Ryan
Ishould go home.
I drive west instead.
There is a municipal course on the west side with a cracked parking lot, sunburned grass, and a driving range that looks like nobody has expected greatness from it in thirty years.
Perfect.
I pay for a bucket of balls from a teenager who does not look up from his phone.
“Large?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
He slides the token across the counter.
The machine coughs up a hundred white balls into a wire basket. I carry them to the far end of the range where nobody is close enough to talk. A retired guy in a bucket hat is working through a slice three stalls down. Two kids in polos are trying to outdrive each other and failing loudly.
Normal people wasting a morning.
I set the first ball on the mat.
No skates. No boards. No bench. No room watching to see what I do next.
Just a club in my hands and a ball too small to blame.
I swing too hard.
The ball hooks left and dies ugly.
I stare after it.
“Subtle,” I mutter.
I set another one down.
Same result.
Third one, worse.
By the fifth, my shoulders are tight enough to ache and the bucket-hat guy is pretending not to notice. Good for him. Survival instinct.
I step back.
Breathe once.
Golf is stupid because force is not enough.
That is probably why my father likes it.
We used to hit balls on the farm, Dad and me. Out past the barn, where the pasture went flat enough to pretend it was a range. He kept a bucket of old balls in the tack room and a seven iron with tape around the grip.
When I was too angry to be useful and too young to admit anger needed somewhere to go, he would hand me the club and point toward the far fence.
“Hit it clean or hit it mad,” he’d say. “Only one goes straight.”
I hated that.
Mostly because he was right.
I roll my shoulders once and set another ball on the mat.
This time, I loosen my grip.
The ball lifts clean, not far, not impressive, but straight enough.
I should not feel betrayed by a golf ball.
I do anyway.
My phone buzzes on the bench behind me.
For one stupid second, I think it is Peyton.
Not Peyton.
Roman: Room is fine. Evan is annoying everyone equally.
That, at least, I understand.
I type back.
Keep it that way.
Then I set the phone down and pick up the club again.
One ball.
Then another.
Not to fix anything.
Just to put my hands somewhere they cannot make anything worse.
I cannot control the article.
I cannot control Peyton.
Last night proved I can barely control myself.
The worst part is not that I wanted her. Wanting is simple. Wanting has a body, a door, a bed, a way to be answered or refused.
The worst part is not last night.
It is after.
When my mother texts about manners and my team laughs around me and Peyton exists somewhere in the city with a deadline, a byline, and my name inside her mouth in a way no one else will ever know.
I set another ball down.
Do not ruin her.
As if ruin is one thing.
As if it happens all at once.
I think of Peyton’s question in the dark.
If today had been ordinary, would you have stopped?
No.
I said it because it was true.
I still want her.
Wanting is not the dangerous part.
The dangerous part is how easy it was to make stopping look like honor when part of me liked being the one strong enough to leave.
I swing.
Clean this time.
The ball goes straight.
Not far.
Straight.
That will have to count.
For now.
All I can do is play honest.
Lead better than I did in Houston.
And wait to see if Peyton can tell the difference.