CHAPTER 5
OPHELIA
His words hit before I could prepare for them.
“Why the hell would I care what some clingy, desperate freak wants? She’s probably just another attention-starved girl with no life, following guys around because she’s too pathetic to get one of her own.”
For a second, I couldn’t breathe. The sound of his voice, sharp, irritated, careless, echoed down the hall and straight through me. I didn’t wait to hear anything else. My feet moved before my brain could, carrying me in the opposite direction, fast enough that the edges of my vision blurred.
By the time I reached the end of the corridor, my chest was burning. I pushed through the nearest door without looking, into an empty study room. The lights were dim, the air still, and the moment the door clicked shut behind me, the world tilted.
A sob tore out of my throat before I could stop it. Then another. I pressed my back against the wall and slid down until I hit the floor, my knees pulled tight to my chest. The words wouldn’t stop replaying. Clingy. Desperate. Pathetic. Each one landed like a stone thrown straight into my ribs.
I wanted to unhear it, to pretend he hadn’t said it, but the sound of his voice was everywhere—inside me, around me, filling the room until it felt like it was breaking me open from the inside out.
My hands were shaking so hard I pressed them to my mouth just to quiet the sound of my crying. The tears came faster anyway, hot and endless, dripping down my chin.
I’d known he didn’t see me. It had happened a thousand times. But hearing him say it, hearing the disgust in his voice…it felt like being gutted.
And the worst part was…
I agreed with him.
I don’t know how long I stayed there. Minutes.
Hours. Long enough for my tears to dry and my body to ache from the way I’d curled into myself on the cold tile.
My throat was raw, my face sticky, and I felt hollow—like someone had scooped out everything inside me and left only the echo of his voice behind.
Eventually, I forced myself to move. My limbs were heavy and uncooperative, like they didn’t want to belong to me anymore.
I pushed myself off the floor and stumbled toward the door, wiping at my face with trembling hands.
The hallway outside was quiet now and mercifully empty.
I kept my head down as I walked, one foot in front of the other, like maybe if I didn’t look up, no one would see how broken I was.
By the time I reached my dorm, my legs felt like they were made of glass. The key slipped in my shaking hand as I unlocked the door. The quiet hit me like a slap.
I lived alone. I’d made sure that I wouldn’t be assigned a roommate. I couldn’t risk anyone walking in and seeing the wall—the one that had become my secret, my shame, my shrine.
Posters. Printouts. Photos I’d taken from my phone, from the university website, from news articles. Notes I’d written after every game, every quote I’d memorized that he’d said. It covered the whole wall, stretching from the floor to the ceiling like a living thing made entirely of him.
And pinned near the center was the thing I was most ashamed of—a baseball cap with the Tigers logo stitched across the front.
I’d taken it months ago after one of his interviews, when he’d set it down on a bench outside the locker room.
It wasn’t planned. I’d just seen it sitting there, his name still Sharpied on the inside brim, and before I could think, it was in my bag.
I’d told myself it didn’t count as stealing if he didn’t notice.
Now, as it stared back at me from the middle of the wall, the realization hit hard. The cap wasn’t some token of connection. It was evidence. Proof that I was doing it again.
My breath hitched as the memory surfaced—Nico’s hoodie, the one that had gotten me sent away to begin with, the one my mother had thrown away in a fit of rage. This was the same thing. The same sickness. The same need to hold onto something that didn’t belong to me.
I backed away from the wall, shaking my head. “No,” I whispered, the word barely audible. But the truth was already there, raw and undeniable.
I hadn’t changed. I’d just found someone new to break myself over.
I stared at the pictures, my chest tightening until I couldn’t breathe. His smile stared back at me from a dozen angles. His arms raised in victory. His eyes, always looking past me, never at me.
Something inside me cracked.
A sound tore from my throat, half sob, half scream, and I launched myself at the wall.
My hands hit first, then my fists. I ripped at the photos, shredded them, tore the edges of the paper until my fingertips burned.
I yanked down everything I could reach, the tape snapping, the glossy pages crumpling in my fists.
“Stop,” I gasped out, though I didn’t even know who I was talking to. Him. Myself. Both.
Pictures fluttered to the floor, scattering around me like broken glass. I sank to my knees in the middle of them, surrounded by pieces of him I couldn’t seem to let go of, my chest heaving as I whispered his name again and again until it stopped sounding like a person at all.
My gaze landed on the journal half hidden beneath a pile of torn notes.
I knew which one it was before I even reached for it—the one with the bent spine and the ink that had long since bled through the pages.
I’d written in it for months. Letters to him.
Fantasies. My name paired with his. Mrs. Adler.
Over and over and over until the words had stopped looking strange and had started to feel like something that could be real.
I flipped through a few pages, my breath hitching as I read lines I didn’t remember writing. He smiled at me today. He doesn’t know it yet, but we’re meant to be. The handwriting blurred through my tears. The sound that left me this time wasn’t a scream…it was smaller, broken.
Then I tore it.
Page after page. Rip after rip. Until the air was full of shredded paper, and my hands were raw. The notebook fell apart in my lap, the pieces raining down around me like ashes.
I told myself I was done. That it was over. That I could let go.
But then I saw it, a picture lying facedown near my foot. I picked it up with shaking fingers, and flipped it over. It was him, mid-game, helmet in hand, that grin splitting his face wide open. He looked so alive. Untouchable. The kind of person the world revolved around.
I gripped the photo at the edges, ready to tear it in two. My hands wouldn’t move. They just shook harder, the glossy paper bending but not breaking. I tried again, but my fingers wouldn’t obey.
And then I crumpled.
I fell forward, the picture clutched to my chest, sobs ripping through me until my whole body shook. I pressed my forehead to the floor, surrounded by the wreckage of everything I’d built, and I finally understood…this wasn’t love. It was sickness. It had always been sickness.
And no matter how hard I tried, I didn’t know how to make it stop.
The knock of my heartbeat filled my ears long after the crying stopped.
I didn’t remember crawling into bed, only the dull ache in my hands and the torn scraps of paper stuck to my skin.
My pillow was damp, my throat raw. I stared at the ceiling until the world blurred and went soft around the edges, until exhaustion finally pulled me under.
When I woke again, the room was dark. My phone buzzed on the nightstand, dragging me up from sleep that felt more like sinking. I blinked at the screen until the name came into focus.
Mom.
I swallowed, my tongue heavy. “Hey,” I croaked in a sandpaper-thin voice as I answered the call.
“Ophelia,” she said, her tone sharp with irritation. “Do you have any idea what time it is? Dr. Whitaker’s office called me. You missed your session this afternoon.”
My gaze shifted to the clock. 6:37 p.m. For a second, I couldn’t process the numbers. Then it hit all at once. Afternoon. Appointment. Hours gone. “What?”
“They said you didn’t answer your phone. Are you trying to get yourself put on an observation report?”
My throat went tight. “No, I—I took a nap…and I must’ve overslept.”
“You overslept an entire afternoon?” she snapped. “Do you understand how that looks? Dr. Whitaker has to keep progress documentation for your program. If the university thinks you’re backsliding, they could pull your independent status. You’ll have to come home, Ophelia. You know this.”
Her words hit harder than I wanted them to, mostly because they weren’t empty threats.
After I got into Tennessee, my mother had tried to have my acceptance withdrawn.
She’d called the university herself, told them I was unstable, that I’d been hospitalized, that I wasn’t ready to live on my own.
They hadn’t revoked my offer, but the school had made it clear.
I was allowed to stay under supervision, with mandatory therapy and progress reports filed through Dr. Whitaker every month.
If those reports ever hinted that I was slipping, I’d lose my “independent status.” Which meant my mother would get exactly what she wanted—me back under her roof, back where she could watch me.
The idea made my stomach twist. I couldn’t go home.
Her words blurred in my head as the panic started to creep in. My eyes darted toward the window, where the sky was bruised orange with sunset, and that’s when I realized what else I’d missed.
Practice.
Matty’s practice.
The thought sliced through me like glass. I’d never missed one before. Not once. Every day I’d been there in that parking lot.
And today I’d missed it.
“Ophelia,” my mom said sharply, dragging me back. “Are you listening to me?”
“Yeah,” I whispered. My chest ached. “I’m listening.”
“You need to take this seriously. You’re lucky they even approved your enrollment after you lied. You can’t afford to mess up.”
Her voice kept going, a steady stream of warnings and frustration, but I barely heard any of it. My body felt too heavy, my head thick and slow. I pressed the phone tighter to my ear, tears sliding silently down my cheeks.
“I know,” I said when she finally paused for breath. “I’ll do better.”
“You need to,” she said flatly. “This is all up to you not to mess it up like you have everything else in your life. Do you understand me?”
“I understand.”
The words scraped out of me, quiet and automatic, the way they always did when she spoke to me like that.
Agree, appease, survive. My chest felt tight, but I didn’t let her hear it in my voice.
I just stared at the dark space where my shrine used to be, the torn tape still clinging to the paint like scars.
She hung up a second later, leaving nothing but silence. I sat there, my phone still pressed against my ear and her words echoing in my head. Like you have everything else in your life.
The room got dark, the silence pressing down on me until it felt like the air itself was heavy. I lowered my arm, and my phone screen dimmed and went black, leaving only my reflection staring back—puffy eyes, red nose, the faint imprint of my pillow still on my cheek.
I tried to push aside what my mother had said by reminding myself that missing practice was good.
It meant I was breaking the pattern. I’d done the unthinkable—I’d missed him.
For the first time since I’d set foot on this campus, I hadn’t watched him walk out on that field.
I hadn’t memorized every movement, every smile, every pass.
Maybe that was progress.
Maybe it meant I could change.
I drew my knees to my chest, resting my chin on top. The room felt bigger now, emptier, like even the shadows were keeping their distance. I tried to focus on my breathing. In. Out. In. Out. I could do this.
I didn’t need him to exist. I could stop.
Tomorrow, I’d get up early. I’d go to class. I’d answer Dr. Whitaker’s call and tell her what she wanted to hear. I’d eat breakfast in the cafeteria instead of in my car. I’d sit in the quad with a book that I’d actually read.
I’d start living for myself.
The words felt fragile, almost laughable, but I held on to them anyway. Because I couldn’t give my mother the satisfaction of being right. I wouldn’t let her drag me home and lock me back behind those whitewashed walls that still smelled like lemon and pity.
I wouldn’t give her a chance to make good on her threats.
I’d be better. I’d get better.
I whispered it to myself, over and over, until the words lost meaning and became something else—a vow, a prayer, a plea.
But when I finally closed my eyes, all I could see was the field.
And him.