Page 397 of Bad Prince
Too late.
I swing high and ruthless and straight through hands.
The ball smashes the line.
Whistle.
Then the gym detonates.
For one suspended second I can’t hear anything but blood.
Then my teammates are everywhere, screaming, grabbing, colliding into me hard enough to knock me half sideways.
We won. Lila gets both hands on my face, laughing and crying at once.
“What did you take and where can I get some?”
I’m laughing too hard to answer.
Mari jumps on my back.
Coach is yelling something that might be praise and might be a threat.
The bench is losing its collective mind.
My lungs are on fire.
My legs are shaking.
My whole body feels molten.
And yet somehow, beneath all that wreckage, there is a low, dangerous satisfaction unfurling through me.
Because I know exactly what happened tonight.
I took everything I was carrying—my exams, my fear,
my mother watching through a phone, the rich Spanish stranger who is somehow my father standing in the bleachers trying, the boy I want with my whole stupid heart promising me the second he comes back he’s done running—and I turned it into power.
When I finally find the stands through the blur of bodies and noise, Emmanuel is still there.
Still clapping.
This time, though, his expression is different. He gives me one brief nod. By the time the media scrum ends and I make it into the tunnel behind the court, I am obliterated.
My jersey is damp.
My hair is wrecked.
My thighs are trembling with aftershock.
I can still feel the last swing in my shoulder.
I lean against the cool concrete wall and finally check my phone.
Missed texts.
Team messages.
