Chapter Five
The Weight of Want
Jace
The locker room smells like sweat and disinfectant, same as it always does.
Cleats clatter against tile, lockers slam shut, and the air hums with the kind of restless energy only a hundred or so college guys can generate before practice.
Normally I’d thrive on it. Normally I’d be in the middle of it, reminding them to keep their heads down, telling them the little things matter more than they realize.
Today, my head’s not here.
I stand at the whiteboard, marker in hand, staring at a set of defensive schemes I’ve drawn a hundred times. The lines blur, the arrows loop back on themselves, and all I see is the cup of a caramel latte clutched in someone else’s hands.
Her hands.
“Coach?” one of the freshmen pipes up from the back row. “Uh…is this the part where we switch to zone?”
I blink, realizing I’ve been holding the marker in midair for way too long. My jaw tightens. “Yeah. Zone. Eyes up, Harris. Don’t guess, don’t gamble. You see your man, you stick with him. Simple.”
It comes out sharper than I mean, and the kid shrinks down in his seat. I cap the marker harder than necessary and step back, letting the silence hang until the projector hum fills it.
Focus, Jace.
I should be breaking down tape, drilling them on angles, doing the job I’ve worked years for.
But my mind keeps circling back to the Brew House.
To the way Sarah’s voice wrapped around my name like it still belonged to me.
To the look in her eyes when I told her not to look at me like that and the way it cut straight through me.
The sound of a whistle cuts through my thoughts, and I look up to see one of the assistants motioning for me. “We’re set on the field,” he says.
“Right.” My throat’s dry. I grab my clipboard like it’s armor and head out, the cool bite of late fall air hitting me as soon as we push through the doors.
The field should center me. Green turf underfoot, chalk lines sharp against the grass, the snap of footballs hitting palms, this is supposed to be the place I can block everything else out. But even here, she lingers.
I bark orders at the defensive line, pacing as they run drills. My voice carries, steady enough, but under it all there’s this static I can’t clear. The way she stood too close to my table, the brush of her sleeve against mine, the sharp pull in my chest when our eyes met.
Like it meant something. God help me, it did.
“Coach Prescott!” one of the seniors calls out, breaking my trance. He’s standing by the sled, waiting for corrections. I realize I missed half the rep.
“Lower,” I snap, striding over. “You’re coming in too high. Again.”
He grunts and resets, and I force myself to watch every movement this time, to drill down on the details like I’m supposed to. Except all I can think is how many times I’ve said the same word, again, and how often it meant something else entirely with her.
‘Kiss me again.’
‘Let’s try again.’
‘One more time.’
Repetition that had nothing to do with drills or discipline and everything to do with want.
By the time practice winds down, my throat’s raw from shouting, though most of the noise is just me trying to drown out my own head. The players jog toward the locker room, clapping helmets, shoving shoulders, the usual. I linger by the sideline, clipboard loose in my grip.
The sun’s slipping low, shadows stretching across the field. Normally, I’d feel that good kind of tired, the kind that says I worked hard, got something done. Today, all I feel is restless.
Because the truth is, I’d gotten used to her not being here. Not in this town, not in my head. Not still lodged under my skin like no time had passed. But the second I saw her, it was like nothing had changed.
And that scares the hell out of me more than I’ll admit. And now she runs the Communications Department at my University.
I shove the clipboard under my arm and head toward the tunnel, telling myself tomorrow will be different. Tomorrow I’ll lock it down, focus on the team, and stop letting one almost-touch undo me.
But the lie tastes bitter before I even finish it.
The weight of it sits heavy in my chest, the way it always does when Sarah’s name drifts through my head uninvited. No matter how many times I tell myself to leave it buried, the memories don’t stay put. They creep back in, sharper at the edges, pulling me under before I can fight it off.
And the one that never loosens its grip? The wedding.
Past — Wedding Day
The hallway outside the bridal suite smelled like hairspray and roses. Voices carried through the closed door, Sierra’s laugh, bridesmaids chattering, the rustle of gowns. I should’ve kept walking, should’ve been anywhere else but here.
But then Sarah stepped out of the adjoining room, and the world stilled.
She froze when she saw me, hand still on the doorknob, her dress catching the soft glow of the sconces. Not a bridesmaid’s dress, but something simple, understated, and somehow brighter than all the sequins and silk behind her.
“Jace.” Her voice was careful, clipped, like the name itself was dangerous on her tongue.
I swallowed hard, my collar already choking me though I hadn’t even put on the damn tie yet. “Sarah.”
Silence stretched, heavy with everything we hadn’t said in years. My palms itched to reach for her, to erase the space between us, but I forced them flat against my sides.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she whispered.
I huffed a humorless laugh. “It’s my wedding day. Pretty sure I’m supposed to be here.”
Her eyes flickered, softening just for a second before she pulled back into steel. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”
Something in me cracked, all the years of pretending, of keeping Sierra in the spotlight and Sarah in the shadows. It split open right there, raw and ugly.
“Tell me you don’t feel it, and I’ll walk away. I’ll pretend I never saw you standing here. But if you do—” My throat worked around the words. “If you do, I’ll call it all off. Right here. Right now.”
Her breath hitched, but she shook her head, stepping back like distance was armor. “Don’t do this.”
“Sarah—”
“You’ve already made your choice.” Her voice broke, just barely, but it was enough to gut me. “Don’t make me say it for you.”
I searched her face for even a flicker of hesitation, something to hold on to, but all I found was resolve. Fragile, shaking, but firm enough to stop me in my tracks.
The door behind her opened, Emma’s voice spilling into the hall, laughter chasing it. Sarah turned quickly, slipping away before Emma could see the wreckage in her eyes.
And just like that, she was gone. Again.
The memory fades, but the ache doesn’t. It never does. She’s walked away from me more times than I can count, always for the right reasons, always because she saw the truth I couldn’t.
And yet here I am, years later, still carrying that day like it just happened.
When I finally sit at my desk, an hour has passed and the game film blurs on my screen, players darting across the field in jerky movements I can’t focus on.
My pen stills against the page, ink bleeding into the margin until the line thickens into a black blotch.
I tell myself it’s fatigue, that I just need a break. But I know better.
Because once the memories start, they don’t stop. And the one I can never shove down, the one that always claws its way back first.
We were taking some time apart and out of nowhere, Sierra texted me late, asking me to come over.
Not the usual kind of late-night message, not the casual tone she normally used.
By the time I got there, she was standing in the doorway of her apartment, wringing her hands like she was holding something fragile she didn’t want to break.
I’d never seen her like that. Nervous. Almost afraid.
She didn’t waste time. Just blurted it out, like ripping off a bandage.
“I’m pregnant.”
Two words. That was it. The entire axis of my life tilted in that moment, the ground shifting under my feet so fast I couldn’t tell if I was falling or just standing still. My chest had gone tight, not with joy, not right away, but with a kind of stunned disbelief that made every thought scatter.
I’d managed a weak, “Are you sure?” and she nodded, eyes glassy.
“I took three tests.”
I remember the silence that followed, thick and suffocating. The way her lip trembled until she bit down on it hard, like she was bracing for me to run. Maybe part of her expected it. Maybe part of me wanted to.
Instead, I stepped forward and said all the right things.
We’ll figure it out, you’re not alone, I’m here.
Words that sounded solid, steady, like the man she needed me to be.
But underneath, I was already cracking. Because all I could think about, selfish or not, was that saying yes to Sierra meant losing Sarah.
Like every choice I made was pushing her further out of reach until there was no way back
I told myself it was time to stop living like a man split in two. That this was my chance to commit, to do the right thing. A baby meant responsibility. A baby meant permanence. And if I’d learned anything growing up, it was that you didn’t walk away when someone was counting on you.
But even as I wrapped my arms around Sierra, whispering that we’d get through it together, the truth lodged itself in my chest like a splinter: if timing had been different—if she hadn’t come to me that night, trembling and terrified—would I have chosen another path? Would I have finally chosen Sarah?
That question has followed me ever since.
Because Sierra wasn’t wrong to need me. And I wasn’t wrong to stay. But every promise I made from that moment on came with a shadow. One I’ve never managed to outrun.
I press my palms into my eyes now, trying to shove the memory back where it belongs. The office hums around me, the steady tick of the clock on the wall measuring out a life I’m not sure was ever really mine to choose.
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