Page 572 of Bad Prince
I keep going.
“She’s not a rebrand. She’s not a side story to my season. She’s not somebody who ‘pivoted’ into being seen because people finally put us in the same frame.” My jaw tightens once.“Put some respect on what she built before anybody started hashtags.”
There’s movement at the back of the room.
Phones.
Typing.
Good.
Take it down exactly like that.
The reporter opens her mouth like she might follow up.
I don’t let her.
“And while we’re at it,” I say, eyes on the room now instead of any one person in it, “if anybody’s still trying to recycle old high-school rumors to explain us, don’t. Those rumors were a failure on my part. Not hers.”
That one lands like a dropped weight.
Coach turns his head just enough that I know he’s looking at me now.
Not stopping me.
Just clocking the fact that I went there deliberately.
Yes.
I did.
Because that’s the wound.
So that’s the thing I answer.
I lean back a fraction, but I’m not done.
“I failed her when I was younger,” I say. “That’s on me. I’m trying to do it right now. I loved her badly.”
Silence.
A flash goes off somewhere.
No one speaks.
Then Coach, because she is good enough to know exactly when to let a man stand in his own truth and when to move the room forward, taps the table once and says, “Next question.”
The rest of the presser happens around me.
I answer.
Coach answers.
People scribble.
The room starts breathing again.
But the thing that mattered has already happened.
