Page 377 of Bad Prince
That realization sits in my chest all through practice like a bruise I can’t stop pressing. Coach is talking. Whistle. Shoes squealing. Ball snapping from hand to hand. Bodies cutting through drills with that hard, clean rhythm I usually lose myself inside. Today every shot feels a half second late. Every pass is a fraction off. Every sprint burns wrong.
Because my head is still back in that coffee shop, caught on the way Stella looked at me when I said I was surviving her. Caught on the truth in her face when she said I was doing a terrible job. Caught on the fact that I wanted to drag her back to my table, drag her into my lap, drag my mouth down the long line of her neck until we both forget what a mess we’ve both made to what could be the most beautiful thing,
And under all of that?—
Isa.
Steady, beautiful, kind Isa.
Isa, who did not ask to be the person I reached for while trying not to drown in someone else.
I miss a shot so badly it catches back iron and ricochets wide.
“Vale,” Coach barks.
I grab the rebound and toss it back out.
“Again.”
But even Coach’s voice can’t cut through it now. By the time practice ends, I know what I have to do.
I hate it.
That’s how I know it’s honest.
I text Isa from the locker room with my towel hanging around my neck and sweat still cooling on my skin.
Need to see you…
She answers faster than I deserve.
3 my place?
No heart.
No joke.
No softness.
Maybe she already knows.
Maybe girls like Isa always know.
The sun is dropping by the time I get there.
Stanford looks offensively beautiful at sunset. Gold light on sandstone. Long shadows across the quad. Bikes cutting through the pathways. Students laughing like nobody’s life is quietly cracking open near the fountain.
I get there early, stand with my hands in my pockets and watch the water move, trying to find the right words and hating every single one of them.
There is no right way to tell a good girl that she was never really going to win against a ghost you tried to bury alive.
Footsteps sound behind me.
I turn.
Isa is walking toward me in black leggings and a cream sweater, hair up, face bare. No armor tonight. No extra gloss. No sparkle turned on for effect. Just Isa.
Which somehow makes this worse.
