Page 221 of Dream On, Liar

Something warm broke through the knot in my chest.

“Thanks, Dad.” I stood and walked towards him. “I love you.”

His arms opened before I reached him.

He hugged me tightly. “Love you too, trouble.”

I closed my eyes.

And for the first time in a very long time, being his daughter didn't feel like something I had to earn.

36

Rihaan

THE STADIUM WAS QUIET.

Not all at once, but I’d been here long enough to notice the layers.

First the crowd had gone, taking their noise with them. Then the cameras. Then the players. The dressing room had emptied after that, voices fading into the corridors until there was nothing left but the distant scrape of equipment being packed away and the occasional rumble of a trolley crossing concrete.

I had changed out of my whites hours ago.

Still, I hadn't left.

I sat on the edge of the boundary, one foot planted against the grass, staring across the pitch.

The field looked different without people on it.

Too large.

Too quiet.

All that green stretching beneath the stadium lights, the centre strip worn down from days of bodies running over it, the faint marks where I'd landed over and over again.

I had spent half my life on fields like this.

Winning on them.

Losing on them.

Bleeding on them.

Growing up on them.

And now that I'd finally done everything I'd once thought would make me feel complete, I wasn't sure what I was supposed to feel.

Pride was there.

Somewhere.

Buried beneath exhaustion and the strange hollow feeling that had followed me for months.

The World Test Championship.

The World Cup.

The County Championship.