30. Leo - Life on Hold
The Chicago wind doesn't just blow; it insults you.
It claws at my skin with the same relentless arrogance I use to beat my opponents on the track.
Two years. Two years of scrubbing the scent of eucalyptus and California dust out of my pores, only to replace it with the sterile, metallic taste of victory.
I'm not a "time bomb" anymore. Bombs are messy.
I'm a scalpel. I'm twenty-one, the undisputed king of the Big Ten, and my face is plastered on every stadium wall like a warning.
Everyone knows about the "Coach Scandal.
" They whisper it in the locker rooms—how I was the casualty of a forbidden obsession. They think I'm the victim.
They're wrong. I'm the consequence.
I don't hide. I walk through campus with a spine made of reinforced steel, my sexuality a weapon rather than a secret.
I've bedded guys who tried to find a spark in me, only to leave them shivering in the cold of my indifference.
I let no one in. Not because I'm grieving, but because I'm done.
I built a wall around my heart, and I didn't build it to protect a sanctuary. I built it to cage a beast.
I return to my apartment, my quads screaming after a set of 400s. The air inside is still, dead. On the counter, amidst the junk mail, sits a yellow envelope. No return address. Just a Portland, Maine postmark that feels like a slap to the face.
My hands don't tremble. They steady. A predatory stillness takes over as I rip the paper.
The silver whistle hits the marble with a sickening, melodic clink.
I stare at it, and for a second, the phantom smell of his skin—cedar and sweat—suffocates me.
I don't feel relief. I feel a white-hot surge of fury that makes my vision blur.
Two years. Two years of silence, of me rebuilding my soul from the scraps he left on that driveway, and he thinks he can just..
. whistle? Like I'm a dog? Like the race starts when he says so?
I pick it up, my thumb dragging over the engraved 'L'. It's warm. It's been in his hands. The thought doesn't make me weep; it makes me want to break something. He kept it. He watched me struggle from afar, clutching this piece of metal like a trophy of his power over me.
"You arrogant son of a bitch," I whisper to the empty kitchen.
I don't pack a bag with "essentials." I grab my duffel and throw things in with violent, jerky movements.
I'm not running to him. I'm running at him.
I want to see the look in those ocean-gray eyes when he realizes I'm not the boy who let him walk away.
I want him to see the monster he finished creating.
The trip to O'Hare is a blur of adrenaline and bile.
I buy a one-way ticket to Portland, my credit card tapping the screen with a finality that feels like a gunshot.
I don't care about the indoor finals. I don't care about my scholarship.
If Nathan Sterling thinks he can signal the end of my exile, he's going to learn that I've learned how to hunt.
At Gate B12, I sit, my leg bouncing with a frenetic, jagged energy. I am a coil wound too tight. People move away from me, sensing the ozone of a coming storm.
Then, my phone buzzes. An unknown number.
"I'm waiting for you at the end of the track. Don't run too fast this time, Leo. I want to see you arrive."
I don't sob. I don't laugh. I grip the phone so hard the screen groans. He's still coaching. Still directing my pace. Still assuming he knows exactly how I'll react. He thinks this is a grand romantic gesture—the final straightaway.
I stand up, the silver whistle buried in my fist, the metal biting into my palm until it nearly draws blood.
I'm coming, Nate, I think, stepping into the jet bridge with a heart full of beautiful, poisonous fire. But I'm not running for you. I'm running to take back everything you stole. Brace yourself.