Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
Stella- Somehwere in late October
I know I’m being summoned before Coach even says my name.
There’s a certain look assistants get when they’re sent to fetch you. A mix of urgency and pity, like they’ve been told not to smile. That’s the face Heather gives me from the doorway of the locker room, still holding her clipboard against her chest.
“Coach wants to see you.”
A few of the girls glance up.
I keep my expression blank, like I’m not immediately replaying every missed pass, every sluggish pivot, every second I was half a beat off at practice.
“Now?” I ask, tugging the elastic out of my ponytail and redoing it tighter.
Heather gives me a look. “No, next Tuesday.”
I glare at her.
She shrugs. “Yes, now.”
Great.
I peel the athletic tape off my wrist as I walk down the hall, wincing when it takes a few arm hairs with it.
My shoulder aches. My left knee’s been barking at me for a week.
There’s still a strip of tape wrapped around two fingers on my right hand because apparently my body has decided to start collecting minor injuries like souvenirs.
Normal.
Fine.
Whatever.
This is what happens when playoffs are coming and everyone suddenly gets religion about effort.
Coach’s office door is cracked. I knock once.
“Come in.”
Her office always smells like dry-erase marker and coffee that’s been sitting too long on a burner. Film notes are spread across her desk. The whiteboard behind her is covered in rotations, defensive sets, and a to-do list that somehow makes me feel guilty just looking at it.
She gestures to the chair in front of her desk.
I sit.
That’s when I know this isn’t about a missed rotation.
If it were, she’d keep standing and rip me apart in ninety seconds or less.
Instead, Coach leans back in her chair and studies me for a second too long.
I hate that.
“What?” I say, because apparently I’d rather be rude than nervous.
One side of her mouth twitches. “You always this charming after practice?”
“Only when I think I’m about to get yelled at.”
“If I was going to yell at you, Cortez, you’d know.”
Fair.
I wait.
She folds her hands on top of the desk. “You need rest.”
I blink.
That is not what I expected.
“I’m sorry?”
“You heard me.” She tips her head. “You’ve been grinding too hard.”
My first instinct is to laugh, because what does that even mean? Grinding too hard is the whole point. Grinding too hard is basically my brand.
Instead I say, carefully, “We’re heading into playoffs.”
“Yes,” she says, like I’m slow. “I’m aware. I’m the one building the playoff rotation.”
I clamp my mouth shut.
She keeps going. “You’ve been trying to prove something to everybody. The team. The staff. Me. Probably yourself more than anybody.”
Heat creeps up the back of my neck.
“That’s not—”
She lifts a hand and I stop.
“Don’t waste both our time lying to me.” Her eyes narrow, not mean exactly, but sharp enough to pin me in place. “You think I don’t see it? The extra reps. The early lifts. The cardio after practice. The tape on half your body like you’re holding yourself together with adhesive and spite.”
I look down at my wrist.
One stubborn strip of white tape is still stuck to my skin.
I hadn’t even noticed.
Coach sighs, and some of the edge leaves her voice. “I want a player, Stella. Not a robot.”
That lands harder than I want it to.
Because the truth is, I don’t really know the difference anymore.
This is what I do.
This is how I stay ahead. How I stay useful. How I make sure nobody can say I don’t belong here, don’t deserve the minutes, the spot, the scholarship, the shot.
If I’m not working, then what am I doing?
Falling behind, probably.
I swallow. “I’m fine.”
Coach actually laughs at that. Just once, short and unimpressed.
“No, you’re functional. That’s not the same thing.”
I stare at her.
She leans forward now, elbows on the desk. “Burning yourself into the floor right before playoffs is not my idea of leadership, and it sure as hell isn’t my idea of smart.”
My jaw tightens. “So what, I’m getting benched for working too hard?”
“Don’t be dramatic.”
“I’m not being dramatic.”
“You’re being exactly dramatic enough to annoy me.”
I cross my arms.
She points at me. “That. Right there. That stubborn little death stare? That’s how I know I’m right.”
I exhale through my nose and look away, to the whiteboard, to the scouting reports, to literally anything that isn’t her seeing through me with horrifying accuracy.
Then she says, quieter, “Take three days off.”
I snap my head back. “What?”
“You heard that part, too.”
“No cardio,” she says, ticking it off on her fingers.
“No weights. No practice. Eat. Sleep. Go to goat yoga for all I care. I don’t want to see you around here until the sparkle is back in your eye and there’s no adhesive stuck to your skin from all the athletic tape you keep wrapping around various body parts. ”
For a second I just stare at her.
Because surely she’s kidding.
Three days?
Three whole days doing nothing?
That sounds fake. Like a punishment disguised as self-care.
“That’s insane,” I say.
“What’s insane is watching you drag yourself around like a haunted Victorian child and calling it discipline.”
Despite myself, I huff out a laugh.
Coach points at me again. “See? There she is. That’s the face I’m talking about. Lately you’ve looked like somebody stole your dog.”
“I don’t have a dog.”
“Not the point.”
I shake my head. “Coach, I can’t just do nothing for three days.”
“Yes, you can.”
“No, I really can’t.”
“You really can, because I’m telling you to.”
I open my mouth.
She raises one eyebrow.
I close it.
There’s a beat of silence.
Then I try one last time. “This is what I do.”
Her expression shifts. Not softer exactly, but steadier.
“I know,” she says. “That’s why I’m stopping you.”
That one gets me.
Because it’s not annoyance in her voice. It’s not even frustration.
It’s concern.
Which is honestly worse.
I look down at my hands. There’s faint residue from tape glue on my fingers.
My knees ache. My shoulders feel like somebody replaced the joints with gravel.
I can’t remember the last night I slept all the way through without waking up thinking about practice film or matchups or whether Coach regretted putting me in.
Maybe I do look a little fried.
Still.
Three days.
My stomach twists.
Coach leans back again, decision clearly made. “You want to help this team?”
“Obviously.”
“Then show up to playoffs with legs under you and a brain that doesn’t look like it’s buffering.”
I mutter, “That was one time.”
“It was three times this week.”
Rude.
She reaches for her coffee, grimaces after tasting it, and sets it back down. “Go home, Cortez.”
I don’t move.
“Now.”
I stand slowly, like maybe if I take long enough she’ll change her mind.
She doesn’t.
At the door, I glance back. “Three days?”
“Three.”
“No workouts at all?”
“Not unless you’re being chased by a dog named, Kujo.”
I grimace.
She gives me a look. “Eat actual food. Sleep more than four hours. Go sit in the sun. Read a book. Flirt with a disaster. I don’t care. Just don’t come back in here acting like overtraining is a personality trait.”
I pull the door open, still feeling vaguely like I’ve been hit by a truck.
“Yes, Coach.”
“And Stella?”
I turn.
Her voice softens just a little. “I know why you’re here.”
That knocks the breath out of me more than any sprint ever has.
“You don’t have to prove it every second of every day.”
I don’t trust myself to answer that, so I just nod once and step out into the hall.
The door shuts behind me.
For a long second, I just stand there.
Three days off.
No practice. No gym. No cardio.
I feel weirdly untethered, like someone took away the one thing that keeps all the moving parts in me lined up right.
Then I look down at the tape still stuck to my wrist, peel it off slowly, and think:
Maybe Coach isn’t wrong.
Which is deeply annoying.
I don’t remember opening the Uber door.
Or getting in.
Or typing the address.
But suddenly I’m in the backseat, my gym bag at my feet, my laptop digging into my thigh, and the campus is shrinking behind me like it’s something I can outrun.
“North Fair Oaks?” the driver asks, glancing at me in the rearview.
“Yeah,” I say.
My voice sounds flat.
Like it belongs to someone else.
The car smells like pine air freshener and stale coffee.
Outside, Palo Alto slips past in clean lines—glass buildings, cyclists, perfectly trimmed hedges, people who look like they belong exactly where they are.
I press my forehead lightly against the window.
Cool glass.
Grounding.
Not enough.
I should be studying.
Should be reviewing film.
Should be in the gym.
Should be doing anything except this—
whatever this is. But Coach was adamant that I’m burning myself out. And she’s probably right.
Because all I can hear—
over and over—is Isa’s voice behind that curtain.
“The second his name hit the portal…”
“My mom said lock it in…”
“I do like him.”
My jaw tightens. It’s been weeks and yet, T & T is all I can think about. Especially when it’s in my face everywhere I go.
I close my eyes.
It doesn’t help. I thought I could block it all out. Ice out my feelings pretend I don’t care by locking in harder. Instead—I got politely kicked out of the field house for three days.
The driver turns onto a narrower street.
The buildings change.
Less polished.
More lived in.
Murals on brick walls. Hand-painted signs. A corner store with bars on the windows and bright posters taped crooked in the glass.
The air feels different here.
Warmer.
Messier.
Real.
“We’re here,” he says.
I blink.
Look up.
And there it is.
A small restaurant tucked between a laundromat and a tire shop.
The sign is slightly faded.
Paint chipped at the edges.
But the windows glow warm.
Golden.
Alive.
I grab my bag, my laptop, step out.
The heat hits me first.
Then the smell.
God.
Grilled meat.
Garlic.
Onions sizzling on a flat top.