Luis looked at Bryce’s jaw, now healed. “That’s funny coming from you.”
The insult was small and accurate. Bryce could feel his face becoming hot.
“Yeah,” he said. “It is. I wish someone had gotten through to me sooner.”
Luis’s expression changed. He had expected anger. Instead he got an admission that did not ask for sympathy.
“Did it really hurt?” the boy asked.
“A lot.”
“Were you scared?”
Bryce considered lying. His reputation was already damaged; he had no interest in giving people another weakness to use against him. But he thought of Owen saying that strength meant knowing when a situation was not a fight.
“Afterward, yeah,” he said. “Not just because of the hit. Because I couldn’t believe I’d acted that way in front of a kid.”
Luis looked down at his wraps. “I hate it when people laugh.”
“I know. Me too.”
For several minutes they sat together while the rain tapped against the gym windows. Then Luis stood and went to tell Marisol what had happened.
Bryce stayed on the bench. He had not solved the boy’s problem. He had simply refused to make it worse. The difference was new to him.
At the end of winter, Simone met Bryce for coffee. They had spoken occasionally but had not resumed their old relationship. She asked about the counseling, his work, and whether he still spoke to Devin.
“No,” he said. “He thinks I betrayed him.”
“Did you?”
“I told him to stop lying. If that’s betrayal, I guess I did.”
Simone stirred her coffee. “You used to ask me to defend you even when you knew you were wrong.”
“I know.”
“I can’t do that again.”
“I’m not asking.”
She watched him for a while. “That’s different.”
He smiled, small and tired. “I’m trying.”
They did not make promises about what came next. When they left the café, Bryce held the door as Simone passed. He did not look around to see whether anyone had noticed.
He still owned the championship belt. He still liked fighting when it was a sport practiced with rules, consent, and medical oversight. But the plastic plate no longer sat on his kitchen counter. It was packed in a box with his old photographs. Sometimes he opened the box and felt pride at what he had accomplished. Sometimes he felt embarrassed by the person he had become while chasing the next round of applause.
He was learning to tolerate both feelings without asking somebody else to carry them.
Chapter 25 — The Shape of a Home
For Owen, winter came with a different kind of work. He replaced the loose boards on his back porch. He fixed Ruth’s garden gate again after the first freeze shifted the frame. He helped Drew repair the wooden railing around their steps, patiently teaching him the difference between drilling a pilot hole and forcing a screw into dry wood until it split.
