Page 586 of Bad Prince
Almost.
That word should be outlawed in March.
By the time I make it through the tunnel, through the swarm of staff and cameras and the first ugly wave of postgame obligations, I feel hollowed out.
Not numb.
Worse.
Too aware.
Every detail feels sharpened by losing.
The fluorescent lights over the service corridor.
The smell of sweat drying in cotton and old concrete.
The rattle of an equipment cart getting pushed somewhere behind me.
My suit bag heavy in one hand.
The exact place in my ribs where that missed jumper still sits like something lodged.
I should be in the locker room.
I know that.
Instead I keep walking.
Because there’s only one place my body wants to go after a loss like this.
Toward her.
The family corridor sits off the main arena artery, quieter, dimmer, lined with cinder block painted a color that wants to be neutral and fails. Security stanchions stand half useless along one wall. A vending machine hums in the corner. Somewhere farther down, somebody is crying softly into a phone.
And there—there she is.
Stella.
Leaning against the wall in dark jeans and my black team hoodie, one ankle crossed over the other, hands sunk into the sleeves. Her hair is loose tonight. Her face is stripped bare of everything except tiredness and concern and that strange fierce calm she gets when something hurts and she knows better than to rush it.
She sees me the same second I see her.
And the whole corridor changes temperature.
Not because the pain leaves.
Because it finally has somewhere to go.
I stop.
Just for a second.
And in that second I understand something clean and absolute:
I lost the game.
I did not lose this.
