Chapter 19 The Memo
He was sitting on the edge of his bed with his right wrist wrapped, his left hand holding a paper cup of gas station coffee that tasted like regret and burnt plastic.
His apartment was still dark, the blinds half-closed against the pale morning light.
His racket bag leaned against the wall by the door.
His shoes were lined up beneath it. His phone rested facedown beside him because he had spent most of the night pretending not to wait for a message from her.
Pathetic.
That was the word.
There were others too.
Reckless.
Stupid.
Weak.
But pathetic felt the most accurate.
Because after everything—after the threats, the cameras, the kiss on the court, the click in the dark—Nico had still gone to sleep thinking about the way Lena’s fingers had trembled against his shirt.
No.
Not sleep.
He had lain down.
There was a difference.
Sleep required surrender, and Nico had not been good at that since he was old enough to understand bills.
He had replayed the kiss until the memory became punishment.
Her mouth opening beneath his.
Her hand against his face.
Her voice saying, Don’t run.
And God help him, he had wanted to stay.
Wanted it like a starving thing.
Wanted to be the kind of man who could stand beside her in daylight and not ruin her by proximity.
Then his phone buzzed.
One email notification.
Unknown sender.
No subject line.
He almost ignored it.
He should have ignored it.
Instead, he picked up the phone and opened the email.
There was no message.
Just an attachment.
REYES_IMAGE_REPAIR_INTERNAL_NOTES.pdf
For one stupid second, Nico thought it might be another anonymous threat about Declan.
He had gotten used to those.
Not comfortable.
Never comfortable.
But used to them in the way people got used to checking locks twice or sleeping with one eye open.
He tapped the file.
The PDF opened.
Westbridge letterhead.
A date from before the coffee shop photos.
Before the hoodie.
Before the night courts.
Before Lena looked at him like he was not a headline but a person standing too close to the edge.
At the top of the document:
Preliminary Athlete Reputation Assessment: Nicolás Reyes
His stomach tightened.
He scrolled.
The first line stopped him cold.
Current public perception: volatile, emotionally inaccessible, combative, and reputationally dangerous to the Westbridge Tennis brand.
The coffee cup crumpled in his hand.
Hot liquid spilled over his fingers.
He barely felt it.
He kept reading.
Recommended strategy: humanize subject through controlled association with a trusted, warm, non-threatening figure connected to the program.
His chest went tight.
No.
No, no, no.
His thumb moved down the page even though every instinct screamed at him to stop.
Lena Hart is uniquely positioned to soften athlete perception due to her established image as approachable, polished, and emotionally safe.
Emotionally safe.
Nico laughed once.
The sound was ugly in the dark room.
Temporary romantic speculation may create favorable contrast: troubled athlete / stabilizing partner.
Troubled athlete.
Stabilizing partner.
He could see her sitting in the media room, cream sweater, neat ponytail, gold hoops, pen in hand, turning him into bullet points.
A problem.
A risk.
A project.
His throat went dry.
He scrolled again.
Key concerns: subject may resist image management due to distrust, pride, and limited emotional communication. Approach should avoid direct confrontation and instead reward cooperative vulnerability.
Reward cooperative vulnerability.
Something inside him went very still.
Not angry.
Not yet.
Anger would come later.
This was worse.
This was the moment before pain learned to protect itself.
He read the sentence again.
Reward cooperative vulnerability.
Like his trust had been a behavior to encourage.
Like every time he softened, every time he told her something real, every time he let her stand there, she had been watching from behind a clipboard.
Nico stood so fast the coffee cup dropped to the floor.
Brown liquid spread across the cheap rug.
His phone buzzed again.
Another notification.
This time from the campus gossip account.
He opened it because apparently he had not finished hurting himself.
A screenshot of the memo filled the post.
The caption beneath it was already moving through campus like fire.
EXCLUSIVE: Sources say the Lena/Nico romance was a planned PR stunt from the beginning. Troubled athlete + coach’s perfect daughter = damage control with kisses?
Below it, excerpts from the memo appeared in neat, damning slides.
Volatile.
Emotionally inaccessible.
Reputationally dangerous.
Humanize subject.
Controlled romantic association.
Nico stared at the words until they blurred.
Then came the comments.
I KNEW IT WAS FAKE.
She literally turned him into a campaign.
This is so manipulative.
Honestly he probably agreed to save his scholarship.
Poor Lena if she got pressured.
Poor Nico? He shoved someone.
The kiss was staged?? embarrassing.
Coach Hart’s daughter doing PR girlfriend cosplay is wild.
Reputationally dangerous is insane.
His lungs would not open all the way.
He dropped the phone onto the bed like it burned.
Then picked it up again two seconds later because the first lesson life taught him was that looking away did not stop damage from happening.
A text came in.
Jace.
Bro. Call me.
Another.
Do not go to the facility yet. Cameras outside.
Then Sofia.
Nico??? What is going on? People are tagging me.
His stomach twisted so hard he had to sit down again.
No.
Not Sofia.
Not his family.
Not them.
He opened her text, typed three different answers, deleted all of them.
What could he say?
It was fake.
It wasn’t fake.
I don’t know when it stopped being fake.
I let myself believe something that had my name in a file before it had my hand in hers.
Another message.
His mother.
Mijo, call me when you can. No rush. I love you.
No rush.
His mother always said no rush when she was worried enough to cry.
Nico pressed the heel of his hand against his eye.
Pain sparked through his wrist.
Good.
Physical pain made sense.
It had edges.
It had treatments.
Ice. Tape. Rest, if you were the kind of person who could afford rest.
This was different.
This was Lena’s voice in his head saying, I’m seeing you now.
This was her hand on his face.
This was the way she had said she was tired of being easy to scare.
This was him, stupid enough to believe that maybe she was scared too.
Maybe that meant something.
Maybe he meant something.
His phone buzzed again.
Lena.
His entire body went rigid.
For one second, he did not breathe.
Then he looked at the screen.
Nico, please answer me.
Another message came before he could move.
I didn’t leak that. Please. I need to explain.
The word explain cracked something open in him.
Explain.
Of course.
There would be an explanation. There was always an explanation when people with clean hands got caught holding the knife.
He stood.
Grabbed his keys.
Ignored the coffee soaking into the rug.
Ignored Jace’s next call.
Ignored the fact that his wrist throbbed as he shoved his phone into his pocket.
He did not know where he was going until he was already outside.
The morning air was cool, but his skin burned.
By the time Nico reached the athletic building, the sun had lifted over Westbridge, painting the campus gold like nothing ugly had happened. Students moved along the brick paths in clusters, phones in hands, eyes lifting when they recognized him.
Whispers started.
Not loud.
Never loud.
That was the cowardice of campus gossip.
People liked watching pain from a safe distance.
Nico kept walking.
A girl near the steps said, “That’s him.”
A boy beside her muttered, “Damn, bro got played.”
Nico’s hands curled.
Pain shot through his wrist.
He kept walking.
There were two student reporters near the athletics entrance. One of them lifted a phone.
“Nico, do you have a comment on the leaked memo?”
He did not stop.
“Did you and Lena Hart fake the relationship to repair your image?”
His jaw tightened.
“Did Coach Hart know?”
That almost did it.
Almost.
But then he saw Lena through the glass doors.
She stood in the lobby near the security desk, phone in one hand, laptop bag over her shoulder, hair pulled into a messy ponytail like she had left wherever she was in a hurry. Her face was pale. No smile. No polish. No sunshine armor.
Just panic.
She saw him.
Relief flashed across her face first.
Then fear.
Good.
At least one of them understood the shape of this.
He walked inside.
The reporters tried to follow, but security stopped them at the door.
“Nico,” Lena said.
His name sounded different in her mouth now.
Or maybe he did.
She took a step toward him.
He stopped her with a look.
Do not.
She froze.
Good.
He hated that she understood.
Hated that even now, she knew when he needed distance.
“Nico, I didn’t leak it.”
He laughed.
Soft.
Cold.
Her face flinched.
“I know,” he said.
Her eyes widened slightly, hope flickering.
He killed it because pain wanted company.
“You didn’t need to leak it. You wrote it.”
The words hit her.
He saw them hit.
Her mouth parted, but nothing came out at first.
Around them, the lobby felt too bright. Too public. A receptionist pretended not to listen. Two athletes near the stairwell stopped pretending altogether.
Lena lowered her voice. “That memo was preliminary. It was written before—”
“Before what?” he asked. “Before you knew me?”
Her eyes filled with something like guilt.
He hated that too.
“Yes,” she said.
The honesty should have helped.
It did not.
Because the words were still there.
Volatile.
Dangerous.
Humanize subject.
Controlled romantic association.
“Congratulations,” he said. “You were thorough.”
Her face tightened. “Nico.”
“You wrote me like a problem.”
“That is not all you were.”
“But it was enough to start with.”
She swallowed.