Page 215 of Bad Prince
I pull the door open, still feeling vaguely like I’ve been hit by a truck.
“Yes, Coach.”
“And Stella?”
I turn.
Her voice softens just a little. “I know why you’re here.”
That knocks the breath out of me more than any sprint ever has.
“You don’t have to prove it every second of every day.”
I don’t trust myself to answer that, so I just nod once and step out into the hall.
The door shuts behind me.
For a long second, I just stand there.
Three days off.
No practice. No gym. No cardio.
I feel weirdly untethered, like someone took away the one thing that keeps all the moving parts in me lined up right.
Then I look down at the tape still stuck to my wrist, peel it off slowly, and think:
Maybe Coach isn’t wrong.
Which is deeply annoying.
I don’t remember opening the Uber door.
Or getting in.
Or typing the address.
But suddenly I’m in the backseat, my gym bag at my feet, my laptop digging into my thigh, and the campus is shrinking behind me like it’s something I can outrun.
“North Fair Oaks?” the driver asks, glancing at me in the rearview.
“Yeah,” I say.
My voice sounds flat.
Like it belongs to someone else.
The car smells like pine air freshener and stale coffee.
Outside, Palo Alto slips past in clean lines—glass buildings, cyclists, perfectly trimmed hedges, people who look like they belong exactly where they are.
I press my forehead lightly against the window.
Cool glass.
Grounding.
Not enough.
