Beckett
The sky bled shades of bruised pink and gray over the training ground, the kind of evening that looked soft from a distance but felt like static up close. The floodlights hummed faintly above, half-hearted, like they weren’t sure the effort was worth it.
I lined up another shot; the ball cutting through the damp air, slamming into the net with a dull, hollow thud. Then another. Then another. Each strike a confession.
The rhythm was mindless, deliberate. I wasn’t chasing perfection; I was trying to burn something out of me. Guilt, anger, regret—take your pick. I wanted to sweat out the part of me that still thought about her voice when the world went still.
Each echo bounced through the empty stands and came back quieter, like even the field was tired of listening.
I bent down, rolled another ball forward with my foot, and stared at the goal.
You told the truth.
Another kick. A sharper thud this time.
You lost the noise.
Another.
You can live with that.
I told myself that with every breath, every swing of my leg. Like if I repeated it enough, I might start to believe it.
The ball smacked the back of the net and rolled to a stop. I stood there, chest heaving, lungs raw, rain-heavy air sticking to my skin. My heartbeat drowned out the rest of the world.
For a moment, it almost worked.
Almost.
The gate at the far end of the field creaked open.
I turned at the sound, already expecting Cam—ready for another lecture about optics or discipline or whatever new word they were using to mean damage control. Maybe Derek, forgetting something in the locker room. Maybe a reporter who slipped past security again.
But it wasn’t any of them.
It was Ellery.
She stepped through the open gate, rain still clinging to her hair in soft, dark strands, her coat half-buttoned like she’d left wherever she’d been in a hurry.
The floodlights painted a faint halo over her shoulders, and for a second, she didn’t look real—just something the night had conjured because I’d been stupid enough to want her back.
My chest tightened. Every thought I’d managed to bury in drills and sweat came rushing up again.
She stopped just inside the field, taking in the mess of stray balls around the net, the damp grass under her shoes, me standing there like I didn’t know whether to run or reach for her.
For a long beat, neither of us moved.
The silence pressed in—thick, alive. The hum of the lights, the soft patter of distant rain, the faint click of her heel as she shifted her weight.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I said finally, because it was the only thing that made it past my throat.
A ghost of a smile flickered across her lips. “You say that a lot.”
I almost laughed—almost—but it came out as a breath instead.
She started walking toward me, slow and certain, each step deliberate. The sound of her heels against the turf was softer than it should’ve been, but somehow louder than everything else.
I stood rooted in place, every muscle wound tight.
When she stopped a few feet away, the space between us felt electric—like if either of us spoke too loudly, the whole field would snap apart.
She looked up at me then, eyes steady, clear despite everything she must’ve gone through these past few days.
I didn’t know what I expected—anger, exhaustion, maybe even regret. But there was none of that. Just something quiet. Unflinching.
The kind of look that said she’d made up her mind about something, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what.
“Ellery…” I started, but her name felt foreign on my tongue, like saying it might shatter whatever was holding us both upright.
She tilted her head, the faintest curve at the corner of her mouth. “You don’t have to explain,” she said softly.
But that wasn’t what I’d been about to do. I didn’t even know what I wanted to say—only that every word in my head felt too small for the sight of her standing there in the rain, looking at me like she still saw the person underneath the headline.
The air between us was thick with everything we hadn’t said—everything we’d both lost trying to do the right thing.
And for the first time in weeks, the field didn’t feel empty anymore.
She stopped right in front of me, close enough that I could smell the rain on her hair, the faint trace of perfume that hadn’t faded even after the storm. Her voice came out quiet but steady—so calm it almost hurt.
“Thank you,” she said. “For what you said at the conference.”
I shook my head before I could stop myself. “You don’t need to thank me. It was my mess.”
She gave a small, disbelieving smile, the kind people use when they’re too tired to argue but do it, anyway. “It wasn’t just yours. And you didn’t have to protect me.”
I looked down, shoving my hands into my pockets, because if I met her eyes, I’d say something I couldn’t take back. “Yeah, I did,” I said quietly. “I’d do it again.”
That pulled a soft laugh out of her—half exhale, half disbelief. She shook her head, a drop of water falling from the edge of her hair to the grass between us. “You don’t make anything easy, you know that?”
I finally looked at her then, and for the first time since the world fell apart, she was smiling. Small, fragile, but real. It caught me completely off guard.
“Wasn’t trying to,” I said. “Just trying to make it right.”
She looked up at me for a long moment, her eyes searching my face like she was trying to decide whether to trust the words or the man saying them. The wind picked up a little, pushing a strand of hair across her cheek. I had to clench my fists to stop myself from brushing it away.
“Right,” she repeated softly, like she was testing how the word felt in her mouth. “You think that’s what this is? Right?”
I didn’t answer right away. My throat felt too tight for honesty, and lies were the one thing I couldn’t give her.
“I think it’s the first time it’s ever been close,” I said finally.
Her gaze softened then, the sharpness fading into something else—something that made my chest ache.
The floodlights buzzed overhead, flickering against the gray sky. I could hear the distant hum of traffic, the steady rhythm of rain against the bleachers, but none of it felt as loud as the space between us.
“I didn’t come here for an apology,” she said. “Or to fix what everyone thinks we broke.”
“I figured,” I murmured.
“I came because you didn’t have to stand there alone, and you did it anyway.”
She wasn’t thanking me this time. Not really. It was something quieter—an understanding.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Then she said, almost in a whisper, “You really would do it again, wouldn’t you?”
I didn’t hesitate. “Every time.”
Her lips parted, like she wanted to say something else, but the words didn’t come. The rain filled the silence instead, soft and steady, washing the last of the noise out of the air.
We ended up sitting on the edge of the field, where the grass faded into gravel and the floodlights cut long shadows across the ground.
The storm had passed, but everything still smelled like rain—wet earth, cold metal, the ghost of something clean.
The quiet between us wasn’t awkward this time. It just was.
She pulled her knees up, resting her chin on them, watching the last streaks of pink fade out of the sky. “Do you ever wish we’d done things differently?” she asked.
I looked out over the field. The nets hung limp; the goalposts gleaming under the dim light. “No,” I said. “I wish people hadn’t watched. But you and me? No.”
She glanced sideways at me, the corners of her mouth turning down, thoughtful. “You don’t feel guilty?”
“Every day,” I admitted, no hesitation. “But I don’t regret you.”
Her throat worked around a breath. The floodlights hummed, filling the silence I didn’t know how to fix.
“I spent so long being afraid of ruining things,” she said finally. “For Kyle, for the foundation, for everyone. But I’m not afraid anymore.”
Something about the way she said it—the quiet conviction, the exhaustion in her voice that had finally settled into peace—hit me hard.
I turned to her fully, elbows resting on my knees. The world around us blurred out until it was just her face, soft in the light, her hair still damp, eyes steady and clear.
“Good,” I said. “Because I don’t want to hide anymore.”
She exhaled, slow and trembling, like she’d been holding that breath for weeks. And maybe she had.
The words hung between us, fragile but certain, like something we both knew we couldn’t take back.
For a moment, it felt like the world had gone still again—the storm outside the gate, the headlines, the noise—they didn’t exist here. Just the two of us sitting on a patch of damp grass, trying to figure out what came next.
She leaned back on her palms, looking up at the lights. “You know, it’s funny,” she said quietly. “I thought the worst part of all this would be losing control. But it turns out, control’s overrated.”
I smiled faintly. “Yeah. Freedom’s messy that way.”
Her laugh was soft, tired, but it was real. And it did something good to my chest—something I hadn’t felt in too long.
We sat there for a while longer, neither of us saying much. Just breathing the same air, letting the weight of everything settle into something bearable.
I reached out, not touching her, just close enough that she’d know I was there.
“Whatever happens next,” I said quietly, “we do it on our terms this time.”
She turned toward me, eyes glinting with something fierce and bright. “Deal.”
That one word—simple, certain—landed like breath after drowning.
The quiet between us changed—slowly, like the shift in tide you only noticed once it already pulled you somewhere new. It wasn’t heavy anymore. It wasn’t charged or uncertain. It just was—steady, warm, something that felt like peace for the first time in weeks.
Ellery’s voice broke it gently. “What happens now?”