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“No.”

It had been—

I didn’t know.

Seconds. Minutes. Everything.

“Nineteen minutes and change,” she said.

I looked at Declan. “It didn’t feel like nineteen minutes,” I told him, voice small.

He brushed his fingers over my temples. He looked like he’d aged ten years. His face twisted. “It felt like an eternity.”

“I couldn’t—” My throat closed.

Declan stroked my hair back. “I couldn’t make you hear me.”

Mom broke then. Not loudly.

She crouched beside Dad and reached for me slowly enough that I could stop her.

I didn’t. Her hand touched my hair.

“Oh, baby.”

“It didn’t feel like nineteen minutes,” I told her.

Her face crumpled. “I know.”

A shadow moved at the edge of the widened circle.

Coach Ben. He wasn’t looking at me.

Not at first. He looked at the stairs.

The drainage opening. The service corridor beneath the stands. The people moving away.

Then he looked at me. His face gave nothing away.

“Where were you going?” he asked.

Dad turned toward him.

“I don’t know,” I said.

Ben’s gaze went back to the drain. “You moved toward it.”

“I heard something.”

His eyes came to mine. “What?”

“A voice.”

Nobody around us moved.

Ben did. Barely. His jaw tightened. “From where?”

I looked at the drain.