Chapter 49 - Tessa
People talk about grief like it’s all sadness.
Like it’s crying into tissues and whispering I miss you into the air.
Like it’s soft.
Mine isn’t soft.
Mine has sharpened from my broken pieces.
For days, maybe weeks, I lived underwater. A fog thick enough that sound couldn’t reach me. But when it finally broke, when I clawed my way out long enough to breathe again…
All that was left was rage.
I woke up one morning, and it was just... there.
A pressure behind my sternum, sharp and hot, radiating outward like I’d swallowed fire. I don’t know what set it off. A knock at the door? A shirt of his folded on the dresser? Or a headline notification lighting up my phone:
“CAPTAIN CARSON’S TRAGIC PASSING REIGNITES CONVERSATION ABOUT ATHLETE BURNOUT.”
The article linked to something the Kodiaks PR team released, trying to say that Nate was retiring due to burnout....
Burnout.
They called what they did to him burnout.
I hurled the phone across the room so hard it spidered the wall.
Kenzie heard it and came rushing in and took one look at me, standing barefoot in the middle of Chase’s guest room, shaking, chest heaving, and instead of telling me to breathe, she just nodded once.
“Okay,” she murmured. “Good. Let it out.”
And I did.
But it wasn’t tears.
It wasn’t grief the way everyone expected.
It was fury.
Fury at the GM and PR director.
Fury at Nate’s face on every sports network thumbnail.
Fury at articles dissecting his final season stats like he was still a commodity.
Fury at fans demanding access to my pain like it was their rite.
Fury at myself for letting him go instead of holding him tight.
Fury that he believed them, that their expectations weighed more than his lungs, his heart, his life.
Fury at the universe for giving me a baby and taking away the person who was supposed to help me raise her.
I ate enough in Chase's presence that he stopped threatening to admit me to the hospital.
People talked about the baby, but I didn’t respond. Not because I didn’t care, God, I cared. But I couldn’t feel it. Not through the rage. Not through the smothering grief that had hardened around me like armour.
When the baby moved, I froze every time.
Not in awe.
In guilt.
In panic.
She deserved someone softer than I was.
Someone whole.
Someone who didn’t feel like she was made of broken glass.
I told them I was ready to go home, I wasn't, but I needed to get away from the sad eyes, and I needed to give them space to heal. Space beyond worrying for me.
I avoided the ultrasound photos.
I avoided Nate’s things.
One night, I opened the drawer where I’d shoved some of Nate's belongings, forgetting they were there, and I slammed it shut so hard something on top rattled off and hit the floor.
Kenzie heard that, too.
“Tess…” she said softly from the doorway.
I didn’t look at her. “I can’t be around his things.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I should,” I whispered. “I know I can't just forget... I should...”
“Stop.”
Her voice cut through the spiral.
“You don’t owe anyone anything right now, okay?”
That should’ve comforted me.
Instead, anger flared again, irrational and red-hot.
I hated that she was right.
I hated that he wasn’t here.
I hated that he’d been planning a life we’d never get to live.
I hated that the world kept moving.
At night, when Kenzie finally fell asleep beside me, I scrolled through articles on my cracked phone. Every article about athlete exploitation. Every thread about predatory contracts. Every whisper from former players about being manipulated, cornered, threatened.
Every word poured gasoline on the fire burning in my chest.
By the end of the week, I was a raw nerve with teeth.
Eli tried to bring me a bag of Nate’s belongings from the arena.
“I thought you might…” he said, voice gentle.
I cut him off.
“No.”
His face fell. “Tess… you don’t even want to see...”
“No,” I repeated, sharper. “Take it away.”
He swallowed hard and nodded.
He didn’t deserve that.
None of them did.
But I couldn’t stop.
My anger had nowhere to go but outward.
People kept showing up, trying. The look on their faces made me feel guilty, and that guilt flared irrationally into anger.
Maggie knocked on the door, voice trembling. “Sweetheart? Can we come in? We just want...”
“No.”
The word tore out of me before I could soften it. I pressed my forehead against the wall, shaking.
“I can’t,” I whispered. “Please. I can’t.”
There was a heartbeat of silence.
Then Maggie whispered, voice breaking, “Okay, Tessa. We’ll try again later.”
The guilt clawed at me. But I still couldn't open the door.
Anger was the only thing keeping the grief from swallowing me whole.
The only person I didn’t shut out was Kenzie.
Maybe because she didn’t try to fix me.
Maybe because her fury matched mine.
Maybe because she was the only one who didn’t look at me like I was fragile or fallen apart.
One night, she slid her laptop onto my lap.
“I have a friend,” she said quietly. “A lawyer. He specializes in contract law, but has a soft spot for human rights. I think he can help you. Or help… whatever this is becoming.”
I stared at her.
“What is this becoming?” My voice was flat. Hollow.
“Something,” she whispered. “You’re not done. You’re not broken. You’re angry because something horrible happened, and you still have fight in you.”
“I don’t know how to fight this.”
“So let someone help you.”
I didn’t agree.
I didn’t disagree.
I just closed my eyes.
Kenzie squeezed my hand until my pulse stopped racing.
And for the first time in days, maybe weeks, the rage loosened its grip, not because it was gone, but because it finally had somewhere to point itself.
Somewhere to go.
A direction.
A spark.
The beginning of something that would become a storm.