Page 520 of Bad Prince
I push through the doors of the athletic complex with my sunglasses on even though I’m indoors, because dignity is a fragile thing and mine is currently hanging by a thread made of lip gloss and spite.
The first thing I notice is how everyone is trying not to look at me.
Which is worse than if they just did.
Girls from soccer glance and then glance away too fast.
A student manager from baseball gives me that painfully sympathetic little half-smile people reserve for girls who got dumped by boys with publicists in their blood.
Two rowers pause their conversation when I pass and immediately start pretending they were definitely discussing electrolytes and not my humiliation.
I keep walking.
Head high.
Back straight.
Texas-sized poise.
Because if I let one single person smell blood in the water, I will have to start committing felonies before lunch.
My phone buzzes again.
Another text from a friend back home.
Babe are you okay??
followed by three screenshots and a lot of unnecessary exclamation points.
I don’t answer.
I don’t answer anybody.
Because I am fine.
Not fine fine.
But functional.
Mascara intact.
Still capable of deadlifting more than half the men around me.
That counts.
I make it to the locker room, toss my bag into a cubby, and stare at my reflection in the mirror over the sinks.
Hair up.
Skin clear.
Lashes on.
Game face.
There is no visible evidence that the boy I almost had— just put another girl on a private plane and took her to rewrite their tragic origin story like some East Coast version of a romance novel.
You would never know by looking at me that my chest has felt like a cracked windshield all morning.
