Page 374 of Playing Dirty

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Coach started practice with a warning.

“Yesterday doesn’t exist,” he said.

Nobody believed him.

That’s not how it works.

You don’t erase noise just by naming it.

You just pretend harder.

Andre missed the first shot.

Jace missed the second.

I didn’t miss mine.

But it didn’t feel clean.

Everything felt slightly off-center.

Luca noticed.

“You’re still thinking about it,” he said.

“I’m thinking about practice.”

“Same thing today.”

That was the problem.

It was starting to overlap in ways I didn’t like.

Coach blew the whistle.

“Reed. Reset.”

I reset.

But not enough.

ROWAN

Campus felt different that morning.

Not physically.

Socially.

People looked at me longer than usual.

Not openly.

Just enough.

Mia met me outside the media building with a folded newspaper printout.

“Yes,” she said immediately. “It got worse.”

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