Page 116 of Try Line Hearts
It wasn’t a metaphor. It was a physical sensation, like someone had dropped the volume in his skull and turned up the clarity. The rain seemed to hang in the air in visible strings. The roar of the Aviva became distant, muffled, as if it was underwater. Even the reporter’s breath fogged in front of her face in a slow, delicate bloom.
A camera followed his gaze across the rain-soaked pitch to Kaine — mud-streaked, soaked through, laughing softly at something that wasn’t funny. Alive. Real. Shoulders still heaving with exertion,cheeks flushed, that bright, stubborn shine in his eyes that had carried them through eighty minutes of hell.
Kaine glanced up.
Their eyes met.
And in that suspended second Byrne saw it all at once: every time he’d swallowed a truth, every time he’d let Kaine disappear, every time he’d taken the easy line because it made the headlines quieter and his life manageable. He saw the ice bath, the question, the way Kaine had walked away without slamming a door because he’d been too tired to beg.
He saw the future, too — not rings and certainty, not some tidy fairytale — but a series of mornings and matches and choices, and one of them was about to happen now. Right now. On this pitch. In front of the entire Aviva. In front of cameras broadcasting to the whole world.
If he answered the question the way they wanted, he would lose him forever.
Byrne looked back at the reporter.
Looked straight into the camera.
He saw the red tally light.
Saw his own reflection warped in the wet lens.
And something in him — something old, something finally exhausted — snapped clean into decision.
“I can’t do this anymore,” he said.
The words landed hard and clear.
The stadium went quiet.
Not silent — but hushed, breath caught, the crowd sensing something breaking open. A collective intake like the entire country had leaned forward at once.
Byrne reached up, unclipped the microphone from his collar, and let it fall into the mud.
It hit with a wet, ugly sound that somehow felt perfect. Honest. Final.
Then he walked.
Not hurried. Not uncertain.
He marched.
Straight past the reporters. Straight through the rain. Cameras scrambled to follow, boots slipping as they tried to keep up. A producer shouted something; someone cursed as they nearly went down. The camera kept him centered anyway, because this — whatever this was — had become the story.
The crowd stayed eerily quiet, a hundred thousand people holding their breath.
Kaine’s smile faded as Byrne closed the distance.
“Byrne—”
Lucas cupped his face with both hands, thumbs warm and steady against mud-smeared cheeks.
“I’m so sorry,” Lucas said, voice breaking. “I’ve been a moron. I was scared. I thought I could fix it later.”
Eli stared at him, rain dripping from his lashes.
“I’m choosing to fix it now,” Lucas said. “I’m choosing you.”
He swallowed.
