CHAPTER 2
OPHELIA
PRESENT DAY
It always started with the sound of cleats.
That metallic click against the concrete…steady, unhurried, impossible to mistake. It sliced through the quiet parking lot like a warning bell, bouncing off car doors and metal bleachers until it felt like it was echoing inside my chest.
I froze. Then swore under my breath.
Shit.
The sound was getting closer.
I slouched lower in the driver’s seat, fingers gripping the steering wheel, even though the engine wasn’t on. Through the windshield, I saw them spill out of the athletic building exit one by one, jerseys half off, helmets dangling from their hands. And then there he was.
Matthew Adler.
His name felt dangerous even in my head.
He was laughing at something one of his teammates said, head tipped back, sun catching in his black hair. He looked too good, too perfect, too everything I wasn’t supposed to want.
When his gaze flicked toward the parking lot—toward my car—I ducked so fast I hit my knee on the steering column.
“Damn it,” I hissed, wincing, sinking lower until only my eyes cleared the edge of the dashboard. My pulse was a drum in my throat.
He couldn’t see me. He couldn’t possibly see me.
But for a second, it felt like he had.
I stayed like that until his voice faded into the noise of the team, until the cleats scattered and the lot emptied out again, leaving nothing but echoes and the quiet pressing in around me.
Only then did I breathe.
I was in the same parking spot as always—third row from the back, tucked between a dented pickup and a rusted-out sedan that hadn’t moved all semester. I twisted the fraying hem of my sweatshirt between my fingers, pulling it tighter until the edge rubbed my skin raw.
Matthew Matty Adler.
I knew his nickname now. And what a tight end actually did.
I knew his stats. His schedule. The way his voice dropped when he was annoyed. The slight roll of his shoulder every time he caught a pass.
I knew the sound of his laugh, the slope of his handwriting, the scent of his laundry detergent when the wind caught it just right.
All of it—catalogued. Memorized. Worshiped.
And he still didn’t even know my name.
I’d first seen him on my laptop screen. Back then, I’d thought that moment had ruined me.
But it was nothing compared to the first time I saw him in real life.
The heat clung to my skin as I walked past the row of off-campus houses, each one old and sagging but full of loud music. My shirt stuck to my back, and the air shimmered off the pavement, making everything feel slightly unreal.
I shouldn’t have been there.
But I’d looked it up.
Weeks after my acceptance letter came, I couldn’t sleep for three nights in a row…so I’d done some searching.
It didn’t take much, just a couple deep dives into social media.
A post from a party last spring that tagged the address, a zoomed-in photo of a porch with a jersey draped over the railing, and one of those stupid “house tour” TikToks his best friend and roommate, Jace Thatcher, had posted last semester.
His other best friend, and the star quarterback of the team, Parker Davis, lived at 321 Maple.
Matty and Jace were next door at 319.
I’d memorized it before I even packed to come to school.
And now I was here, walking slowly down the opposite sidewalk, pretending I had somewhere to be. Pretending I didn’t feel my heart seize at the sound of a door creaking open just ahead.
Matty stepped out onto the porch of 319, wearing a black tank top and mesh shorts, a white towel slung over one shoulder.
His skin gleamed, sun-warmed and sweat-damp, and his hair was a little too long, curling around the tops of his ears.
Earbuds trailed down from his neck, the cord swaying with each step.
He was laughing at something Parker had called from next door, that southern drawl echoing between the houses. Jace followed behind, flipping a pizza box in one hand and doing a ridiculous dance as they headed down the walkway.
A couple girls across the street slowed their pace to stare. One of them actually giggled.
Matty didn’t notice.
He walked right past them, right past me, like I wasn’t even there. Which made sense, because I wasn’t supposed to be there. I didn’t live in this part of town. My dorm was across campus.
But I kept walking anyway, just slow enough to let my eyes track every detail. The way his shoulder blades shifted under his shirt. The slope of his neck. The lazy, careless confidence in his stride.
He and Jace turned into Parker’s driveway, laughing about something I couldn’t hear, and disappeared inside like they hadn’t just changed everything.
I stopped at the corner and pretended to check my phone, my heart thudding like I’d just run a mile.
He hadn’t seen me. Not when I lingered behind the corner of that porch, not when I crossed the street at the same time he laughed at something Jace said, not even when I paused just long enough to commit the turnoff to memory.
But I’d seen enough.
The way he moved. The sound of his voice. And his address.
319 Maple.
Burned into my mind now, tucked into that quiet space behind my ribs where everything that mattered went to live.
It was real.
Not some grainy image on a screen or a half-formed fantasy born of desperation.
Real. Possible. A door I’d seen with my own eyes.
And I would find a way back to it. To him.
Even if it took everything.
I blinked as I came back to the parking lot, the sound of faint whistles and yells from Matty’s football practice drifting through my open window.
That day was when it had all started.
With just a glimpse.
Now it was my routine.
The lot was mostly empty now as practice neared its end, the sun dipping low enough that the metal bleachers cast long shadows across the asphalt. My phone screen glowed in the dim light of the car, the only thing keeping me company while I waited for practice to end.
I wasn’t supposed to be here. I told myself that every time. But somehow, here I always was, watching, waiting for the same man.
My thumb scrolled automatically, muscle memory by now. I checked his social media hourly.
I didn’t follow him, of course. That would be too obvious. But his page was public, and I knew every post, every caption, every photo like they were part of a textbook I’d been studying for years.
He didn’t post often. Mostly team photos, all helmets and grins and adrenaline. A few stories with Parker and Jace and their girlfriends at parties—red Solo cups, neon lights, the kind of normal college life that looked like another planet to me.
I stopped at the post. The one that ruined me for days the second I saw it.
It wasn’t even new. It was months old, buried halfway down his feed of him on the field, hair damp, the Tennessee sun turning the sweat on his skin into gold.
A little kid perched on his shoulders, holding a foam finger too big for his hands.
Matty was laughing, his head tilted back, teeth showing.
A laugh that felt like proof life could actually be that good.
I zoomed in until the pixels blurred so I could study the crease near his mouth, the faint smear of dirt on his cheek…the way his hand steadied the kid like it was the easiest thing in the world.
The caption was just a heart emoji. And that was all it took, as usual.
My breath hitched, like I’d been running.
He’d probably be a good dad. The man who’d show up to everything. Who’d never raise his voice. Who’d hold your hand in a hospital room, even if you were broken and bleeding and couldn’t speak.
I knew what it felt like to be the one in that bed. To need someone who never came.
You sound crazy, a voice whispered in my head.
It wasn’t loud, just steady, like someone stating a fact. The same voice that used to scold me when I lingered too long outside Nico’s class, or when I memorized which lights in his house turned on first, or when I replayed his soccer interviews at night just to hear him laugh.
I tried to shove the voice down, the way I always did.
But lately, it had been harder to drown out.
It was getting meaner, louder in the parts of me no one else could touch, and maybe it was right. Maybe I was just living the same story again, only with different names.
“No. I’m not,” I whispered fiercely.
But that sounded less true every day.
I stared at the picture until my phone screen dimmed. Tapped it back awake. Scrolled up. Back down. As if he were going to update his pictures while he was at practice.
I stared at it until my phone battery died.
A shout from the field cut through the stillness, loud enough to jolt me upright.
Somewhere along the way, it had gotten dark.
The sky had turned deep blue, swallowing the edges of everything, and the floodlights around the practice field glared against it, harsh and artificial, humming softly like they were the only things keeping the world awake.
The parking lot lamps buzzed, too, casting wide yellow pools across the asphalt.
I blinked, disoriented, the world rushing back in with the smell of asphalt and hot rubber and the metallic clang of a gate swinging open.
Then came the cleats again.
That sound I knew better than my own heartbeat by this point.
I shoved my dead phone onto the passenger seat and sat perfectly still, my breath caught halfway in my chest. One by one, they came into view, helmets tucked under their arms, the parking lot and practice field lights casting white halos over their sweat-damp skin.
And there he was.
His hair was darker now that it was wet with sweat, curling against his neck. He walked with the sort of ease that made people watch without realizing they were watching. Parker jogged beside him, throwing a water bottle that Jace caught behind his back with a grin.
Matty’s laugh carried, low and warm, rolling over the distance between us.
I should have looked away. I knew that.
Instead, I leaned forward, palms pressed to the steering wheel, eyes locked on him through the windshield.
He reached up, running a hand through his hair, and for one terrible, breathtaking second, his gaze flicked toward my row of cars.
Straight toward me.
My whole body went still.
I didn’t breathe. Didn’t move. My pulse thundered in my ears.
Then Jace said something, Matty turned his head, and the moment broke.
I let out the breath I’d been holding, trembling.
The rest of the team began to scatter, some heading to the locker rooms, others toward the lot. Matty slowed down for a second when one of his coaches called his name. They slowly walked into the athletic building together, and I watched until I couldn’t see him anymore.
Only then did I start the car.
The headlights flicked on, washing the cracked pavement in white. I gripped the wheel tighter than I needed to, palms slick. I told myself it was time to go. That this was enough for one day.
But I didn’t move.
My gaze drifted back to the field where he’d been standing minutes ago. The spot looked smaller now, emptier, like even the light had followed him when he left.
The voice in my head was quiet again, for now.
That was the trick of it—it always went quiet after I saw him. Like he was the only thing that could hush it, could make everything inside me feel smooth for a while.
I sat there until the last of the players’ cars pulled out, until the sky bruised purple and the first stars began to show.
Then I whispered it, barely audible, as if saying it aloud made it truer somehow.
“It’s not like before.”
My reflection in the windshield didn’t argue, but I could almost hear the voice laughing anyway.
I put the car in drive, the tires crunching softly over gravel, and pulled out of the spot I’d claimed as mine weeks ago. The field lights blinked off behind me, one by one, until the lot was swallowed in darkness.
By the time I reached the main road, I was already calculating.
How long until the next practice.
What time he’d usually leave.
Tomorrow would be better.
Tomorrow, I wouldn’t stay as long.
I’d go home before it got dark.
But even as I promised that, I knew it was a lie.
Because it always started with the sound of cleats.
And I didn’t know how not to listen anymore.