Chapter 30 Silas
THIRTY
SILAS
Hell. That’s what my life has become.
It turns out, when you lose all control over everything—and you need said control to survive—you crash and burn in slow, painful silence.
There’s no noise. Just ash and wreckage.
I wake up alone. Eat alone. I go to the gym and then my crappy job, and come back to an apartment that still smells like him when the heat kicks on—even though we never used the heat while he was here.
But somehow the vents still remember his scent. It’s a cruel reminder of what I lost, and I can only hope he’s doing good.
One of his hoodies is still draped over the back of the couch—black, worn soft in all the places where it used to cling to his smaller frame.
I haven’t moved it from that spot, as though he might come through the door and want to wear it.
That’s the small bit of control I have left, leaving his stuff exactly where he left it.
Instead of coaching, I’m back behind a bar four nights a week—serving shots to undergrads who don’t recognize me; the only thing they care about is blowing off steam.
I made sure to avoid Riot in my job search, because I know he goes there.
And I’m not strong enough to resist him if he was right in front of me.
Thankfully, the tips pay the rent. My pride covers the rest. And I smile through it all, because pretending nothing’s wrong is the only thing I still know how to do.
Now if I could only convince my therapist. These mandatory sessions are getting old. I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to talk about Luke. I told her during our first session that it was my fault, I encouraged the relationship. But that’s all I’ve told her.
I push into the waiting room, my gaze going over the basic beige walls. I sign in and then take a seat. I sit with one ankle resting on the opposite knee, bouncing it out of habit. Not nerves. Definitely not regret.
My eyes flick over my therapist’s name written in neat letters on the door. The white noise machine in the corner fills the silence, and I pick up a magazine about therapy and flip through it mindlessly, before I set it to the side and pull out my phone.
My screen lights up with a notification. A follow I probably should have unfollowed a long time ago.
@UofMFootball: Final score: 21-17. That’s how we Playoffs.
The photo is mid-celebration—Luke lifted slightly off the ground, arms around Ty and Will, helmet still on, his mouth guard hanging as his mouth is wide open in a victorious yell.
It’s from the last game. He looks…happy. Not performatively happy like the few pictures I’ve seen of him, but really happy. He looks free, lit up from the inside. And I know I made the right decision.
I zoom in, just to see him clearer, and hate myself for it. Still, I take in his smile, the way the photo captured his eyes sparkling. I think I can even see a little leftover glitter on his cheekbones. I swallow hard just as the door opens for my therapist.
“Silas,” Cella says, voice kind but neutral. “Come on in.”
Locking my phone, I shove it into my pocket as I stand and follow her back into her cozy little room.
It’s the opposite of sterile in here. More like sitting in a friend’s living room.
She has a love seat, a side table with the prerequisite tissues I’ve never used, a desk and chair, and three book shelves full of all kinds of books.
“How have you been this week?”
I clear my throat. “Good.”
She raises an eyebrow and presses her lips together at the response. I know by now that the short responses don’t really give her much to work with. And I’m not trying to be a jerk, but I’m sure it comes off that way.
She doesn’t write anything down right away.
Instead, she folds her hands over the notebook in her lap and lets out a soft breath—one of those therapist breaths that means something heavy’s coming.
“We need to talk about Luke.”
His name hits me like a slap I didn’t brace for.
Not Maddox. Not the player. Luke.
My chest goes tight, and I try not to let it show, but she sees it. Of course she sees it. I glance away, focusing on the corner of the rug to avoid her gaze.
“I figured we would eventually,” I say, voice low.
“Eventually was three sessions ago,” she says gently. “You’ve talked about what happened. About the job. The fallout. But not about him.”
I press my tongue to the roof of my mouth and breathe in slowly through my nose. There’s a lump in my throat I didn’t invite, and it’s making it hard to speak.
She gives me a moment. And I’m pretty sure that almost makes it worse. That calm waiting that lets me process the feelings running through me at just the mention of his name.
I shift in my seat. “It’s not really about him anymore.”
Her brows lift just slightly, but her voice stays soft. “You sure about that?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” I counter, then regret it instantly. It sounds defensive, even to me.
She doesn’t flinch. Just unfolds her hands and picks up her pen, not to write—just to hold.
“Silas, I’ve seen you enough to know that control is your constant,” she says, measured. “You hold on to it with both hands because, somewhere along the way, you learned that letting go hurts.”
I stiffen. Just slightly. Barely a shift. But she catches it.
“I’m not judging you,” she adds quickly. “We all build strategies to survive what life throws at us. But when those strategies start keeping us from healing—or from letting love in—they stop being protective and start being destructive.”
My jaw clenches. I don’t answer.
She watches me for another beat, then continues. “You’ve shared a lot about the fallout. The rules. The consequences. But you haven’t said one word about how it felt to let Luke go.”
I open my mouth.
Close it again.
She nods, like she expected the silence.
“You’ve talked about how it looked. But I don’t think it was really about keeping him safe. I think it was about you staying in control. And I think that’s tied to something you’ve been carrying for a long time.”
A flicker. A name.
Xavier.
The breath I take stutters in my lungs.
She doesn’t say his name. But she doesn’t have to. My mind is already there—dragged backward to the memory I work the hardest to keep buried.
That one time, I let go. I listened instead of insisting. I believed Xavier when he said he was fine, when he said he could handle it, when he looked at me with that easy confidence and asked me to trust him.
And I did.
I gave him the control.
And it cost him everything.
The truth settles heavy in my chest: every time I loosen my grip, someone gets hurt. Every time I choose care over control, something slips through my fingers and shatters.
And Luke—I press the heels of my hands into my eyes, breathing through the pressure building behind them.
Luke wasn’t just someone I wanted. He was someone I almost trusted with the parts of me that don’t survive loss.
And I couldn’t do it again. Not when I already know how this story ends.
She doesn’t say anything else. Just lets the silence settle.
And for the first time since this whole thing started, I feel the smallest crack in the wall I’ve built around my heart.
I let my hands fall into my lap and stare at them like they might have answers. They don’t. They’re just hands. Steady on the outside, always. Until they weren’t.
“I let him play,” I say finally, voice scratchy. “Xavier. He said he was fine. I knew better. I should’ve pulled him. But I didn’t.”
Cella doesn’t interrupt. She just waits, pen silent on the page.
“He got hit. Helmet to helmet. Didn’t look bad at first, but then he didn’t get up.
” I blink, exhale hard. “They said the bleeding in his brain was slow. That if we’d caught it sooner—” My throat closes.
“He doesn’t even remember my name most days now.
The days he does are almost worse, he still thinks I’m still his coach.
Still loves me. Still talks like nothing ever changed. ”
There’s a long pause. I expect her to scribble something down or ask about Xavier’s condition. Instead, she folds her hands again, quiet and steady.
“That was the moment,” she says softly. “Wasn’t it?”
I glance up.
“The moment you decided control was the only way to protect the people you love. That if you just paid close enough attention, stayed strong enough, never let go—then no one would get hurt again.”
I don’t answer.
She leans forward slightly. “You gave Xavier the benefit of the doubt. You trusted him to know his limits. And when that ended badly, you made a promise—maybe not out loud, but a deep one—that you’d never let that happen again.”
Her voice is gentle. Not judgmental. Just… honest.
“So when Luke got hurt and they all realized that he was more to you than a player, that promise took over. Not your heart. Not your instincts. Just that old fear.”
I press my fingers to the bridge of my nose. “It felt right,” I whisper. “Like the only right thing I could do. Letting him go, keeping him safe, giving him space to move on without the scandal clinging to him.”
“But it wasn’t about what Luke needed,” she says quietly. “It was about what you needed to feel safe. What your trauma needed.”
That lands. Hard. Because I can’t refute it.
And it shifts something. Not enough to fix everything, not enough to undo the choices I’ve made—but enough to make me see them differently.
Enough to realize that maybe I didn’t walk away for him. Maybe I did it for me. And maybe it wasn’t the brave thing I thought it was.
I stare at the rug, my gaze going blurry. Not because it’s interesting, but because if I look at her, I’ll fall apart.
“I didn’t just lose him,” I say finally. “I lost who I was with him. I lost the version of me that… believed in good things. That let people in. That made plans.”
My voice is rough. It sounds like someone else’s.
“I haven’t made a real plan since,” I admit. “I just… manage. Control the variables. Keep people at arm’s length. Don’t promise things I might not be able to deliver.”
Cella doesn’t say anything, but I can feel her listening. Not in that distant therapist way, but in the real way. The human way.
I swallow hard. “And then Luke happened. And he was—he is—bright. Loud. Alive in a way I forgot how to be. And he saw me. Not just Coach Gray. Not just the one in control. He saw me. And I liked it.”
My hands curl into fists.
“That scared the shit out of me.”
There. I said it.
Not just, he got hurt or it was the right thing to do. No more excuses.
I was scared.
Because caring that much—again—felt like inviting lightning to strike twice.
“I wanted to keep him,” I whisper. “But I didn’t know how to do that and keep him safe at the same time. So I convinced myself that letting him go was love. That it was the right kind of damage.”
My throat burns. My chest aches.
“But I didn’t do it for him,” I admit. “I did it for me.”
Cella doesn’t move for a long beat. Then she nods once, slow and deliberate.
“That’s the work, Silas,” she says. “That right there. Naming the fear. Claiming the pattern. You’re not broken—you’ve just been trying to survive.”
A shaky breath escapes me. “It’s been over ten years.”
“And it took ten years for you to be ready,” she says. “That doesn’t make it too late.”
I don’t answer.
I can’t.
By the time the session ends, I feel like I’ve been through a war.
My body is heavy. My mind’s exhausted. I sit in my car outside her office with the engine off and my hands still gripping the wheel like I need something to hold me upright.
But there’s something else, buried underneath all that weight.
A shift. A thread of something like… hope.
Not for fixing everything overnight. Not even for getting Luke back. But for letting go of the guilt that’s been rotting me from the inside out.
A first step.
Finally.