Chapter 9 — Away Schedule, Close Quarters
The bus smelled like energy drinks, damp gear, and the kind of cologne that tried too hard.
Someone had a speaker going in the back. Someone else was arguing about playlists. A defender shouted over the aisle about a missed call from practice like it was a personal betrayal.
It was loud in the way teams got loud when they were nervous.
Sabrina Yu climbed the steps with her clipboard tucked tight to her side and her face set to professional neutral.
Support staff, the email had said.
Not therapist. Not counselor. Not anything that sounded emotional.
Support staff.
It was a label that let athletics pretend this wasn’t about fear.
Sabrina took a seat near the front, two rows behind Coach Price. A safe spot. A quiet spot.
She opened her notes and pretended she couldn’t hear the chatter.
Max Delgado got on last.
Of course he did.
He wore his headphones around his neck instead of on his ears, like he didn’t want to block anything out. He scanned the aisle once, eyes sharp, posture tight.
Then his gaze landed—briefly—on Sabrina.
He didn’t acknowledge her. He didn’t smile. He didn’t nod.
He just walked.
The bus was already packed. The open seats were scattered.
Max moved down the aisle, passed two empty spots like they were traps, and dropped into a seat across from Sabrina like it was the only place left.
It wasn’t.
Sabrina registered it anyway.
Gravity, she thought.
Or habit.
Max shoved his bag under the seat in front of him and leaned back, arms crossed, knees angled out like he needed space even when there wasn’t any.
Sabrina kept her eyes on her notes.
She didn’t move. She didn’t shift. She didn’t make it a moment.
Because moments were how rumors got fed.
The bus lurched forward.
The noise rose.
A teammate leaned over the aisle and yelled something at Max about “not getting suspended this time,” laughing like it was harmless.
Max didn’t laugh.
His jaw tightened. His shoulders went still.
Sabrina didn’t look up. She wrote one line on her pad anyway.
Crowd = trigger. Teammates = trigger. Confinement = trigger.
A few rows back, someone started a card game on a seatback tray. Someone shouted about snacks.
Max’s knee bounced in short, hard bursts.
Sabrina kept her body calm on purpose—still, grounded, unreactive.
The bus hit a bump.
Max’s elbow bumped the armrest.
His hand brushed the edge of Sabrina’s clipboard.
It was nothing. An accident. Physics.
Sabrina’s spine still went alert.
Max’s eyes flicked down.
He pulled his hand back like he’d touched a hot surface.
“Move your stuff,” he muttered, not looking at her.
Sabrina didn’t bite.
She shifted her clipboard an inch toward her lap. “Done.”
Max’s gaze stayed forward.
Sabrina went back to her notes.
Five minutes passed.
Then ten.
Then twenty.
Every time the bus slowed, every time the aisle got crowded, every time a teammate leaned in or shouted near Max’s seat, he tensed.
And every time, his eyes drifted toward Sabrina—like her steadiness was a reference point he didn’t want to admit he used.
He kept ending up near her, even when he didn’t mean to.
At a rest stop, he got off the bus and somehow stood in the same cluster by the vending machines.
At the gas station entrance, he waited behind her in line without choosing another register.
Back on the bus, when someone asked him to switch seats so two friends could sit together, Max stood, scanned the aisle, and dropped right back into the same spot across from her.
Sabrina felt it like pressure.
Not romantic.
Not soft.
Just… proximity that carried risk.
Because the closer people stood, the more other people decided what it meant.
A player in the aisle smirked and called, “Delgado got a handler now?”
Laughter popped.
Max’s eyes flashed.
Sabrina didn’t flinch. She didn’t correct it. She didn’t defend herself.
She just looked up, calm, and said lightly, “He’s allowed to sit where he fits.”
Max’s jaw worked.
He looked away like her voice had given him something he didn’t want.
The ride rolled on.
Sabrina kept choosing distance in the only ways she could—posture, silence, clean boundaries.
No leaning in.
No private jokes.
No soft moments.
Because the bus wasn’t a safe place to be human.
It was a rumor factory on wheels.
And Sabrina had learned the hard way that people didn’t need proof.
They just needed a story.