It’s freedom.
I glance over at Oliver. This man, this life, is everything I didn’t know I could have.
Maybe Matt didn’t lose.
But I won.
Epilogue
coming home
A BEAUTIFUL GAME BY ED SHEERAN
Five Years Later
Nervous doesn’t even begin to cover it.
Even the air in the tunnel feels thick.
There’s always a charge before kickoff, always that electric hum that settles into your bones if you’ve been in enough big matches. But this… this is different. This is heavier. Sharper. Like the air itself knows what’s at stake.
Even my kit feels heavier than usual.
England.
I’m not just playing for a team. I’m playing for my country.
That thought alone should steady me. It should settle me into focus. But instead it opens something wider in my chest—something older.
Because this isn’t new. This isn’t sudden. This has always been there.
I can see it so clearly it almost overlays itself over the present—the cold air biting at my fingers, the uneven grass that barely counted as a pitch but felt like Wembley to me at the time.
I remember it all.
Running down the wing like my life depended on it. My brother laughing as he slid into tackles he absolutely didn’t need to make, just so I’d have to dodge him.
“Go on then, England,” he’d shout, arms out like he was the entire opposition line.
And I’d take it seriously. Too seriously. I always did.
I’d score in my head before I even kicked the ball. Late winner. Injury time. Crowd going mad. I’d run straight to the corner flag like I knew exactly what I was doing. Like I belonged in stadiums like this.
And Henry would be the crowd. The commentator. The defender. Whatever I needed him to be that day.
Then I’d lift imaginary trophies in front of invisible fans while he’d laugh so hard he could barely breathe.
Back then, it felt like pretending.
Now it feels like prophecy.
I close my eyes for a second, letting it all settle. The noise of the stadium beyond the tunnel bleeds into something softer, something rhythmic, like a heartbeat disguised as sound.
Chants roll through the walls, unified and endless.
“It’s coming home. It’s coming home. Football’s coming home.”
The words don’t feel like a song anymore. They feel like a memory being passed between strangers who’ve never met but somehow believe in the same thing.
