Chapter 2

My mind went entirely blank. A suffocating wave of pure absurdity crashed over me, lodging a hard lump in my throat that made it impossible to voice a single word of defense.

An accomplice? I had cut a girl from the roster for a massive screw-up just to maintain basic team discipline, and somehow that made me the ringleader of a bullying campaign?

"You need to back that up, right now," my co-captain snapped, stepping directly into Kane’s personal space.

"When exactly did we bully her? Wynne was just enforcing the rules! Since when does making a mistake not come with consequences?"

At the sight of my teammates closing in, Daisy physically shrank back. It was a calculated retreat. She took a deliberate half-step forward and gently curled her fingers around the sleeve of Kane’s jersey.

Her eyes were rimmed with red. Gazing up at him, her voice dropped to a fragile, trembling whisper. "Kane... I know you're just looking out for me, and I appreciate you standing up for me. But they're just... really mad right now. People say things they don't mean when they're angry. I don't blame them."

Then, she turned and shot me a timid, fearful glance—a masterclass in playing the terrified victim. "Maybe..."

she murmured, her voice laced with just the right amount of sorrow, "maybe I just did something to make Wynne hate me. Even if I hadn't messed up today, she probably would have found an excuse to get rid of me eventually."

The atmosphere in the room instantly shifted.

With a few softly spoken words, Daisy had successfully chained herself to Kane, using her fragile innocence to cement my new reputation: the vindictive, power-tripping senior captain who terrorized the rookies.

But it wasn't Daisy's Oscar-worthy performance that shattered me.

It was Kane.

He didn’t shake her off.

Kane—the guy who would visibly cringe if someone breathed within a three-foot radius of him. Kane, who couldn't stand being touched. Yet there he stood, letting a sweaty, tear-stained freshman cling onto his football jersey like it was a lifeline.

The argument died out shortly after.

Seeing that Kane was dead-set on playing her knight in shining armor, my squad realized it was a losing battle.

You couldn't exactly move a mountain, and you certainly couldn't argue with the star quarterback. Cursing under their breath, they dispersed.

Once the crowd cleared out, Kane reached back, grabbed Daisy by the wrist, and turned to lead her out of the wrecked locker room.

As they brushed past me, he stopped. He looked at me, his eyes colder than ice.

"Your pettiness is actually sickening, Wynne," he said, the disdain practically dripping from his voice.

"Go home and take a hard look at how you acted today. Don't make me lose faith in you completely."

Without another word, he walked away, taking Daisy with him and not looking back once.

I stood alone in the empty lounge, the silence ringing in my ears. I kept running it back in my head, interrogating myself: From a team perspective, from an objective standpoint, I did everything right. Where the hell did I go wrong?

It was late into the night by the time I dragged myself back to the apartment we shared.

The moment I pushed the door open, the faint, sterile scent of bleach and high-end cleaning supplies hit my nose.

The luxury apartment was immaculate, courtesy of the overpriced maid service Kane insisted on. The magazines on the coffee table were aligned edge-to-edge. The rug in the entryway didn't have a single crease.

Every square inch of this place screamed of Kane: his suffocating need for control and his obsessive-compulsive germaphobia.

I collapsed onto the couch, my energy entirely drained. My brain felt stuck on an endless loop of that one image: Daisy’s fingers tightly gripping Kane's sleeve.

In the two years we was together, he had violently repelled any physical contact from strangers.

Even as his actual girlfriend, I had never been granted any sort of "VIP immunity." Intimacy with Kane came with a one-way switch.

Unless he initiated the contact, touching him in what he deemed an "inappropriate setting" meant having my hand swatted away without a second thought.

If I had ever dared to grab his clothes with sweaty hands the way Daisy had today, that shirt wouldn't have survived the night.

He would have thrown it straight into the trash with a look of utter disgust.

Yet, Daisy got to touch him. And worse, she got protected.

It felt like someone was dragging a dull knife across my chest, carving it open inch by inch.

My mind drifted back to last winter. I was working two grueling part-time jobs just to scrape together enough money for my grandmother’s medical bills.

One night, after finishing my shift at a greasy diner, I was cornered in an empty alley by three drunk guys.

I fought like a cornered animal, eventually grabbing a brick from the gutter and smashing it against one guy’s head.

It bought me just enough time to sprint to the main avenue, where a passerby finally called the cops.

Sitting on the freezing metal bench at the precinct, shaking violently in a torn shirt and sporting a bruised cheek, the first thing I did was call Kane.

When he finally walked through those double doors, I threw myself at him, burying my face in his chest, sobbing so hard I could barely form words.

"Kane... I thought I wasn't going to make it back," I choked out, gripping him tight. "I was so scared... Thank God you're here."

But his body went rigid. Stiff as a concrete pillar.

A few agonizing seconds later, he clamped his hands on my shoulders and forcefully shoved me away.

The disgust on his face wasn't even hidden.

"You reek of cheap fryer grease and strange men," he said, his brow deeply furrowed as he literally brushed off the front of his jacket where my head had just rested.

"Wynne, you don't think throwing yourself at me like that is... dirty?"

That was my boyfriend. At the absolute lowest, most terrifying moment of my life, when all I needed was to feel safe, that was all he had to give me.

Back then, I had desperately rationalized it. I blamed it on his pathology, his OCD. I forced myself to be the understanding girlfriend, to accommodate his flaws.

But tonight, seeing the impossible patience he suddenly possessed for Daisy, the brutal, ugly truth finally clicked into place.

It wasn’t that he didn’t know how to be gentle.

It was just that he never thought I deserved his gentleness.

I buried my face in my hands, sobbing quietly into the pitch-black living room.

Beep-beep-beep-click.

The electronic lock on the front door chimed. The lights blazed on immediately. Kane walked in, tossing his car keys onto the credenza.

He kicked off his limited-edition sneakers and slid seamlessly into his house slippers.

When his eyes landed on me—curled up on the sofa, cheeks damp with tears—his footsteps faltered for no more than half a second.

He reached up, loosening his tie, and let out a cold, sharp laugh.

"Give it a rest, Wynne. Daisy had half the locker room coming for her throat today, and she didn't shed a single unnecessary tear."

Kane walked over to the kitchen island, pouring himself a glass of ice water. He didn't even bother looking at me, his back turned as his voice dripped with raw mockery.

"And you? The ringleader who started the whole witch hunt comes home and plays the victim? I never realized you were such a method actor, Wynne. It's truly pathetic."