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"Mrs. Calloway! Great news, I've got your policy right here." I spun back to my screen, pasting on my customer service voice like a mask. "Let's get this sorted for you."

Mia gave me a sympathetic look across the cubicle divide.

I gave her a look that suggested I was absolutely fine and did not need sympathy.

Neither of us believed me.

Lunch break. I was eating a sad protein bar—not because I was being healthy, but because I'd forgotten to grocery shop and the vending machine options had been between sad protein bar and a bag of pretzels that expired in March, and even I had standards—when my phone lit up with a group chat notification.

Isla

Fangs home playoff game Friday. Semis, Game 1. I have amazing seats. You're ALL coming. No excuses. Don't even try me right now.

I stared at the message.

And then I thought: Well. There it was. The universe, delivering my closure appointment right on schedule.

This was the one. The last one. I was going to sit in those courtside seats and watch Cam play and say whatever quiet internal goodbye I needed to say to this chapter of my life, and then I was going to go home and move forward. I was going to close the loop. Walk out of that arena with my head held high and my feelings filed neatly under lessons learned and never look back.

That was the plan.

Harper

I'll be there.

Mia's response to the group chat came within seconds, supportive. Her separate text to me came approximately four seconds after that.

Mia

Are you sure that's a good idea?

Harper

Probably not. Doing it anyway. I'm not hiding from my life because of her. And I need this, I think. I need closure. This is gonna be my last Fangs game.

Mia

Okay. But I'm sitting next to you and if you need to leave we leave. No questions.

Harper

Deal.

I put my phone down and went back to my sad protein bar and tried not to think about the fact that I'd just confirmed my own goodbye tour.

Totally fine. Completely manageable. No notes.

Friday arrived seemingly out of nowhere. Time, which had been moving at a glacial crawl all week, suddenly remembered it had somewhere to be.

I stood in front of my open closet at six PM, assessing my options as if preparing for battle, because that's essentially what this was. Psychological warfare. Me versus my own feelings, courtside, with witnesses, for the last time.

My eyes landed on Trish's jersey.

Number 22, hanging exactly where I'd left it the morning I'd come home from Cam's, because I hadn't been able to touch it since. It just hung there, this completely innocent piece of athletic wear that had done nothing wrong, that had simply been present for events it hadn't asked to be part of.

I couldn't wear it.

Putting it on would feel like pressing my thumb directly into the bruise on my collarbone, the one that had almost faded now. I was not wearing Trish's jersey to this game. I was absolutely not doing that to myself.