Page 62 of Uncoachable

So why did a few quiet sentences from Callahan Moore turn my bones to glass?

I press my back against the door, my palms flat against the wood, and try to force my lungs to cooperate. Each inhale catches halfway, as if my body no longer trusts the air it’s being given.

God, he said it like he meant it.

It wasn’t an obligation or a strategic move to smooth over team chemistry before the next game. There was no defensiveness in his eyes when he looked at me. There was no edge, no arrogance. There was just something raw and unguarded that reached straight under my ribs and pulled.

That is what scares me the most.

Apologies usually mean vulnerability, and in my experience, vulnerability is a trap. Every time I’ve accepted an olive branch in the past, it has been followed by disappointment, betrayal, or the quiet expectation that I now owe something in return.

But Callahan didn’t look like he wanted a favor.

He looked like he wanted peace.

I push off the door and start to pace. My boots strike the floor in sharp, controlled beats—one end of the office to the other. Turn. Repeat. The movement helps, but only barely. It keeps me from standing still long enough for the feelings to gather enough momentum to knock me over.

My clipboard is sitting on the desk where I left it. I grab it, flip it open, and stare at the notes I took during practice. They’re useless. My handwriting looks like someone tried to write while falling off a cliff—arrows going nowhere, half-finished thoughts about defensive rotations, tactical nonsense. I drop the clipboard back onto the desk with a dull thud.

Why did he look at me like that? Why did I let him? Why did it feel—

No. I am not going there.

But my brain won’t let me do anything else.

I close my eyes and I am back on that bridge four years ago. The sound of metal on metal is still the loudest thing I have ever heard. I can still smell the rain, and I remember the terrifying silence that followed.

And then, there was Callahan.

He had been a blur of a purple jersey and pure fury. He had screamed at me, his face twisted in a way that made him look like a monster from a nightmare.

I remember thinking: Is this what the rest of my life is? Just people screaming at each other in the dark?

I hated him for it.

I used that hatred as fuel to get through my coaching badges in Europe, to move back to the States, and to take this job. I wanted to prove to him—and everyone exactly like him—that I couldn’t be broken by a loud voice or a bad day.

And now, with a few quiet sentences in a locker room tunnel, he has taken my fuel away. He has apologized for the very thing that defined my resolve. It’s as if he has reached into my chest and rearranged all the furniture, and now I have no idea where anything is supposed to go.

My phone buzzes in my pocket.

I freeze.

Please don’t be him. Please don’t be him.

Scottie: Emergency. I’m fighting with a hot lawyer.

Scottie: YES. Dean. He’s being insufferable. Also, his forearms should be illegal.

I shake my head, the tension in my shoulders easing just a fraction.

Scottie has been “fighting” with Dean since the day they met in a university library ten years ago.

She flirts with him the same way she flirts with the barista, the mailman, and half my defensive line—it is her default setting, a whirlwind of energy that Dean absorbs with the practiced, platonic patience of a saint.

They are a locked set, two best friends who share everything from secrets to legal strategies, but the idea of them actually dating is a running joke between us.

Dean is the anchor, Scottie is the storm, and they wouldn’t have it any other way.