CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Cole
The office smells like usual—leather and citrus. Clean and controlled.
Everything in here is supposed to make you feel steady, and maybe this is the first time I’ve noticed it because I need that—to feel steady.
It isn’t working.
I sit forward, elbows on my knees, and hands clasped so tightly my knuckles ache. Or maybe the ache is from throwing the shit out of the medicine ball last night. Yeah. Probably that.
That has to be why the tremor was back and worse when I woke up this morning. It caused me to text her emergency line saying I needed to see her.
Dr. Hawley watches me from across the room, legs crossed, notepad resting on her thigh. She hasn’t written a single thing since I walked in.
Not sure if that should concern me or if it’s just a sign I’m beyond repair.
“You’re the one who texted the emergency line and asked to meet. I’m here and now you’re acting like you’re bothered that I am.” She angles her head to the side. Straight to the fucking point. “You’re free to leave if you don’t want to talk.”
I sigh and grip the arms of the chair to hide the trembling that hits every so often. I grit my teeth and then nod. “It was a rough night.” I clear my throat. “I was struggling with how to deal with it.”
“So you thought of me.”
“Yeah. That’s what I’m supposed to do, right?”
Not even remotely offended, a slight smile ghosts her lips. “It is. I’m glad you did.”
Whether I’m glad is yet to be decided.
“So, Cole, what happened last night?”
I huff out a breath and drag a hand over the back of my neck. “I told you, it was a bad night.”
Her brows lift slightly. “That’s not what I asked.”
Of course it’s not.
I stare at the floor for a second longer than necessary. We both know I’m deciding whether to bullshit her or not.
“Found out someone close to me has been screwing me over.”
There it is. Surface level. Safe.
She doesn’t say anything else. Doesn’t fill the silence. Doesn’t push. She just waits, and it’s irritating as hell.
“Betrayal hits differently from pressure,” she finally says. “Different part of the brain.”
I clench my jaw. “Feels the same.”
“Does it?” she asks.
I glance up at her, irritation flickering. “Yeah. It feels like everything’s on fire and I can’t put it out.”
Her lips press together. “And your hand?”
“What about it?”
“It’s shaking right now.”
My eyes drop automatically. Fucking hell, it is. I curl my hand into a fist to stop it.
“It’s nothing.”
She rolls her eyes. “You and I both know it’s not nothing,” she says calmly. “It’s information.”
“Information? If that’s the case, what’s it telling you, Doc?”
“That your body doesn’t feel safe.”
I shrug away her words immediately but something in my chest constricts at that. “I’m fine.”
“No,” she says. “You’re controlled. That’s not the same thing.”
Fuck, man.
I lean back in the chair and drag in a breath. “So what? I’m just . . . broken now?”
She tilts her head to the other side. “Do you feel broken?”
“No,” I snap, sick of the questions answering my questions. “I feel pissed. Furious. Fucking confused.”
“Good.”
“Good?”
“Anger means you’re still connected to it. That you haven’t shut down.”
I scrub a hand over my face. “Feels like I’m about two seconds away from it.”
“But you’re here, so that’s a start. Now it’s my job to help you figure out what’s pushing you to feel like you’re going to shut down.”
“Kind of obvious, isn’t it?”
“Say it anyway.”
I exhale slowly and unclench my jaw. “Pressure. Expectations. Media. Coaches. Fans. My dad—”
The word barely leaves my mouth before my hand jerks into a tremor more violent than I’ve experienced in a long time. I freeze.
She does too, though it’s more to let me know she notices.
“Cole—”
“Please.” I push to my feet and pace across the office.
I need to shake this off. She’s subtly and slowly been trying to sell me this narrative—that everything stems back to my dad.
I’m not fucking stupid. I know that’s what she’s been hinting at and moving toward each session, but maybe I just don’t want to fucking talk about it. “This has nothing to do with him.”
“Then why did your body react like that?”
“Coincidence.” I turn and look at her. “You don’t know anything about him so don’t make assumptions.”
“You’re right,” she says evenly. “I don’t know anything about him, but I do know what your sympathetic nervous system just told me.”
My heart races, making it hard to catch my breath. I fist my hands to hide a tremor in case it decides to make another unwanted appearance. “Just say whatever’s on your mind, Doc, and stop looking at me like you feel sorry for me.”
“Compassion and feeling sorry for someone are two different things, Cole.” She motions for me to take a seat, but I remain standing. “From what you have and haven’t said, you’ve been conditioned and trained to associate performance with worth.” She pauses. “And failure with punishment.”
I chuckle. “That’s not a . . . stretch. Welcome to professional sports.”
“That’s not what this is,” she says quietly.
It’s not. I know it, but does she know how goddamn hard it is to acknowledge that? To say I’m fucked up because of all the shit I allowed my dad to do and say to me?
I drop back in the chair and stare at the floor. “Then what is it?” I mutter.
Do I really want to know the answer? What the fuck will it actually help?
Why are we talking about my dad when I came here, pissed and shaken to the core about Tristan’s betrayal?
How does one even fucking come close to connecting to the other?
“I came here to talk about . . . for you to help me deal with my friend betraying me. Why are you talking about my dad?”
She motions to my hand. “Because you showed me it’s all connected somehow.”
“You’ve lost me, Doc.” I have a denial on my lips, but I stop myself. How many times am I going to insult her intelligence? Fight her enough that she eventually assumes I don’t want the help I keep claiming I’m here for?
How about shutting up and trying to learn something, Valor?
“So . . .” I blow out a frustrated sigh and roll my shoulders. “There’s a connection? What does my hand shaking have to do with any of this?” I swallow, hating that I’m suddenly nervous. “In your opinion, I mean.”
Not missing a beat, she says, “The tremor is learned survival response.” She waits for me to meet her assessing gaze before continuing. “Your body isn’t just reacting to pressure, it’s reacting to a threat.”
“But there’s no threat.”
“There was,” she says gently. “At some point.”
I don’t answer because . . . yeah, memories flash through my mind like snapshots on a highlight reel I’d much rather forget.
His fist cocked back, threatening but never landing, because my completion rate was too low and I dared to talk back.
You want dinner, Cole-y boy? A place to sleep at night? Best figure out how to win the next few games to get to the championships. I was twelve.
Everything you do and have is because of me. And it can be taken away just like that. So get back on the damn field and practice until you hit the target twenty times in a row.
“You don’t have to tell me what happened,” she adds. “But until you deal with the source, your body will keep doing this every time it’s exposed to extreme pressure or stress or a triggering event.”
I flex my hand again. It’s steadier now and way more controlled than I feel.
“Great,” I say. “So what’s the fix? Breathing exercises? Visualization bullshit? Praying to the football gods?”
“Those help.” Her smile is soft as I roll my eyes. “Well, all but that last one, but they won’t solve this.”
Of course they won’t.
“Then what will?”
She leans forward slightly. “You confront it.”
“Confront what exactly?”
She holds my stare as nerves begin to make my pulse race. “The relationship that taught you this pattern.”
“Meaning?”
She doesn’t blink. “The person who made you believe you had to be perfect or else there was punishment.”
“That’s not what I said—”
“You didn’t have to say it. You’ve given me sufficient visceral reactions during our sessions that I can infer, but your body just confirmed it.”
My tongue feels heavy in my mouth. The argument I want to make dies on it.
“The pressure, the yips, the investigation . . . those things triggered the tremor occasionally. But your friend’s betrayal?” she adds. “That reinforced it.”
“Yeah. No shit.”
“You trusted someone. The fact that you wanted to meet means you were close to them. Probably felt safe with them.”
I give a slight nod but keep my eyes on the floor and try to keep the tears burning at bay.
“Can you think of another place you feel safe? Can we look at that?”
“I don’t know where that is anymore.” I shake my head, but then I do know. “Dublin.”
It’s the first time I’ve said her name in here. The first time I’ve given her validation in a place where I prefer to keep everything vague.
Doc’s eyebrows lift. “Just like that, your entire posture changed.” I can hear the smile in her voice. “And for the first time since you walked in here . . .” She points to my hand.
To how it’s completely relaxed.
“That’s—” That’s fucking . . . ridiculous. Incredible. Dublin. My home.
Like there’s no way she’s who I need to help make this all go away.
Fuck me.
“She’s your regulation,” Dr. Hawley says. “Your nervous system associates her with safety.”
“That’s ironic.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m supposed to be the one protecting her.”
“Maybe you’re each other’s safe spaces. Why can’t you both be protecting each other?”
“Fuck.” I sigh and then lean back in the chair and scrub a hand over my face, keeping my eyes on the ceiling for a second. “So, that’s the answer? I just stay tethered to her and everything’s magically fixed?”
“No. I’d never recommend codependency as a fix, but you can learn from that feeling.
I suspect you need an alternate narrative inside your mind when stress is triggered.
And being with Dublin, where you feel safe, has showed you that alternative.
You can use that as your baseline—where you need to get to emotionally when all the extraneous stuff gets out of control. ”
“Fine. Yeah.” I kind of like the idea of being tethered to her as a better option. “But that doesn’t solve everything else.”
“You need to challenge everything else.”
I look back forward and meet her eyes. “How?”
“You stop running from the things that created the fear.”
My jaw flexes. “You mean my friend.”
“And your father.”
I freeze. Swallow. “Yeah, that’s gonna be a problem.”
“It usually is.” She gives me a second to digest all this before continuing. “Your body learned survival techniques. Strategies. Now you have to unlearn it. Recondition it.”
I grip the arms of the chair, my body tensing. I need to do the one thing I’ve avoided my entire life.
Fucking hell.
My nod is subtle but still there. “Okay.”
“Okay?” Her brows lift slightly. “You’re not going to argue with me on this?”
“I want to,” I say, “but I want to fix this more. Have to.”
“Why?”
Her question hangs in the air, but my answer is clear. For me. For Dublin. For any shot I have at getting back to fearless Cole Valor, QB1, again.
“Because I’m done letting other people control how I play and how I live.” I shake my head slowly. “And I’m really fucking tired of being silent all the time. Of taking it and then walking away instead of fighting back.”
“That’s an excellent start.” She writes something on her notepad. “Do you need to walk through what that entails for you?”
I shove up from the chair, needing to move again. My hands fist and then relax before I drag one over the back of my neck. “I need to confront my father.”
“And tell him what?”
“I’m working on that.”
“Okay.”
“And then when my friend gets back to town, I need to tackle that.”
“That’s the start of a sound plan. I’m here if you need to talk through anything.”
“Thanks.” I move toward the door and then stop. “Are we done here?”
She smiles. “That’s your call.”
“Yeah. We’re done.”
“And Cole?” she says. I glance over my shoulder. “I’m proud of you for asking for help. There’s no shame in it.”
I step out in the hallway, clicking the door shut behind me, and rather than feeling as though everything’s closing in on me, I feel . . . equipped.
That doesn’t make what I have to do next any easier though.
But at least I have a plan.