I read on edge, jaw clenched, chest aching, bracing for the hit because I hadn’t seen it coming earlier today.But the hit doesn’t come.Then I slow down and read it the way it deserves to be read, and what I find there isn’t cruelty.
It’s craft.Careful, considered, deliberate craft from someone who understood exactly what she was holding and chose to handle it accordingly.
She writes about my retirement without spectacle, no dramatic reveal, no sensationalism.Beto’s death is there, woven into the narrative with a precision that makes me ache, but there’s no direct blame laid on me or the team, and Erica’s name appears nowhere on the page.
Grace threads his story through mine in a way I wouldn’t have thought to join them.She writes about my work with, and donations to, various rehabilitation facilities, how I still give and support even after having left the sport.
And she lets herself be seen in it, too—her brother is there, not in detail, not spelled out, but woven through the anger and the urgency and the refusal to look away from what drugs take from people.From families.From futures.
The fury in her writing is real, and it’s fierce, but she aims it upward—at systems and indifference and money that moves faster than accountability—not at me.She shields where she could have cut.She explains where she could have blamed.She gave me more compassion on the page than I gave her standing in the same room.
She sees me.
My chest aches with something that sits right at the border between awe and grief.She wrote about me with respect and with an honesty I don’t deserve, not after how I treated her.Shame moves through me slow and thorough, and I don’t like how well it fits.Because I didn’t fight for her.I walked away.
“You look like hell.”Katie’s voice cuts through everything.“I was going to say you didn’t need a good luck charm today, but now I’m reconsidering.”
I look up at her, standing there with her arms crossed and her eyes doing the thing they do where they’re sharp and worried at the same time.
She’s already reading me whether I want her to or not.“Game starts in ten.You okay?”
I don’t bother giving a convincing answer.“Grace is gone.”
“Gone gone?”
“Helena tonight.Her flight’s tomorrow morning.”
“But Mom said you were going to talk to her, make things right.”She shifts her weight, hands moving to her hips.“What did you do?”
“She was always going to leave.”Folding the pages, I push them back into my jacket.“She was only here for the assignment.”
Katie tilts her head and looks at me the way people look at someone who’s saying something they know isn’t true.“That might have been the case at the start, but we both know things changed.”
She narrows her gaze.“Did you know she asked Zoe about available office space in her building?And there’s whatever it is she’s working on to save the VFD.Lara Crandall’s real tight-lipped about it, which means it’s real enough to matter.”
I stare at her, her words arriving in the wrong order somehow, not making sense the way they should.“What?”
“That’s what I thought.”She holds my gaze, completely unmoved by my confusion.“If you ask me, she was planning on staying, and before you say it isn’t important or whatever, she wasn’t staying for the town’s charm, alluring as it is… So I’m asking again, what did you do?”
I drag a hand over my face.“I didn’t trust her, accused her of things she didn’t do, and walked out like an asshole.Twice.”
That earns me a long, withering look.“And you’re just going to let her go?”
“What am I supposed to?—”
“You care about her.Don’t stand there and pretend you don’t.I haven’t seen you like this—” She stops herself, shakes her head slowly.“Ever, Maddox.Not like this.”
I open my mouth and close it again, and she takes that as permission to continue.
“Don’t get me wrong.I know you loved Rickie.”She chooses her next words carefully, the way Katie does when she’s been sitting on something for a while.“But there was always an imbalance.”
My brow pulls together, though I know what she’s going to say.
“Rickie needed you.More than anyone should need another person, maybe.”She keeps her voice even, not unkind.“And you stepped right into that role without thinking twice.The protector.The one who holds everything together.”
She pauses.“I’m not saying it wasn’t justified—Mad.”She lowers her voice, aware of where we are.“Look what happened, and none of that was on you.You couldn’t have prevented any of it.Some things just move toward their ending no matter what you do.”
I nod slowly, not trusting myself with words yet.