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Zach walks onto the rugby pitch with a heaviness in his chest he’s never experienced before. He’s left multiple clubs. Most of the time, he barely has a chance to say bye before he’s packed his stuff and moved to the next place. He never had people he wanted to say goodbye too. Now, he knows he’s leaving, and he has to play the last games with his friends anyway. He hasn’t told the entire team yet. Frankie thought it would be better to keep it quiet for a while, and he’s not the coach, so he didn’t argue. Ezra knows, and Kai figured it out when he looked down in the locker room. Perhaps that’s why they flank him now, as they walk onto the pitch.

He wonders how easy it will be to restart. He wonders if he’ll even give Scotland a good go, as Mali keeps asking him to do. Sure, if she didn’t exist, Scotland would be a big deal. It’s the premiership. His mum wouldn’t mind the move, though it wouldn’t be best for her. Mali is right. She’s doing so well here. Not well enough for her to not have consistent help, and he’d never ask Mali to do that.

A few months ago, he had no stronghold here. He grew up in Toulshire, but nothing about the streets ever felt like home.

Now, as he walks onto the pitch, he sees his entire life in front of him. The pitch he wants to retire on. His friends. The love of his life, in his T-shirt. She waves at him, and she’s looked so fucking sad all week that he barely stays standing. Still, he waves back. He wants to tell her he can’t take this anymore. That he’s moving out early because he can’t deal with the idea that she’s looking at him like she wants to keep him and he has to leave. It’s killing him, and he’s not sure how he’s supposed to survive it. Maybe he doesn’t. Maybe falling in love is as tragic as the world warned him it would be, and he did it anyway, with one vague look across a carpark.

Every night, he’s fallen asleep without her—some vile rule he thought up about not hurting each other more—and he wonders if he’ll regret anything more than not spending every moment he had with her while he had the chance. Mali is so sure they’ll get through these years. He’ll play for the Dougals, in Scotland, and he’ll visit when he can, and they’ll still be friends after. She’s so sure, but he’s not.

Mali deserves to be as happy as she can be. She wants a family. She wants children. She wants a relationship with someone that’s not so stupid they sign up with the devil. Zach’s never been good at maintaining a good thing, and he’s terrified he’s going to let her slip away because he can’t get out of his own head. When he’s sleeping alone, hundreds of miles away, will he remember how he makes her laugh? Will he remember how she so clearly cares about him? Will he remember how he makes her happy?

Then, the whistle blows, and Zach runs. It’s what he’s been taught. It’s what he’s good at. He tunes out the roar of the crowd, the screams of his teammates, and Zach runs. He barely gives the opposing team a second to try and take him down, and then he does what Frankie’s taught him to do. He plays as part of a team. He strikes the opposing members in the stomach with his shoulder, he ploughs men to the ground as Kai runs with the ball, he defends his friends.

When it’s Zach’s turn with the ball, he knows he just has to duck and weave. The rest of the team have his back. A thought flies through his mind. What would happen if he got injured? Dougals wouldn’t want him. Titans would let him go. How are his agents going to force him to move if he can’t walk, let alone run? They’d have to release him from his contract.

Zach pictures the scene. It’s a rainy Thursday in December. It’s late, dark, and cold, and he’s sitting outside, trying to fix someone’s porch light. His fingers are cold to the bone, and he should be miserable, but all he can see is Mali at home. Maybe the kettle is on. Maybe she’s waiting with their children in front of the fire and Buffy scratching his slippers.

He slows just a pace, and the opposing team knock him to the ground. He screws up his face as he hits the floor. He took a knee to the jaw, but it was his fault. He put himself in the way. The whistle blows, but it does nothing to stop the ringing in his ears. He’s ushered off the pitch, and he sits on the bench, his nose dripping blood between his legs.

“Zach,” Mali says, her voice panicked as she sits next to him. Nothings broken; he’s just bruised, and he had to shove his jaw back into place. “What happened?”

“They’re a good team.”

“Liar,” she replies, her voice low. She tilts his face up to her, her hand light against his jaw. “I know you’re scared, honey, but getting injured is not going to help.”

He scowls. “It might.” The blood from his nose runs down his chin and onto her hand. She looks at it, takes a deep breath, and closes her eyes. He’s hurting her just because he can’t cope with the consequences of his own actions. She fumbles around, looking for gauze while her eyes are closed. Zach passes it to her.

“Your agents are sociopaths, and they’re not going to give you up. Please. Please don’t get hurt. It’s already killing me to have to let you leave,” she whispers, opening her eyes. “I won’t survive if you have to go hurt. Please. I know it sucks. I know, but please. Don’t hurt yourself.”

His face falls, and she presses the gauze to his nose. It’s not a bad bleed, but he lets her comfort him all the same. He closes his eyes, tilting his cheek against her jaw. No matter how shit his life might turn out to be, Mali cares about him. At some point when he’s alone and morose in his one-bedroom flat, he’ll remember that she cared about him.

“I won’t,” he whispers. “I’m sorry.”

Mali kisses him on the forehead, seemingly not caring about the sweat or the mud. She wipes the blood from his face.

“You wanna go back on?”

Zach smiles. He does. He loves playing rugby. He takes a deep breath, kisses her on the cheek, and runs back onto the pitch.

It’s not a difficult match. Halfway through, he finds himself enjoying it. The ease of a game when the entire team is in sync. When he can trust the people around him with his life. When the whistle blows for halftime, Ezra drags him to the sideline. Kai’s already there with a frown on his face. Zach wonders what he’s done wrong. He scored two tries and converted them with penalties. Why is he getting daggers?

“Why haven’t you asked her to go with you?” Kai asks, the moment Zach stops walking. “You do know half the team wanna ask her out, right? Like, they’ll probably not even wait for your car to be gone.”

Zach frowns. Rude. He knows Kai used to flirt with her, but Kai flirts with everyone. “Every cell in my body is trying to ask her to come, but she’s happy here.”

“That doesn’t mean she wouldn’t be happy in Scotland,” Ezra replies. Zach wonders if he ever thought about asking his family to move with him. If he knows how torn Zach is right now. “Even if she stays, why can’t you be together?”

“I have to leave, and she hates long distance”

Ezra looks conflicted, which means he looks slightly different to usual. “Would you wanna be with her if she wanted that back?”

Zach frowns. “Yeah.”

“So, stop placing all your happiness on one throwaway comment with her parents. Mal is great. Top-tier human. And Kai is right—the locker-room talk about her when you’re not around.” Zach’s gonna punch someone on the field, friends or not. “Tell her you’re an option. Show her you’ll work for it. Don’t let her go because you’re a pussy.”

Zach wonders if Ezra is talking from memory. If he left someone behind when he went to the premiership. He wonders if he were here long enough, if Ezra would ever tell him.

“I’ll leave, and I’ll visit a few times, and then one day, I’ll come down and someone will be here with her. Mali’s too good to not be happy. Kai said himself, the moment I’m gone, someone’s asking her out.”

“What are you on about?” Ezra says, with a frown. “Are you dumb?”

“Rude,” Zach replies. He blinks the sweat out of his eyes, wondering if they have to have this conversation right now.

“Dude. Look at her,” he says, as if Zach isn’t already looking at her. Mali stands in the stands, her hands behind her back as she chews on her lip. She’s wearing a top with his name on, and she stole his cap this morning. She has it on backwards, and he wishes he had a camera. Occasionally, she laughs at something Mosi is saying next to her, though Zach’s not convinced she’s listening. She’s looking around the field for someone. Then, her eyes fall on him, and she smiles so brightly he loses his breath. She waves, and then takes a photo before he can wave back. She’s such a stalker.

“She’s always looking for you,” Ezra replies. “Don’t be a dick. Tell her you want her. Show her you’re serious.”

“I don’t know how.”

“You seen Teddy yet?” Ezra asks. And yes, Zach has seen Theodore, the team therapist, exactly one time. It wasn’t awful, but now he won’t be here anyway.

“I’m leaving.”

“Dude,” Kai starts. “Do you love her?”

“Yes.”

“Then speak to Theo and get your head out of your arse. Man, I can’t believe you got a girl like Mal to be into you when you grunt every three words and you’re not even as good as me at scrums,” Kai groans, and Zach punches him in the arm.

“We’ve talked about what you want to get from therapy,” Teddy says, his legs crossed as he leans back in his chair. It’s a relaxing pose, but Zach never thinks he’s relaxed. He’s always poised, ready to take a note. “So, now can we discuss why you’re here?”

Zach shuffles. “’Ight.”

Theodore looks at him expectantly. Prick. He’s kinda nice, though. Zach rolls his neck.

“I wanna say something profound, but really, I just wanna figure out how not to hurt people.”

“Why do you want to sound profound?” he asks.

Zach shrugs. “I think I’d be better in therapy if I had any idea what the thoughts in my head sound like.”

“No one goes into therapy knowing what to say,” Theodore replies. “It would be awfully boring if they did. Tell me, what does your brain sound like?”

Zach laughs a little, stroking his jaw. His facial hair longer than he likes to have it. “A lot like Mali.”

“Tell me about that.”

“I sound like me, but with more adverbs. I used to get so bored being in my own head. Now it’s like I’m writing fucking poetry every time I have a thought about going to the shops. There’s no ‘I need tuna,’ it’s all, ‘I literally need tuna right now or I’ll die, for real.’”

“And that brings you joy?”

“Yeah. Dunno if it’s weird.”

Theodore shrugs. “Whenever I write lists, I say the words in my head in my wife’s voice. Why would it be weird to hear a loved one when they’re not around? Is it not romantic to take parts of you partner and turn them into something you can use when they’re not there?”

“Never thought about it like that,” he mumbles. He wonders if Mali thinks anything in his voice.

As if Theodore knows he’s eager to know, he says, “Mali says ‘innit.’”

Zach frowns. “What?”

Teddy smiles as he crosses his legs at the ankle. “Mali uses the word ‘innit’ on a regular basis. She didn’t say it when she started working here—it started when you moved in together. She doesn’t use it particularly well, but she uses it all the same.”

Zach smiles, and then, as if he’s forgotten he’s in therapy, Theodore drops a bomb on him.

“Who do you hurt?”

“Why you gotta trick me,” Zach says, with a laugh. Theo always gives him a little while longer, in case he wants to say something else. Zach thinks that’s enough admission for a lifetime, but he probably won’t get away with it.

Zach stretches his legs. He thinks about it. Who does he hurt?

“Mali, and my brother.”

“How do you hurt Mali?”

“I’m hurting her now, by leaving.”

“It’s not your fault you have to leave.”

“It hurts her anyway.”

“And how else?”

Zach frowns. “That’s everything.”

“So, you don’t hurt her all the time, or purposefully. You hurt her once, or you are going to hurt her once. Let’s say, for arguments’ sake, she was in pain once, as opposed to you continually hurting her. Would you say that’s correct?”

“Er, yeah.”

“Okay.” He makes a note in his pad. “And what about Devon?”

Zach thinks about it. “It’s more he thinks I hurt him, which still counts, I guess. I think I hurt him too, I just can’t not hurt him. If I give him money, he’ll get in trouble, and he’ll be hurt. And if I don’t, he’s hurt that I don’t love him.”

“And do you? Love him?”

Zach thinks about it again. “Yeah, but I don’t like him.”

“Why?”

“Because he hurts the people I love.”

“Mali?”

Zach nods. “And Ma, and himself.”

“You’re allowed to be mad at him. You’re allowed not to like him. You’re allowed not to love him.”

“He needs people to love him. He needs people to care about him. He needs it the most.”

“That doesn’t mean it has to be you. You can forgive and forget.”

“I don’t know how to forgive him,” he says.

“Do you think he deserves to be forgiven?”

“He’s my brother.” Mali’s right. Devon has his face. Or he supposes he has Devon’s face. He’s not sure how he’s supposed to ignore that, but he has no desire to forgive him either.

“That’s not an answer.”

Zach chews on his cheek. “I don’t know.”

Theodore nods. “You didn’t say Devon hurts you, when you spoke about the people he hurts.”

Zach sighs. “I haven’t thought about it.”

“You don’t think about yourself?”

Zach frowns. “I do.”

“Tell me how.”

Zach thinks about it, but ultimately, he looks back at Theodore with a frown, and he smiles at his notepad. Back to being a prick.

“And the way you think you hurt Mali; do you think she should forgive you for that?”

“I don’t know.”

“I was watching the match earlier, and I heard Mali talking to her parents. Zach, I don’t think she thinks there is anything to forgive.”

Zach leans forwards, his elbows resting on his thighs. He used to be able to talk with his hands in his pockets; now he moves them around like a mime. He’ll blame Mali.

“I don’t know if I’m allowed to tell her how I feel about her. I don’t know if I have to wait until it’s all over. It’s my fault I have to leave.”

“Zach,” Theodore says, with a small smile. It’s pity smile, but Zach doesn’t mind. “You signed a contract you didn’t understand when you were thirteen. A child in the eyes of the law, and everyone who has half a mind. It was unfair and predatory and not your fault. These are not consequences of your actions; they’re the consequences of the adults who let you down.”

Zach swallows. Teddy always says something so insightful that it takes him weeks to figure it out, and this is only the second time he’s seen him.

“Give yourself some grace. You’ve managed to get here, to a position where you’re happy and in love, and it sounds like you’ve got someone to truly care about you back. It’s not cruel to tell her how you feel. It would be cruel to tell her after she’d asked you not to, but she hasn’t, has she? Everything you’ve said in our previous session suggests she is waiting for you.”

Zach sits up. “So, you think I can tell her? Doctor’s orders?”

Theodore laughs. “I think it might set you free.”