Chapter 5
Ihave a ritual before every game. I stand alone at the center of the field and breathe.
It sounds stupid when you say it out loud.
Soft. Like something a yoga instructor would tell you while waving incense around.
But if you’ve never had your chest lock up for no reason—never had that low electrical buzz of something wrong humming under your ribs every second of the day—you don’t get an opinion.
I learned a long time ago the only way to keep the thing inside me from taking the wheel is to give it a job.
Before games, the job is breathing. During games, the job is violence.
Sanctioned violence. Structured violence. Violence with rules and whistles and referees pretending they’re in control. Lacrosse is the only place where what lives in my chest is considered a fucking asset.
The field is empty at six in the morning.
Dew coats the grass, soaking through the knees of my sweats when I kneel to stretch. The goalposts throw long shadows across the turf and the sky is still that pale early-morning blue that looks like the world hasn’t fully decided whether it’s waking up yet.
September in New England smells like cut grass, cold air, and wood smoke. Underneath it there’s always something metallic. Like the season already knows winter’s coming.
I stand in the middle of the field. Stick in my hand. I inhale slowly.
Four seconds in. Four seconds out. Again. And again.
I clear my head until there’s nothing left in it. No Catherine O’Farrell. No Pennington. No conversation with my parents last night that made me want to put my fist through the dining room wall. Just breath.
Footsteps crunch across the turf behind me. I don’t turn around because I know that walk. Xander stops beside me. He doesn’t say anything. Just stands there, shoulders loose, hands shoved into the pockets of his hoodie, watching the sun climb over the bleachers.
He’s the only one who knows about this ritual. Which means he’s the only one who knows why I need it. We’ve never talked about it. That’s not how we operate.
X and I communicate in silences and proximity. In the kind of understanding that comes from growing up a little too fast and learning early that some things are better left unspoken.
After a minute he nudges my shoulder with his. “You done pretending to be a monk?”
“Fuck off.”
He grins. “You look very zen out here.”
“I’m imagining ways to legally hit people with a stick.”
“Ah. There’s my boy.”
He stretches his arms over his head and cracks his neck. “Ready?”
“Always.”
We walk down to the locker room. Iz, Ryan, and Danny are already there.
Danny’s sprawled across a bench with earbuds in, eyes closed, mouthing lyrics to something loud and angry.
Ryan sits on the floor taping the head of his stick with the focus of a neurosurgeon.
Iz is leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, staring at the concrete floor.
I know that look.
I tap his shin with the end of my stick. “Talk.”
He looks up. His eyes move across the room—checking who’s listening. “Pennington grabbed Cat again yesterday,” he says.
Danny pulls out one earbud immediately. “Again?”
“In class,” Iz says. “In front of people.”
The locker room quiets. Not disinterest. Calculation.
“She was making plans with Penny,” Iz continues, “and he clamped down on her arm like she was a fucking dog that wandered off the leash.”
Ryan stops taping. “Second time?”
“Third that I’ve seen.”
Something cold slides into place behind my ribs. The breathing ritual I did twenty minutes ago dissolves instantly. Violence gets a new target.
I lean back against the locker behind me. “Details.”
Iz studies me for a second before answering. “I removed his hand,” he says. “Politely.”
Xander snorts. “Your version of polite scares people.”
“Good,” Iz says.
He looks back at me. “He backed down. But it’s escalating. And she’s not going to ask for help.”
“That tracks,” Danny mutters.
“She’s the kind of person,” Iz continues carefully, “who thinks needing help equals weakness.”
Yeah. I’ve noticed. Catherine O’Farrell would rather set herself on fire than let someone see her burn.
My jaw tightens.
“I know you’ve got your whole… thing with her, Kaid,” Iz says slowly. “But this is different.”
“What thing?”
“You know exactly what thing.”
Xander laughs quietly. “Oh we’re acknowledging it now? Good. Because it’s getting embarrassing.”
“Shut the fuck up,” I say.
Iz ignores him. “Nobody should be putting hands on her like that,” he says. “She’s got enough shit going on.”
I glance at him. “What does that mean?”
He holds my gaze for a beat. “It means I’ve seen things.”
That’s all he says. But Iz doesn’t say shit lightly. Something in my chest shifts again. Not anger this time. Something darker.
Territorial.
“I’m asking you to be careful,” he adds.
I huff a laugh. “Careful.”
Xander chokes on a grin. “Wrong word, Iz.”
I look back at him. “I don’t do careful.”
“I know,” Iz says. “But try not to make things worse for her.”
I consider that for a second. Then I nod. Not because I plan to behave. Because Iz doesn’t ask for things unless they matter.
“We’ll keep an eye on her,” I say.
Danny cracks his knuckles. “Pennington’s been on borrowed time since sophomore year anyway.”
Ryan finally speaks. “If he puts hands on her again, he’s done.”
“Relax,” I say. My voice is calm. Too calm. “I’ll handle Pennington.”
Xander grins. “That sounds ominous.”
“It’s meant to.”
The rest of the team starts trickling into the locker room. Noise fills the space—metal lockers slamming, gear bags dropping to the floor, someone blasting music from a phone speaker.
Coach storms in five minutes later with his clipboard and his usual game-day intensity. “Alright ladies, listen up—”
Groans echo around the room.
“If you spent half as much time practicing as you do whining,” he snaps, “we’d win nationals.”
We run through formations. Defensive assignments. Face-off strategies. My brain absorbs all of it automatically. Because the routine is the point.
The ritual. The armor.
I pull my jersey over my head. Lace my cleats tight. Tape my wrists. Helmet. Gloves. By the time I finish gearing up, the version of me that stood quietly breathing in the middle of the field this morning is gone.
The version that walks out of this locker room is someone else. Someone faster. Meaner. Someone who hits hard enough that the sound echoes across the entire fucking stadium. And tonight, if Jonathan Pennington is anywhere near the stands—
God help him if he gives me a reason. Because right now I’ve got a lot of energy looking for somewhere to go.
The stands are packed.
Edgewood Prep treats lacrosse the way most schools treat football—like it’s sacred. Face paint. School banners. Parents in expensive coats pretending they understand the rules. Freshmen screaming like we’re gods instead of a bunch of idiots with sticks.
When we run onto the field the crowd explodes. The sound hits me in the chest like a physical force.
I let it.
Noise fills the empty spaces inside my head in a way silence never can. For a minute, the buzzing under my ribs shuts the fuck up. Helmet in hand, I scan the bleachers the way I scan every room.
Left to right. Systematic. I find her in under three seconds. Of course I do. Catherine O’Farrell is sitting near the top row beside Penny.
She’s traded the uniform for black skinny jeans tucked into a pair of black leather boots that hit mid-calf.
A charcoal sweater hugs her frame, half-hidden under a worn black leather jacket that looks like it’s seen actual life outside of this pristine campus.
Her hair is down, loose waves catching in the cold breeze.
A dark red scarf wraps once around her neck, the color almost identical to the strands of her hair.
She looks warm. Comfortable. Effortlessly put together in a way that should be illegal.
But she’s not wearing school colors. She’s not holding a sign.
She’s not cheering. She’s sitting with her arms folded across her chest, chin slightly lifted, watching the field like this whole thing is some weird anthropological experiment she agreed to observe.
She looks like she wandered into the wrong movie.
Everyone around her is loud and painted and vibrating with school spirit. Catherine O’Farrell looks like a storm cloud dropped into a pep rally.
Xander shoulders into me. “Eyes on the field, Romeo.”
“I’m scanning the field.”
“The field is the other fucking direction.”
I flip him off without looking away from the stands. Penny is on her feet already, yelling something in Cat’s ear. Cat doesn’t move. But her eyes are locked on the field. On us.
On me.
I hate that I notice that. I hate that it matters.
“Jesus Christ,” Xander mutters. “You’re doing the thing again.”
“What thing.”
“The obsessive staring thing.”
“I’m not staring.”
“You’ve been staring for fifteen seconds.”
“Fuck off.”
He grins. “Oh this is going to be fun.”
We jog toward the bench as the ref calls the teams to the field. But now there’s a new current humming under my skin. Awareness. Sharp and irritating.
Because she came.
Despite the refusal. Despite the attitude. Despite acting like the whole sport is beneath her. Catherine O’Farrell is sitting in the stands at my game. And she sure as hell didn’t come for the sport.
The ref sets the ball. Pleasant Hill’s midfielder crouches across from me. Big kid. Probably forty pounds heavier. Dead-eyed.
Doesn’t matter.
The whistle blows. Everything else disappears. The field narrows into angles and movement and instinct. Stick down. Clamp. Twist.
The ball pops loose and I’m already moving before my brain catches up with my body. I break through the midfield check and drive forward. One defender closes from the right. Another from behind.