Chapter 19 Unraveled
UNRAVELED
Iget there first, which is a joke, because in the years I’ve been meeting Darius at this bench, I have never, not once, beaten him to it.
The air is briny and cold enough that my breath comes out in little plumes, dissolving as soon as I try to see them.
The bench is wet, but I sit anyway, legs splayed, hands tucked under my thighs, feet vibrating out last night’s leftover nerves.
I can feel my phone in my pocket, burning a hole through the denim, a radioactive lump of missed calls and texts and the message I’ve been staring at for half an hour, not because it’s poetic, but because “Meet me at the spot” means there’s a truth about to drop, and nothing is ever the same after.
The wind whips off Elliott Bay, sharper than I remember, stinging the cut on my chin and the other one just above my left eyebrow, the one the team doc said “probably could use a stitch” before taping it shut and sending me back out for third period.
It feels good, actually. I like the ache, the way the cold makes everything feel urgent.
He walks up from the path, not in his usual gait, but slow, measured, like he’s pacing off the final steps before a firing squad.
He’s in sweatpants, an old Steelhawks jacket that’s too small for him now, hood up, hands jammed in the pockets.
His face is unreadable, jaw set, eyes flat and bright as river rocks.
He doesn’t sit. Not right away.
He just stands there, looking at me, then out at the water, then back at me again, like he’s triple-checking I’m real. The silence is brutal, but I hold it. I always do.
He sits, finally, the bench creaking under his weight. “Hey,” he says, and the word is too soft, so he clears his throat and says it again, harder this time. “Hey.”
“You wanna start?” I ask, because I don’t trust myself to do anything but joke.
He nods, but he doesn’t speak. He pulls his phone out, unlocks it, swipes, then holds it out to me. “Read,” he says.
I take it.
The screen is already open, glowing white in the dim gray light. It’s an email draft, from Vincent, the subject line, “Hero or Hate? Steelhawks' Rising Star and His Ties to the Holt Shooting.”
There’s a photo at the top, me with my helmet off, blood smeared like war paint down my jaw.
I look like a guy who just won a fight, but the article underneath is a slow-motion autopsy.
I read. The first line, “After a lifetime of near-misses and anonymous seasons, Asher Rosen finally got what he always wanted: attention.”
I feel my face go cold. My ears ring.
He’s pulled everything I ever said, every offhand line I dropped in those late-night, whiskey-soaked conversations, and fed them into a wood chipper.
There’s a paragraph about Cap’s funeral, about the “awkward” hug I gave Caleb, about how I was the only one who spoke at the wake, and then there’s the smoking gun:
“But the relationship between Rosen and the Holt family wasn’t as simple as survivor and casualty.
Sources confirm that Rosen and Caleb Holt were seen together multiple times in the weeks leading up to the shooting, including at a diner off I-5, where witnesses recall a ‘heated conversation’ and a ‘possible exchange of items.’
The question no one wants to ask: did Rosen know?”
My hands are shaking so hard I almost drop the phone.
I keep reading, even though the words crawl across my skin like ants.
There’s a section about Darius, about the “complicated dynamic” in the locker room, about the “emergence” of a romance with a “local sports journalist.”
There are quotes, actual quotes, about how I “felt invisible,” about how I “just wanted to matter.”
He has me talking about the shooting, about how “sometimes I wish I’d just stayed down,” about how “being a survivor is its own kind of prison.”
It gets worse. There’s a screenshot, a chat log, two lines that look like I sent them, but they’re twisted, out of order, made to sound like I was confiding in Vincent about Caleb, about the “plan” and the “aftermath.” The best part?
They’re not even from the same conversation.
By the time I get to the end, I feel hollowed out. There’s nothing left but spite and static.
I hand the phone back. I don’t trust myself to look at Darius, but I do.
He’s not watching the water anymore. He’s watching me, face still calm, but his hands are white-knuckled, thumb pressing so hard on the phone it’s a miracle the screen doesn’t shatter. “I didn’t believe it at first,” he says. “I thought, maybe it’s just the draft, maybe he’s reaching for drama.”
He looks at me, searching for something I don’t have. “But it’s all you. All your words.”
“He made me feel like I mattered,” I say, the taste of it thick and metallic in my mouth. “That was the whole trick, wasn’t it?”
Darius nods, just once. “He does that. He’s always done that.”
I want to throw up. Instead, I run my tongue along the edge of my teeth, tasting blood and old whiskey.
There’s a long silence. It’s the kind that should be broken with a punchline, but I don’t have one.
Darius finally speaks. “We can go to Coach,” he says. “PR. Get ahead of it. If this goes live—”
“No.” I don’t even recognize my own voice. “If we do that, it’s just more meat for the grinder. Let me handle it.”
He blinks, surprise flickering across his face for the first time. “You sure?”
“Yeah.” I look at him, really look, and there’s a tremor under the surface, a ripple of anger so deep it makes my own hurt look like a paper cut. “Let me handle it,” I say again.
He nods, slow, and we sit there, just the two of us, the cold seeping through our jeans and the city spinning out around us.
The wind slaps my face, stings my eyes, but I don’t wipe them. I let it freeze the tears where they are.
For a second, I think he’s going to put his arm around me. He doesn’t. Instead, he bumps his shoulder against mine, just once, hard enough to remind me I’m still real.
When he stands, I stand with him. He doesn’t say goodbye, doesn’t make a speech.
He just holds my gaze for a second longer than I can stand it, then turns and walks back up the path, shoulders squared, ready to murder anyone who tries to hurt me again.
I stay on the bench, watching the water until the sky goes full black, the phone heavy in my hand.
I know what I have to do next.
But for a minute, I just sit there, letting the cold settle in, letting the ache get comfortable.
I close my eyes, and for once, I don’t flinch from the pain.
I welcome it.
Because it’s mine, and no one else’s.
Not anymore.
———
The walk back to my apartment is a half-marathon through cold and memory.
Every step away from the waterfront bench is a step into some version of myself I used to be, except now the old tricks don’t work and the jokes aren’t funny and the only thing I want is to scream until someone tells me it’s not my fault.
The apartment is exactly the way I left it, socks on the radiator, pizza box by the sink, a hockey stick balanced on the coat rack like it’s waiting for a better owner.
I drop my bag, peel off my jacket, and leave it on the floor because nothing matters except the pounding in my chest and the knowledge that tomorrow, or maybe sooner, everyone who ever mattered will know the story, Vincent’s story, not mine.
I pace the tiny rectangle of living room, counting the lines in the laminate floor, thinking about what Darius said, what he didn’t say, about the look in his eyes when he handed me the phone, like he was giving me a loaded weapon but also trusting me not to shoot myself with it.
It’s stupid, but the thing that keeps replaying is not the article, not the betrayal, not even the “possible exchange of items” bullshit, but the way Darius let me have the choice.
For twenty minutes, I rehearse the call in my head.
I try out jokes. “Hey, Maya, guess what, your brother’s a cliche.” Or, “Hope you weren’t counting on grandkids.” Or, “Turns out I really am the family disappointment, but with bonus bisexuality.”
None of them sound right.
The phone is in my hand before I realize I’ve picked it up. I scroll to her contact, thumb hovering over the button so long the screen dims and I have to start over.
My palms are sweating.
My heartbeat is a war drum. I could just text her. I could just send a meme. I could just keep being the guy who never says the words out loud.
But I don’t. I tap “call.”
She picks up on the second ring, voice bright, the clatter of a dorm room in the background. “Hey, stranger! You alive?”
I breathe in. Out. “Barely.”
She laughs, because she thinks I’m joking. “What’s up? You win?”
“Lost. Got my face rearranged. You should see the other guy.”
“Jesus, Ash, are you okay?”
I sit on the edge of the unmade bed, stare at the pile of laundry like maybe it’ll answer for me. “Not really.”
The tone in her voice changes, the big-sister alert system flipping to DEFCON 1. “Talk to me.”
I close my eyes, count to five. “Can I tell you something and you promise not to freak out?”
“Ash, I literally have a pride flag on my dorm wall. Did you think I was going to disown you?”
It stuns me, how easy she makes it. The laugh that breaks out of me is half cry, half bark. “You knew.”
She snorts. “Please. You think I didn’t notice you only ever watched the ice dancing at the Olympics? Or that your only celebrity crush was the blue Power Ranger?”
I have to wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. “I don’t even know what to call it. I mean, technically, I’m…”
“Bisexual. It’s not a disease, Ash, it’s a party. Welcome.”
“God,” I say, and then the tears are really coming, for real this time, not even hidden, not even trying. “I’m so fucking tired, May. I thought I could just… have a normal life. Just blend in. But now…” I trail off, the lump in my throat bigger than any of the words I was going to use.
She lets the silence hang, then, gentle: “You’re still you. The rest is just detail. Who is he?”
I choke on the answer. “What?”
She’s smiling, I can hear it. “You only get this wound up when it’s about a guy. Don’t deny it.”