CHAPTER 10 #2
Participants: Nathan Bellows, Emily Smith, Coach Miller, selected Briarwood FC youth players
Segment: Shared development pathway, defender mentorship, local roots
Visual assets: archival photos pending approval
My stomach sinks.
“Fantastic,” I say.
Darius leans slightly. “What?”
I hand him the phone.
He reads the schedule and makes the exact face a captain makes when he sees a trap forming at midfield.
“Archival photos,” he says.
“Coach Miller.”
“Ah.”
“Emotionally armed.”
“Very.”
As if summoned by accusation, my phone buzzes again.
Morgan.
I answer before it finishes the first ring. “Please tell me Coach Miller has not found a photo album.”
“He’s found three.”
I close my eyes.
Darius quietly hands back my phone and looks like he is absolutely not laughing.
Morgan continues, voice brisk. “One binder, two folders, and something he called a memory envelope, which I frankly do not support as a category.”
“Of course he has a memory envelope.”
“He also has old camp photos.”
Rain taps the balcony roof.
I look out over the darkening field.
“How many?” I ask.
“Enough.”
“Morgan.”
“Several with you and Emily.”
I grip the phone tighter.
There it is.
Another chance to decide before she is asked.
The old Nathan is already moving in my head. Call Coach Miller. Pull the photos. Avoid the awkwardness. Save Emily from being put in a sentimental package she did not choose.
Save her.
There’s that word again.
Darius is watching me now.
So is Morgan, somehow, through the phone.
“She deserves a heads-up,” Morgan says.
“I know.”
“And not the kind where you already handled it and then tell her.”
I shut my mouth.
Morgan makes a small sound. “Good. You heard it.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You went quiet in a very guilty shape.”
Darius mouths, Guilty shape?
I wave him off.
Morgan’s voice softens. “Ask her, Nathan.”
The balcony smells like rain and wet concrete. My phone is warm against my ear.
“Okay,” I say.
“Not okay like you’re agreeing with me so I stop talking.”
“Morgan.”
“Okay like you’re going to do it.”
“I am.”
“Good.”
She pauses.
Then, quieter, “And if she tells you to handle it, then you handle it. If she tells you not to touch it, then you don’t touch it.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
I almost laugh because every important conversation in my life now includes that question.
“I’m learning,” I say.
Morgan is quiet for a second.
Then, “Good answer.”
She hangs up.
I stare at the phone.
Darius shifts beside me. “You’re going to text her?”
“I should probably tell her in person.”
“You could.”
“But that might force a conversation when she walked away from one thirty minutes ago.”
“Also true.”
“I could tell Coach Miller to leave them out.”
Darius says nothing.
I look at him. “I know.”
“Do you?”
“I swear, if one more person asks me that today...”
He lifts both hands.
I open Emily’s thread.
The last messages sit on the screen from earlier. My careful one. Her silence. Years of old nothing above it.
My thumb hovers over the keyboard.
I type:
Coach Miller found old camp photos for tomorrow. Some include both of us. I can ask him to leave them out.
I stare at it.
No.
Still me offering the solution first.
Delete.
I type again.
Better.
Awkward. Formal. Like a man assembling emotional furniture with instructions in another language.
But better.
I send it before I can polish it into cowardice.
The message leaves with a small whoosh.
I hate that sound.
Darius looks out over the field. “Now you wait.”
“I’m terrible at waiting.”
“I know.”
“Do not start.”
He takes a sip of water, very pleased with himself.
Three minutes pass.
I know because I check the time after the first thirty seconds and then pretend I don't know.
The rain softens to mist. The balcony railing shines under the facility lights. My phone stays dark in my hand.
“Maybe she’s not answering,” I say.
Darius looks at me.
“Observation,” I add. “Not panic.”
“Mm.”
“That was judgment.”
“That was a neutral sound.”
“You captain very loudly for someone saying one syllable.”
My phone buzzes.
I nearly drop it.
Darius doesn't comment, which is kind of him and also proof he can grow.
Emily’s name lights the screen.
For one ridiculous second, I can't open it.
Then I do.
Did you ever think to ask what I wanted back then?
The words are small on the screen.
They don’t feel small.
Rain beads on the back of my hand. My thumb rests near the keyboard. The whole balcony seems to narrow around the phone.
Darius doesn't ask what she said.
He doesn’t need to.
I read the message again.
Did you ever think to ask what I wanted back then?
There is no clean answer.
No kind answer.
No answer that makes me look better.
I type:
I thought I was protecting you.
Delete.
I type:
I was young and everything was falling apart.
Delete.
I type:
I should have.
Delete.
The cursor blinks.
I look out at the field below. Empty now. Wet grass under artificial light. White lines sharp where the maintenance crew has repainted them. A field knows the boundaries because someone bothers to mark them.
I did not ask Emily where hers were.
I did not ask anything.
My thumb moves again.
No. And I’m starting to understand that was the worst part.
I read it once.
It is not enough.
It is also true.
I send it.
Then I lower the phone and stand in the rain-cooled dark beside Darius, waiting for an answer I have no right to expect.
***