Chapter 13

Easton
Friday, February 9th, 2024

I wake up already pissed off.

Not at anything specific. Just that low, sour kind of anger that sits in your chest like it slept there. The kind that doesn’t let you roll over and pretend yesterday didn’t happen.

School’s off. Teacher meeting day. Normally I’d be relieved.

Today it just means there’s nowhere to hide.

My room feels too bright. I sit up, rub my face, and immediately regret it because my eyes burn like I barely slept. I check my phone out of habit.

No messages.

Good.

Bad.

I toss it onto my bed and stand, stretching out the stiffness in my shoulders. My muscles ache — track, swim, tension — everything layered on top of each other like I didn’t give my body permission to rest.

I shower fast. Too fast. Water barely hot enough. I scrub like I can rinse yesterday off my skin if I try hard enough.

It doesn’t work.

Back in my room, towel around my waist, I pace without meaning to. Same three steps. Same turn. Same spot by the window I keep avoiding.

Don’t look.

I look.

Santiago’s curtains are open.

Fuck.

He’s not there yet, but the light’s on, and that’s somehow worse. Proof that he’s awake. Proof that he exists on the other side of that fence, probably replaying the same shit I am.

I lean my forehead against the glass for a second.

I shouldn’t have said it.

That’s the thought that keeps looping, sharp and unforgiving.

No, I didn’t mean it.
Now, he took it wrong.

I shouldn’t have said it.

Because it was cruel in a way I don’t usually allow myself to be. Calculated. Aimed exactly where it would hurt. I know how hard he trains. I’ve always known. That’s why it worked.

I hate that part of myself.

I pull on a hoodie, shove on sweatpants, force myself to breathe like a normal person instead of someone about to combust. Downstairs, I hear dishes. Voices. Cecilia laughing.

Life, apparently, goes on.

Vivian knocks once before opening my door. “You look like shit.”

“Morning to you too.”

She leans against the frame, arms crossed, studying me with that older-sister stare that sees too much. “You gonna apologise?”

“I tried.”

She raises an eyebrow. “And?”

“He didn’t accept.”

“Yeah,” she says calmly. “That happens.”

I frown. “You’re supposed to take my side.”

“I am,” she replies. “And you were still wrong.”

I hate that she’s right.

After she leaves, I drift back toward the window without thinking. I don’t even realise I’m standing there until—

He’s there.

Santiago. Fresh from the shower. Towel low, hair damp, looking as unguarded as I’ve ever seen him.

Our eyes lock.

My stomach drops.

It’s not an attraction. Not embarrassment. Not really.

It’s recognition.

I don’t look away. I can’t. He looks like he didn’t sleep either. Like yesterday cracked something open and neither of us knows how to close it.

I lift my hand before I can stop myself. Just a fraction. A question. An apology I don’t know how to say out loud.

He doesn’t wave back.

But he doesn’t disappear.

That’s something.

Then he steps back, pulls the curtain partway closed, and I’m left staring at my own reflection in the glass.

I stay there longer than I should.

Because for the first time, winning doesn’t matter. Losing doesn’t either. Records feel distant. Medals feel heavy.

All I can think about is the fact that I hurt him in a way I can’t undo with a race.

And that scares the shit out of me.