EPILOGUE
THREE MONTHS AFTER NYC
Mason didn’t call it “after NYC.”
He just called it “normal again,” even though it wasn’t.
Because normal didn’t usually feel like something that had been rebuilt.
It felt like something that had never been broken in the first place.
This wasn’t that.
Practice was quieter now, but not easier.
Coach had stopped referencing New York directly, but everyone still moved like it was inside the room with them.
Like something had changed shape and no one wanted to admit what it was.
Luca noticed it first.
“You’re still not fully here,” he said one day after drills.
Mason wiped his face with a towel. “I am.”
Luca raised an eyebrow.
“That’s not what I meant.”
Mason didn’t respond.
Because he knew exactly what Luca meant.
He just didn’t know how to fix it.
Rowan noticed it too.
But for her, it didn’t look like absence.
It looked like persistence.
Because Mason wasn’t gone from her thoughts in the way distance usually makes someone fade.
He stayed.
Just quieter.
Like a presence you don’t actively look for anymore, but still feel when things go silent.
She finished her NYC feature weeks ago.
It was published.
Read.
Shared.
Quoted incorrectly in places that didn’t matter enough to correct.
But that wasn’t what stayed with her.
What stayed was the feeling that none of it actually ended when she stopped writing.
It just changed format.
Mason didn’t text her immediately after NYC.
Not because he didn’t want to.
Because there was no clean way to restart something that had been built under pressure and then left hanging in the air.
So instead, there was silence.
Not blocked.
Not avoided.
Just… suspended.
The kind of silence that doesn’t feel final.
Just delayed.
Rowan broke it first.
Not intentionally.
Not dramatically.
Just late at night, after rereading notes she shouldn’t have been rereading.
Rowan:
Are you still annoyed at me?
It took Mason twelve minutes to reply.
Mason:
No.
Pause.
Mason:
I never was.
That should have ended it.
It didn’t.
Because neither of them closed the conversation.
After that, they didn’t talk often.
But they also didn’t disappear.
It became something in between.
Occasional messages.
Short replies.
Things that stopped just before they became emotional again.
Mason would see something and think of her.
Rowan would hear something and think of him.
And neither of them would say it out loud anymore.
Because saying it out loud had consequences now.
One evening, Mason sat outside the gym after practice, phone in hand.
He didn’t open anything.
Just stared at the screen.
Luca sat beside him.
“You’re doing that thing again,” Luca said.
“What thing.”
“Thinking you’re supposed to have finished something that never got finished.”
Mason exhaled.
“I don’t know what it is.”
Luca nodded slowly.
“That’s the problem,” he said. “It’s not finished enough to move on from. But it’s not active enough to fix.”
Mason didn’t respond.
Because that was exactly it.
Rowan, on the other side of the city, felt the same thing in a different way.
Not confusion.
Continuity.
Like something still existed that didn’t have permission to keep existing.
Her phone buzzed one night.
Unknown number.
She almost ignored it.
Almost.
Then opened it.
Mason:
Did you change your number?
She stared at it.
Then replied:
Rowan:
No.
Three dots appeared immediately.
Then stopped.
Then started again.
Mason:
I got invited to something.
That was unusual.
He didn’t usually start like that.
Rowan:
What kind of something?
A pause.
Longer this time.
Mason:
NYC rematch showcase.
Rowan froze slightly.
Because that shouldn’t have existed as a phrase in their timeline.
Rowan:
That wasn’t in the schedule.
Mason:
It is now.
Pause.
Then:
Mason:
They asked for you too.
Rowan didn’t reply immediately.
Because that was the first time since NYC that the distance between them didn’t feel like space.
It felt like it had been reopened.
Intentionally.
Her screen lit again.
Mason:
I didn’t say yes yet.
Then:
Mason:
I wanted to know if you did.
Rowan stared at that longer than she meant to.
Because it wasn’t a question about logistics.
It was a question about whether something still existed between them that was strong enough to be reopened.
She finally typed:
Rowan:
I didn’t say no.
Silence followed.
Not the old kind.
Not the ending kind.
The waiting kind.
Mason leaned back outside the gym, phone still in his hand.
Luca looked at him.
“What is it?” Luca asked.
Mason didn’t answer immediately.
Then:
“I think it’s starting again.”
Luca frowned.
“Starting what?”
Mason looked at the screen.
Then locked it.
“I don’t know yet.”
And somewhere across the city, Rowan did the same.
She put her phone down.
But didn’t stop looking at it.
Not like she was waiting for something to end.
More like she was waiting to see what it would become this time.