Deleted it.
Typed again.
Rowan:
Never mind.
Then stopped.
Because my phone buzzed before I could send anything else.
Mason.
Mason:
Yes.
I froze.
Then read it again.
Mason:
It already is.
I sat there for a long moment.
Not replying.
Not because I didn’t want to.
Because I didn’t know what would come next if I did.
And for the first time since all of this started—
that felt like thereal question.
MASON
Coach didn’t stop at saying I was thinking too much.
He made me prove it.
Again.
And again.
And again.
We ran sets until the gym stopped feeling like a place and started feeling like a loop—same plays, same mistakes, same corrections.
Andre finally snapped on a break.
“This isn’t training anymore, it’s punishment.”
Coach didn’t even look at him. “Then stop getting punished.”
Silence dropped again.
