Slow It Down

Part 9 •REWRITTEN•

Something I haven't thought about in a long time.

We squeeze through the gate, funneled into the stands. The noise hits first; roaring students, the pounding of the band, cheerleaders sprinting across the track. The lights cast long beams across the field, everything bright and electric and alive.

Kayce is already on the sidelines with the rest of the defense, helmet on now, bouncing on the balls of his feet. He turns to scan the crowd, and finds us almost instantly.

He lifts his chin in a small nod, worry and relief visible even from a distance, then gives a subtle wave before the coach shouts something and he turns away.

Natalie elbows me lightly, her hands tucked into her jacket's pockets. "Told you he'd want you here."

I don't say anything at first.

Because as the band starts their pregame routine, as the cheerleaders begin chanting, as the crowd in the bleachers begins cheering, a strange, warm ache blooms in my chest.

I've been here before.

Not this stadium, not this night. But this feeling.

This exact electric rush in the air. This exact sense of standing on the edge of something big. This exact moment before everything changed.

This exact feeling.

I grip the edge of the bleacher, my heart pounding. Deja vu creeps up slowly, warm at first—then sharper.

"And here comes number three, Jackson Broooooks!" the announcer's voice boomed through the stadium speakers, thick with the kind of enthusiasm that rolled over the crowd like a wave.

My throat tightened before I even saw him. Then—there he was. The maroon jersey, the white number three stitched across broad shoulder pads, the familiar way he jogged onto the field as if the entire stadium belonged to him. Kayce, Natalie, and I were all seated on the cold metal bleachers of our old high school—the same place everything had once fallen apart for me, the same place I'd sworn I'd never come back to.

My brother had suggested we come watch Jackson and the team's last game of their senior year. Then he mentioned the after-party, thrown in honor of the team's final win-or-lose celebration, and Natalie practically lit up like someone had plugged her into a wall socket.

As soon as she heard it would be "a house full of older, fit athletes," she was pleading that we join. I protested immediately. I knew what came with going back—being seen. Being remembered. Being an easy target again.

But Kayce didn't back down. He rarely did when he thought I was letting fear make the decision for me.

And worst of all, I knew exactly who I'd be forced to see.

Scarlett.

The second the name slid through my mind, my stomach turned. Kayce had caught my expression earlier when I brought it up. How my voice had gotten small without meaning to, how the color must have drained from my face. A dark glint flashed across his eyes, a look I'd only ever seen when someone had crossed a line with me.

"Maybe it's a good idea for you to come," he'd said with a dangerous kind of calm. "Show those people they didn't ruin you. And I'll be there. Jackson will be there. No one's going to try anything with us around."

I wanted to believe him. I really did. But the memories clung to me like spiderwebs—sticky, suffocating, impossible to fully shake off. Yet somehow, an hour later, there I was, wrapped in layers against the cold, seated in the same bleachers where I used to eat lunch alone. I could feel eyes on me, the kind of noticing that made your skin crawl, but I forced myself to stare at the field.