Chapter 17 Public vs. Private
Noah POV
I’ve always been good at showing up.
That’s the thing no one ever questions.
Game days. Interviews. Early practices. Team meetings. Smiles for donors. Handshakes for alumni. I know where to stand, how to speak, when to nod. I know how to wear confidence like it’s part of my skin.
Publicly, I don’t unravel.
Publicly, I excel.
The stadium lights don’t ask questions. They don’t care who I think about when I’m alone. They don’t see the hesitation in my hands when I tie my cleats or the way my chest tightens when my phone buzzes and it’s not the name I tell myself it should be.
On the field, I am uncomplicated.
That’s what they believe.
\---
The morning of the game, the air feels electric. Campus hums with it—music drifting from open windows, students wrapped in school colors, laughter sharp and bright like it doesn’t cost anything.
I walk through it untouched.
People clap me on the back. Call my name. Shout Captain like it’s a blessing.
“Big day, man.”
“Lead us home, Cap.”
I nod. Smile. Deliver the version of myself they came to see.
I don’t tell them I barely slept.
I don’t tell them my dreams have teeth lately.
I don’t tell them I wake up already exhausted from pretending.
Inside, I’m hollowed out.
\---
The locker room smells like adrenaline and metal and anticipation. The guys are loud, loose, alive in a way I envy. They talk about plays, about girls, about parties waiting after the win.
I join in just enough.
Leadership isn’t about honesty.
It’s about control.
I give the speech. The same one, reshaped just enough to sound fresh. Discipline. Unity. Legacy. I watch their faces as they lean in, hungry for direction, for something solid to believe in.
They believe in me.
That should feel like power.
Instead, it feels like pressure.
\---
We win.
Of course we do.
I throw clean passes. I read the field like it’s written in a language only I understand. I move without hesitation, my body answering commands my mind doesn’t have time to argue with.
The crowd roars my name.
I don’t look for him.
I never look.
But I feel him anyway.
That phantom awareness. That quiet gravity pulling somewhere behind my ribs. I tell myself it’s habit. Residual. A trick of nerves.
I tell myself a lot of things.
\---
After the game, reporters cluster like flies drawn to heat. Microphones. Cameras. Smiling questions with sharp edges.
“How does it feel leading this team again?”
“What’s your focus this season?”
“Any thoughts on the championship?”
I give them what they want. Polished answers. Measured confidence. The promise of consistency.
No one asks me who I am when the noise fades.
No one asks me why my hands shake when I finally get alone.
\---
Nadia meets me outside the locker room.
She looks good. She always does. Put together. Effortless in a way that makes people comfortable. She fits cleanly into the picture everyone expects.
She hugs me, presses a kiss to my cheek.
“You were incredible,” she says.
I thank her. Mean it, in the way you mean gratitude when it’s expected of you.
Her hand slips into mine.
It feels… fine.
That’s the problem.
\---
We go to a post-game thing. Some bar. Too loud. Too crowded. Everyone riding the high of victory. Teammates slap my back. Drinks appear in my hand whether I want them or not.
I smile until my face hurts.
Nadia laughs at something I don’t hear. I nod along. She leans into me like she belongs there.
She does, according to the script.
But my body is somewhere else.
I check my phone without meaning to.
No new messages.
Relief and disappointment crash together so hard it makes me dizzy.
\---
I leave early.
Say I’m tired. Say I have film to review. Say anything that sounds responsible enough not to be questioned.
Nadia looks disappointed but understanding.
That’s worse.
\---
My apartment is quiet in a way that feels loud.
I kick off my shoes. Drop my keys. Stand in the middle of the room like I’ve forgotten what comes next.
The silence presses in.
This is where it starts to fall apart.
\---
I replay everything.
The game. The crowd. The way I almost looked toward the stands out of habit. The way my chest tightened when I realized I didn’t know where he was—and that part of me wanted to.
I tell myself it’s nothing.
Then I sit down hard on the couch and put my head in my hands because the lie tastes bitter.
\---
Elias never asked me to choose.
That’s the cruelest part.
He never chased. Never begged. Never demanded anything I wasn’t already giving away piece by piece.
He existed.
And somehow that was enough to crack everything I’d built.
\---
I scroll through my phone like it might offer absolution.
Old messages. Neutral ones. Safe ones. The kind that can be explained if someone ever looks too closely.
I don’t open his contact.
I don’t need to.
He’s everywhere already.
\---
I think about how easy it is to be the Captain.
How hard it is to be a person.
Out there, I’m a symbol. A role. A projection of everything this place values—strength, certainty, normalcy wrapped in success.
In here, I’m a mess of half-formed truths and fear sharp enough to cut.
What if I lose everything?
What if I don’t?
The second question terrifies me more.
\---
I shower, hoping the heat will burn the thoughts away.
It doesn’t.
Water beads down my skin and I think about hands that weren’t supposed to feel right but did. About a voice that never asked permission to exist. About the way being seen felt like relief and danger all at once.
I rest my forehead against the tile.
Breathe.
Don’t fall apart.
\---
Later, lying in bed, the ceiling stares back at me again.
This is becoming a pattern.
Public triumph. Private erosion.
I am excellent at one version of my life and failing spectacularly at the other.
And the worst part?
The public one is the lie.
\---
My phone buzzes.
Just once.
I don’t pick it up right away.
I already know.
I don’t read the message.
I don’t have to.
Because whether it’s a text or not, whether his name is on the screen or not, the truth hums just beneath my skin, relentless and alive.
I can perform forever.
I can win games.
Lead teams.
Smile for cameras.
Play the role they handed me like it’s second nature.
But in the quiet, when there’s no one left to impress, no one left to deceive—
I am unraveling.
And I don’t know how much longer I can pretend that the private version of me doesn’t exist.