Chapter 3 — Old Rival, New Job
Max Delgado didn’t plan to be early.
He didn’t plan to do anything that made it look like he cared.
But he’d shown up ten minutes before his check-in anyway, hood up, hands in his pockets, moving through the athletics building like he was trying not to touch anything.
The performance hallway was quiet in the way hospitals were quiet—too clean, too bright, too controlled.
Max hated it.
He turned the corner toward the office doors and stopped.
Because Sabrina Yu was already there.
Not in the office.
In the hallway.
Standing near the glass, clipboard tucked against her side, hair pulled back, posture steady. Like she’d been born for fluorescent lighting and rules.
She looked up.
Their eyes hit.
It wasn’t a spark.
It was a slam.
Like a door closing hard.
Max felt it in his chest before his brain caught up.
Not her.
Not here.
His mind flashed backward without permission.
Heat. Sun. Cheap turf that burned your skin if you slid wrong.
Elite summer academy. Two-a-days. Coaches barking. Kids who’d been told they were special since they were eight.
Max at sixteen, fast and furious, living on adrenaline and ego.
Sabrina at sixteen, calm and sharp, the kind of player who saw the whole field and didn’t need to scream to make people listen.
They’d clashed on day three.
Max had taken a risk in a scrimmage—slid through a challenge, popped up, and celebrated like he’d saved the world.
Sabrina had stared at him like he was a child with matches.
“That’s reckless,” she’d said, loud enough for the whole line of players to hear. “You’re going to get yourself hurt or get someone else hurt.”
Max had laughed right in her face.
“Relax,” he’d said. “Not everything has to be a TED Talk.”
Sabrina’s eyes had narrowed.
“You treat teamwork like a joke,” she’d said. “You treat control like it’s weakness.”
Max had stepped closer, still smiling, still cocky.
“And you treat ‘soft skills’ like they win games,” he’d shot back. “They don’t.”
Sabrina hadn’t moved an inch.
“They keep you on the field,” she’d said. “That’s the point.”
Max had hated her for that sentence.
Because part of him had believed it.
Now, years later, he stood in a different hallway, with a different kind of pressure, and she was still looking at him like she could see the part of him he didn’t want anyone to touch.
Sabrina’s expression didn’t change. Not warm. Not cold. Just steady.
“Max,” she said.
He didn’t answer right away.
His body went tight, like it remembered the academy as if it were yesterday.
He took two steps forward and stopped at a safe distance.
“You,” he said, like it was an accusation.
Sabrina nodded once. “Me.”
Max’s laugh came out short and humorless. “Of course.”
Sabrina didn’t take the bait. “Coach Ramirez said you’d be here at two.”
Max glanced at the clock on the wall. 1:58.
He hated that she’d noticed. He hated more that he’d noticed too.
He tilted his chin. “So this is what you do now. You work here.”
Sabrina’s gaze stayed on his face. “This is my grad placement.”
Max scoffed. “Congratulations.”
Sabrina didn’t react. “Are you ready to start?”
Max’s jaw flexed. “You mean are you ready to tell me to breathe.”
Sabrina’s eyes didn’t blink. “I mean are you ready to stay on the field.”
The words landed harder than he expected.
Max felt something shift under his ribs—anger, yes, but also that other thing he didn’t like naming.
Fear.
He leaned in just enough to test her.
“You can’t fix me,” he said, flat.
Sabrina held his gaze like she’d trained for it. “I’m not here to fix you.”
Max’s eyes narrowed. “Then what are you here for.”
Sabrina’s voice stayed calm. “I’m here to keep you on the field.”
Silence stretched between them.
Max waited for her to soften. To apologize. To explain.
She didn’t.
She just stood there, steady as a line painted on turf.
It made Max want to push harder.
It also made him want to stop pushing entirely, like his body recognized something safe and didn’t know what to do with it.
Sabrina opened the office door and stepped aside. “Come in.”
Max hesitated.
Not because he was scared.
Because walking into that room meant agreeing this was real.
It meant admitting he needed something.
Max hated needing.
He walked in anyway.
The room looked exactly like it had yesterday: two chairs, tissues on the side table, a desk that didn’t feel like a desk because it was too small to hide behind.
Max sat fast. He didn’t take his jacket off.
Sabrina sat across from him and placed her clipboard on her lap.
She didn’t ask about the incident first.
She didn’t ask how he felt.
She pointed at him like she was marking a starting position.
“Tell me your warning signs,” she said.
Max stared at her. “What.”
“Your pattern,” Sabrina clarified. “Yesterday you said loud, hot, fast.”
Max’s mouth curled. “So we’re doing this now.”
Sabrina nodded. “Yes.”
Max leaned back. “My warning sign is people being idiots.”
Sabrina didn’t smile. “That’s your trigger. Not your warning.”
Max’s eyes narrowed. “Same thing.”
Sabrina’s voice stayed even. “No.”
Max wanted to laugh again. He wanted to argue just to hear his own voice. He wanted to make her slip.
He couldn’t.
Because she was right, and it annoyed him.
He exhaled sharply. “Fine.”
Sabrina waited.
Max looked away, then back. “My chest gets tight.”
Sabrina wrote it down.
Max continued, like ripping a bandage off. “My ears ring. My hands go numb. Like I need to move.”
Sabrina wrote again. “Tight chest. Ringing. Numb hands. Urge to move.”
Max stared at her pen. “You writing this down makes it feel… stupid.”
Sabrina looked up. “Writing it down makes it trackable.”
Max’s jaw tightened. “I don’t want to be trackable.”
Sabrina’s tone stayed calm. “Then you’ll stay predictable.”
Max froze.
He hated that word.
Predictable had cost Drew Salazar an inning in Book 3. Predictable was what people called you when they decided they’d already seen your whole story.
Max’s voice came out lower. “I’m not predictable.”
Sabrina nodded once. “Then prove it.”
Max stared at her.
Something in his chest shifted again.
Not anger.
Challenge.
Sabrina flipped to a clean page and wrote three words in big letters:
NAME IT.GROUND IT.CHOOSE IT.
She slid the clipboard slightly so he could see.
Max stared at it like it was a joke someone had written for a freshman.
Sabrina didn’t apologize for it. “That’s your sequence.”
Max scoffed. “Name it. Like I’m a toddler.”
Sabrina’s eyes stayed steady. “Name it like you’re a person who wants control.”
Max’s mouth shut.
He didn’t like her.
He didn’t like that she didn’t flinch.
He didn’t like that part of him respected it.
Sabrina continued, “We’ll build a sideline script tomorrow. For now, I want you to practice step one.”
Max frowned. “Practice where.”
Sabrina didn’t hesitate. “In your life.”
Max let out a short laugh. “My life is soccer.”
Sabrina’s gaze didn’t move. “Good. Then you’ll get plenty of reps.”
Max stared at her for a long beat.
He couldn’t find the crack.
He stood abruptly, like sitting still was too much. “This is stupid.”
Sabrina didn’t argue. “Maybe.”
Max blinked. He hadn’t expected that.
Sabrina added, “But it’s still useful.”
Max’s jaw worked. “Same time tomorrow.”
Sabrina nodded once. “Same time tomorrow.”
Max grabbed his phone off his thigh and shoved it in his pocket like a weapon.
At the door, he paused.
He didn’t turn around.
He said, low, like it cost him something, “You always talk like you’re right.”
Sabrina’s voice came from behind him, calm and clean. “I talk like I’m steady.”
Max’s hand tightened on the door handle.
Then he walked out.
In the hallway, his phone buzzed before he hit the exit.
He didn’t have to check to know what it was.
But he checked anyway.
A new post on the campus gossip feed.
Delgado met with the ‘mind coach.’ He looked madder afterward.
Max stared at the words until his vision blurred at the edges.
Then he locked his phone, shoved it away, and kept moving.
Fast.
Hot.
Loud.
He felt the warning signs kick up like they were trying to run the show.
And for the first time, he caught himself thinking one clear thing.
Name it.