it easier to swallow.
Hunter and John, Lincoln and Nix. That's it.
Those are the only people who know about us.
You're going to spend four days with your family pretending I don't exist, and you’re okay with that? "
“I’m not pretending you don’t exist.”