Chapter 11
Iris
Alexandra Drummond's strategy is to play the silence game. Say nothing. Let the video I recorded do its job. Let people think whatever they want.
Meanwhile, Paula is still my partner in public so the press doesn't know what to believe. The idea is to turn a lie into a half-truth that nobody can fully tear apart.
It's brilliant in a slightly twisted way. It's also exhausting. Though it's easy to pretend to be someone's partner when you've been sleeping in their bed for two nights. No sex, but not exactly zero contact either.
After the game, reporters won't let up. Over and over.
“Iris, can you confirm whether your partner is security personnel hired by the club?”
“Iris, is there a threat?”
“Iris, who is @yoursecondskinseesyouforreal?”
I smile and answer with soccer.
“We won three to one. Does anyone want to talk about the goals? I've said what I had to say. If you don't want to talk about soccer, go watch the video again. It's free.”
The persistence of these people. They ask the same questions with different words like that's going to change my answer or trip me up.
With Paula, you never know. She's half bodyguard, half something else, because when she wraps her arm around my waist or runs her hand down my back at night, I don't think that's in her company's handbook.
In the locker room, things are weird. I should talk to the girls, explain the situation, but what do I say?
Paula started as my bodyguard, that's crystal clear.
Right now, I don't even know what she is.
A friend? A woman I sleep next to every night who strokes my back but doesn't make love to me? The whole thing is bizarre.
At least the mole inside the club didn't take long to find. An accountant who stumbled onto the information through a screw-up at the security firm. A freak accident that turned my life upside down, because nothing has been normal since. He got fired, but the damage is done.
“I need to go out,” I blurt the second I see Paula after the game.
“No.”
“Come on, Paula, you've got me living like a hermit. Club to home, home to club. I'm used to going out at night. I promise I won't drink. Okay, I won't drink too much. Nothing's going to happen to me, plus you're coming with me. We'll have a good time, trust me,” I say with a wink.
“It's better if we don't,” she says.
“Listen. That psycho is going to keep writing garbage until someone catches him. I'd rather he didn't, but I'm not going to sit locked up until this is over, because I'm losing my mind. If I hide, he wins. If I stop being me, he wins. I won't give him that. Besides, the risk is mine.”
“The risk is mine too,” she says. “Because if something happens to you, it's on me.”
“No, Paula. If something happens to me, it's that psycho's fault. The guy who's stalking me. It's not on you. It's not on me. It's on him. And your job isn't to lock me in a cage so nothing bad happens.”
“Iris,” she sighs, dropping her voice. “I'm not trying to lock you in a cage. I'm just asking for a pause.”
“A pause sounds a lot like silence. And silence eats me alive,” I shoot back.
“I know.”
“You know? No, you don't know. You have no idea.
You know I sleep with the TV on because I don't like the quiet.
But you don't know what it is. You don't know what happens when you lie down and your own head becomes the loudest place in the world.
You can't imagine how messed up it is that the only way to shut it up is to fill the room with outside noise until your thoughts drown.
You have no fucking idea what it's like to live with that,” I yell, and push her away from me.
Paula doesn't answer. She just looks at me. She has no response. No protocol. No plan.
“I'm sleeping alone tonight,” I snap, and walk to my room.
***
The next game is a disaster.
Not because of the team. The team plays well. Lucía is a wall on defense. Zoe distributes like she's got a radar. Jamie wins every aerial duel. Even Tina, who's been on her best behavior for a week, sends in a cross from the wing that deserves a standing ovation.
I'm the one who chokes.
I lose three balls in the first twenty minutes. I miss a one-on-one against the keeper that I would've buried in my sleep any other day. I pick up a yellow card for a stupid foul.
Hades subs me out at the 65th minute.
“To the bench, Vance!” she yells.
For a second, I can't even process it. In my entire career, the bench has only been the place where I left my water bottle and my warm-up jacket.
“Fix whatever you need to fix off the field. And fix it fast. Because the Iris Vance who played today is not the one I know. Or the one I want on my team,” Coach tells me, voice low. And when she goes low, she's scarier.
I don't answer. Not even a throwaway joke. Deep down, she's right. The Iris who played today is a broken, distracted version who's been pissed for twenty-four hours at the person who's least to blame for any of this.
I look for her in the stands. She's watching me. I raise my water bottle as a greeting.
She nods back.
It's the saddest thing we've done since we met.
***
Saturday night, I get a call from Zoe.
“Wesley has a fever. A hundred and one point three. We left him with my mom, but she's getting older. Can you stay with him for a bit? Tessa and I are almost thirty miles out.”
I don't ask for details. It's Wes. He has a fever. That's all I need to know.
Paula drives, but it's like the early days again. We barely talk, and the silence hurts way worse than a screaming fight.
“You can go, there's no danger here,” I tell her as I get out. “Zoe can take me home later.”
When I walk in, Wesley is lying on the couch in dinosaur pajamas, face red. Snotty, eyes glassy, furious at the world.
“Hey, boss.”
“Don't want.”
“Don't want what?”
“Don't want nuffing,” he insists.
“Not even a story?”
“No.”
“Not even the dragon?”
“No.”
Zoe left me instructions: ibuprofen every six hours, lots of fluids, cool cloths if the fever spikes.
I put food in front of him. He doesn't eat it.
He throws it on the floor. I give him water.
He takes a sip, and the rest ends up on his pajamas.
I change his clothes, and he cries. I rock him, and he stops.
I put on cartoons. He doesn't want them.
I turn off the cartoons, and now he does want them.
I put them back on. He falls asleep in five minutes.
I carry him to bed. He wakes up. Cries again.
I love Wes, but this is a lot.
At eleven, his fever climbs. I press a cool cloth to his forehead.
He cries. I sing. The only songs I know are club tracks and TikTok sounds, so I make one up.
It makes no sense, and the rhythm is terrible.
It's about the dragon who played soccer and scored goals with his tail.
The keeper told him… that goal doesn't count because you used your tail.
Wesley laughs, and snot goes everywhere.
By midnight, he settles. I hold him in the rocking chair in the living room. His head on my chest. His hair damp with sweat against my chin. He weighs more than a kid this small should weigh.
“Want Mama,” he mumbles, half asleep.
“Mama's coming later, boss. I'm here now.”
“You stay?”
“Of course.”
"Foweva?"
“As long as I can.”
His eyes close. His breathing goes slow, steady, deep. His fingers stay gripped to my shirt as he falls asleep.
I sit in the rocking chair with Wesley on my chest and the sound of Zoe's wall clock, one of those old ones that ticks. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
No television. No podcast. No music. Nothing except a sleeping kid and a clock.
And I'm okay.
The silence is there, but it doesn't crush me. It doesn't drown me. I guess the quiet isn't empty when you've got Wes in your arms with three tiny fingers hooked to your shirt.
To this kid who isn't mine, who has two moms who love him like crazy, who has a stuffed octopus and a three-legged dragon, I'm something that calms him. A safe place. Somewhere to fall asleep without being scared.
And what I feel isn't tenderness. I feel tenderness every day when I'm with him. What I feel is need.
I want this.
Stillness. Falling asleep with a kid in my arms. The weight of his little head on my chest.
I don't want it as a visitor, some stand-in aunt who shows up once in a while. I want this all the time. I want a little person who grabs my shirt while he falls asleep.
And maybe I'm an idiot for getting my hopes up, but I also want the woman who's still parked on the street even though I told her to leave. The one who's watching a house where there's no danger.
***
I wake up at five. Wesley is gone. Zoe carried him to his crib and draped a blanket over my shoulders. My neck aches, my back is stiff, but I don't care.
On my phone, a text from four hours ago.
Paula: Tessa and Zoe are back. Are you coming down or should I keep waiting?
Shit.
Me: Fell asleep and they didn't wake me. I'm so sorry. I figured something out.
Paula: What?
Me: I'll tell you in person. Breakfast?
When I walk out of Zoe's house, Paula is still in the car, parked in the same spot where I left her, looking like she hasn't slept.
I get in, close the door, and take her hand in both of mine. She smiles.
We sit in silence for a while. I trace circles with my thumb over the scar on her hand and, without saying anything, I kiss her. Because now I know I can choose. I can choose the noise, or I can choose the silence. And silence, when someone is beside you, isn't empty.
It's the opposite.