Chapter 18 Practice

Chapter 18 Practice


Derek’s return to practice did not look like a comeback story.

It looked like tension.

Tessa noticed it the moment she stepped into the Saunders kitchen that morning, because the air felt different, tighter at the edges. The house was still quiet and clean, still expensive in a way that made ordinary sounds feel too loud, but something in the routine had shifted. The kind of shift you could not point to without sounding dramatic.

Emma was at the counter with her rainbow cup, eating cereal with careful bites. She watched Derek the way she watched storms on the horizon, not afraid exactly, but alert, like she was trying to predict how the day would land.

Derek stood by the island with his duffel bag open, fingers moving through it like he did not trust his own packing. Practice shorts. A crumpled team shirt. A pair of cleats. He checked them, then checked them again, jaw tight, gaze fixed anywhere except the people in the room.

Tessa told herself it was not her business.

That thought did not stop her from noticing the details anyway.

He double-checked his water bottle like it might suddenly disappear. He adjusted the zipper twice. He shifted the bag from one shoulder to the other, then set it down again like he could not decide whether leaving was better or worse than staying. His movements were controlled, but there was a restless edge underneath, the way someone moved when they were trying to act normal and failing in small ways.

Tessa hated that she could tell.

She poured herself a glass of water, steady and deliberate, and focused on Emma instead of Derek. She asked Emma if she had her homework folder and if her jacket was in her backpack. Emma nodded to each question but kept glancing toward Derek between bites, eyes careful.

Derek’s phone buzzed on the counter.

He did not pick it up right away.

Tessa heard the buzz and watched his hand hover for a beat too long before he finally grabbed it and looked. His eyes scanned whatever was on the screen, and his face did not change. That was the problem. His face was too controlled, too blank for something that was probably routine.

He locked the phone and slid it into his pocket. He cleared his throat like he needed to remind himself he was in a kitchen with other people.

“I’m leaving,” he said.

Emma’s spoon paused midair. “For practice?”

Derek’s eyes flicked to her, and something in his expression softened by a fraction, then disappeared again as if he had not allowed it. “Yeah,” he said. “Just practice.”

Emma nodded slowly, like she was filing the words away. “Will you be mad when you come back.”

Tessa’s chest tightened.

The question was too blunt, too child-honest, but it was not random. Emma had learned patterns. She had learned what Derek looked like when the world outside this house had hurt him, and she was already bracing for it.

Derek’s jaw flexed. “No,” he said quickly, then added, slower, “I’m not mad at you.”

Emma’s eyes stayed on him. “Sometimes you are mad, but you say you are not.”

Tessa kept her gaze on her water glass, letting Emma speak without stepping in. She could feel the way the room balanced on the edge of the conversation, like one wrong tone would make it tip.

Derek exhaled, a controlled breath. “I will try not to be,” he said.

Emma nodded once, like that was as much certainty as she expected to get.

Tessa told herself, again, that none of this was her business. Then she caught the fact that she already knew his schedule, at least the outline of it, and that irritated her. She knew which mornings were practice mornings because Derek moved differently. She knew the days he came back later because Emma asked more questions and watched the door more often. She knew these things without trying, and it felt like a violation of her own boundaries.

The word our from yesterday flickered in her mind like a stubborn echo.

Our kitchen.

Tessa shook it off and asked Emma if she was ready to go. Emma nodded, and Tessa reached for her backpack by the door with the easy familiarity that still unsettled her.

Derek lifted his duffel bag again and moved toward the entryway. He did not look at Tessa. He did not speak to her. He just walked past, and the quiet distance he had been practicing at school carried into the house.

As he opened the front door, Caroline’s voice drifted faintly from upstairs, calling Emma’s name, a reminder that the grandparents were still here, still shaping the house even when they were not in the room. Derek paused for half a beat, then left without answering.

The door shut.

Emma stared at it for a moment longer than necessary.

Tessa rested a hand lightly on Emma’s shoulder. “All right,” she said gently. “We’re going to have a good day.”

Emma looked up at her, expression serious. “Okay.”

Tessa kept her voice steady. “We’ll do school. Then I’ll pick you up. Then snack. Then homework. Then dinner. Then we build a fort if you want.”

Emma’s shoulders loosened a fraction. “Okay,” she repeated, like the routine itself was a blanket.

Tessa walked her to the car and buckled her in, then climbed into the passenger seat. Michael drove today, quiet and polished as always, asking Tessa a question about Emma’s teacher like nothing else in the house was tense. Tessa answered politely, playing her role, pretending she did not feel the shift.

By the time she reached school, the world had already decided practice was a story.

Football at school was never just football. It was status and gossip and spectacle. It was the closest thing the building had to religion, and everyone had an opinion, even people who had never watched a full game.

Tessa heard whispers before she saw anything.

“He’s back.”

“I heard it’s limited.”

“Coach is letting him do drills, that’s it.”

“He shouldn’t even be allowed on the field.”

“His parents probably threatened the school.”

The comments slid through the hallway like smoke. Half sentences. Loaded pauses. That tone that said we all know even when nobody actually knew.

Tessa kept her eyes on her locker, fingers turning the combination, and told herself she was not listening.

Her stomach did not believe her.

A group of kids near the trophy case laughed, and she caught Derek’s name between the laughter like a hook snagging fabric.

“Saunders is back, but it’s fake.”

“He’s just doing it for show.”

“They’re only letting him touch the field because of his parents.”

The scandal remained vague but heavy, like a stain nobody wanted to describe out loud. That vagueness was what made it worse. People spoke like they were certain, but nobody said what had actually happened, and the emptiness in the middle let everyone fill in something uglier.

Tessa’s hands went cold.

Not because she felt protective of Derek, but because she hated how the building turned people into headlines. She hated how easy it was to freeze someone out with nothing but tone and repetition.

A girl she recognized from chemistry said something too loud as Tessa shut her locker.

“He should just transfer,” the girl said, voice sharp. “It’s disgusting he’s even back.”

Someone beside her hissed, “Shut up,” but not because they were defending Derek. They hushed her because Tessa was standing right there, and they suddenly remembered Tessa existed. The hush was worse than the insult. It suggested Tessa was part of it now, part of Derek’s orbit, a detail that needed management.

Tessa’s jaw tightened.

She swung her backpack strap higher on her shoulder and walked away without looking at them. She kept her face calm because she refused to give anyone the satisfaction of seeing her react.

Inside, she hated the way they talked about him like he was not a person.

She hated that hate itself had become a sport.

By lunch, the talk had sharpened. Boys at the next table argued about whether Derek would ever get his starting position back. Girls near the vending machines giggled and whispered like they were discussing someone they loved to hate. A teacher mentioned practice schedule changes in the staff announcement, and the room perked up like a dog hearing a treat bag.

Tessa sat with Mikayla and picked at her food, listening more than she spoke. Mikayla kept glancing toward the cafeteria doors as if she expected Derek to walk in like a ghost.

“You heard about practice,” Mikayla said finally, voice low.

Tessa nodded. “It’s hard not to.”

Mikayla frowned. “People are being extra.”

“They always are,” Tessa replied.

Mikayla studied her. “You sound annoyed.”

Tessa kept her gaze on her tray. “I’m annoyed that everyone acts like they know everything.”

Mikayla hummed softly. “That is what school does. It turns rumors into facts.”

Tessa’s jaw tightened. “It’s gross.”

Mikayla’s eyes narrowed slightly. “You’re saying that like you care.”

Tessa looked up fast. “I care that people are idiots.”

Mikayla’s mouth twitched. “Okay.”

Tessa could feel Mikayla watching her, but Mikayla did not push further, which was almost worse. It meant Mikayla had clocked something and was letting it sit.

After lunch, the day moved slowly, but the anticipation did not. Practice was after school, and everyone acted like it was an event.

Tessa told herself she was not going anywhere near the field.

She had no reason to.

She had pickup at the elementary school. She had snacks and homework waiting. She had Emma’s routine. Football was not her world.

Still, when the final bell rang, her feet carried her down the hallway toward the parking lot in a route that took her past the gym. It was not intentional, she told herself. It was simply the fastest way out.

That was a lie, and she knew it.

The gym doors were propped open. The smell of sweat and disinfectant hit the hallway like a wall. A cluster of boys in practice gear filtered out, laughing too loudly, shoving each other like they were trying to prove nothing had changed.

Tessa kept walking.

Then she saw the field.

Not fully, just a slice of green through the open side doors and the chain-link gate beyond. She saw the bleachers too, and the handful of students who had already drifted there, acting casual while clearly waiting for something.

Tessa slowed.

She told herself she was just passing by.

She told herself she was only curious because everyone had been talking all day, and curiosity was normal.

Her body did not believe her.

She stopped near the fence, far enough away that she could pretend she was just waiting for someone. She kept her bag strap tight in her hand and watched through the chain links like she was looking at a scene in someone else’s life.

Derek was on the field.

He wore practice gear, black shorts and a team jersey, and a helmet tucked under one arm. From this distance, he looked like he always did on the field, confident in his own body, built for movement and control. The difference was in how the space around him behaved.

The team did not fold around him the way it used to.

Teammates kept distance.

They formed small circles that did not include him. They laughed together and left him on the edge of the group like he was optional. A coach spoke to him differently too, not cruel, not loud, but more clipped, more cautious, like he was managing risk rather than leading an athlete.

It was subtle enough that most people would miss it.

Tessa did not miss it.

She watched Derek jog through a drill line and noticed that the boy ahead of him did not slap his hand the way teammates usually did. She watched Derek finish a short sprint and turn toward the coach for instruction, and the coach’s response was quick and minimal, as if he did not want to linger. She watched two teammates exchange a joke, shoulders bumping, and Derek was not included, not even as the target of the joke.

Derek stood slightly apart, breathing controlled, jaw tight.

He did not complain.

He did not stomp.

He picked up the ball and ran the next drill like he was daring the world to stop him.

Tessa assumed, at first, that he deserved it.

The scandal must be bad, she thought, because everyone sounded so sure, so disgusted, so confident in their cruelty.

Then she watched the way the others enjoyed freezing him out, the way laughter sharpened when he missed a throw by an inch, the way someone smirked when he was forced into limited drills while others ran full reps. She saw the satisfaction in a few faces, the kind that had nothing to do with justice and everything to do with power.

Something about it felt ugly.

It reminded her too much of being singled out in public.

It reminded her of the hallway, the eyes on her shifting, the way a crowd could decide who you were with one word.

Relax.

Tessa’s throat tightened.

She did not step in.

She did not speak to him. She did not walk onto the field or call his name or do anything that would turn her into part of the scene. She did not make it about her, because she refused to be that person. She refused to be a girl standing in the bleachers like a supportive girlfriend, because that was not her role and it was not her life.

She just watched.

She watched the way Derek clenched his jaw when a teammate shoulder-checked past him on the way to the water coolers, casual and unnecessary. She watched the way he kept working anyway, repeating the drill, fixing his stance, resetting his grip on the ball. She watched the small tells that betrayed him, the quick flash of irritation in his eyes, the way he exhaled harder when the coach ignored a question, the way his shoulders stiffened when someone laughed behind him.

Tessa told herself she was only watching because she was curious.

She knew that was a lie.

She was watching because she recognized something in his posture she had seen in her own reflection too many times. The posture of someone trying not to show they were being hurt in public.

A whistle blew sharply.

The coach called a new drill.

The line shifted, and a boy bumped Derek with his shoulder as he moved into position, not enough to knock him off balance, enough to send a message. Derek did not react outwardly, but his jaw tightened hard.

The movement on the field forced Tessa to shift her stance at the fence, and the shift made her watching feel exposed, like the angle of her body might reveal what she was doing.

She should leave.

She had to go pick up Emma.

She had no business standing here.

Still, she stayed for another minute, because her feet would not move yet.

Derek ran the drill.

He completed it cleanly.

He jogged back, helmet still under his arm, sweat darkening his shirt at the collar.

A coach spoke to him briefly, then turned away mid-sentence as another player called his name. Derek’s mouth tightened, and he nodded like he had been dismissed.

Tessa felt her stomach twist.

She hated that she recognized the feeling, and she hated that recognizing it made her feel something that was dangerously close to sympathy.

She did not want sympathy for Derek Saunders.

He had earned her dislike for years. He had embarrassed her in a hallway. He had treated her like a nuisance in his house.

Still, the enjoyment on other people’s faces made her stomach turn.

Justice did not look like that.

It looked like consequences, not entertainment.

Tessa’s phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out and saw the time. Pickup was in twenty minutes.

She needed to leave now.

She took a slow breath and stepped back from the fence, telling herself the watching was done. She was leaving. This was finished.

Then Derek looked up.

Not a long stare.

Just a quick glance.

It was quick enough that she almost convinced herself she imagined it, but it landed like contact anyway, sharp and immediate.

His eyes found her through the fence.

He saw her standing there.

He saw that she had been watching.

For a split second, his expression changed.

Surprised, sharp, almost defensive, as if he had been caught in a moment he did not want anyone to witness. His gaze held hers for half a beat longer than it should have, then tightened like he was bracing for something, like he expected a smirk or a pity look or a judgment.

Tessa’s stomach dropped.

She turned away too fast.

The movement was automatic, a reflex that came from pride and panic and the sudden awareness of what her presence might mean if anyone else noticed it. She started walking, pace quick, head down, pretending she had never stopped at the fence at all.

Two steps later, she hated herself for turning away.

Because turning away made it look like shame.

It made it look like she had been caught doing something wrong.

It made it look like she cared.

She kept walking anyway, because it was too late to undo it.

The moment was already real.

Derek had seen her.

He had seen her watching, and now that contact existed between them, a thin thread stretched across the distance, one neither of them could pretend did not happen.