Page 61 of Contested

The changing room kept emptying. Doors opened and shut, and bags were dragged from lockers. Shower noise filled the back room, then faded as players moved out, dressed and laughing, toward whatever the night was going to become for everyone who had a better answer than sitting half-dressed on a bench reading texts from his sister.

“You decide if you’re gonna come?” Parker’s voice cut through Marcos’ thoughts, and he glanced up.

The changing room had cleared out quite a bit, with most players already gone or about to leave. Parker stood in front of Marcos, dressed with his bag slung over his shoulder and his eyebrow raised. His light brown hair was still damp from the showers, and he looked too awake for someone who had just run out a full match.

Marcos glanced at his phone again, then back to Parker. “Probably not. Next time, for sure.”

Parker hummed and then shrugged. “Alright, whatever, man.”

He didn’t push. He stared at Marcos for another second, long enough that Marcos wondered if something had shown on his face, then stepped across the room and joined a few of the other guys by the door. The last of them spilled out together, voices bouncing off the corridor walls until the door cut them away.

Silence didn’t arrive at once.

The distant crowd was still there, and the stadium still held its late-night thrum, but the room itself had gone quiet. The benches looked longer without bodies in front of them. The lockers stood open in uneven lines. The floor was marked with studs, tape, discarded grass, and little dark patches where water had dripped from hair and towels. A few footballs had been left near the wall, and two stretch bands were twisted together in front of the whiteboard.

Marcos stowed his phone back into his bag before sliding his socks off and getting to his feet. He dropped his shorts and packed them up. His hand found the back of his neck and rubbed it.

The quietness sat oddly heavy around him. With his underwear hanging low on his hips, Marcos walked around the changing room, feet dragging slightly, hand running across the wall as he passed. The paint was cool beneath his fingers. He followed the edge of it from one locker bay to the next, then turned without deciding to and crossed toward the loose footballs.

He picked up the first one and put it back in the rack. Then the second. Then the third, even though none of them were his responsibility. The stretch bands came next. He untangled them slowly, working one loop free, then another, until they hung properly from the hook where they should have been in the first place.

He found a roll of tape under the bench and threw it into the supply box. He nudged a towel with his foot, then picked it up and dropped it into the laundry bin. He moved without pace or direction, circling the room once, then half of it again. Every task lasted a few seconds. None of them gave him the space he needed.

The win should have settled something in him. Cleared his mind. He had done what he was meant to do, and the team had won. The supporters had roared. The room had sung itself hoarse.

Marcos pressed his knuckles against his sternum and exhaled hard. His heart had climbed too high and refused to come down.

A door closed behind him, and he turned.

Sebastian returned alone. He stopped just inside the doorway, eyes sweeping the room first, taking in the empty benches, the open lockers, the wet marks on the floor, then landing on Marcos.

Sebastian furrowed his brow. “Thought everyone would be gone by now.”

“Got kind of distracted,” Marcos admitted, keeping his gaze on Sebastian.

He wasn’t bleeding anymore. But dried blood had settled against the edge of his mouth, along the line of his jaw, and down the side of his neck, smeared and stubborn.

“Fair.” Sebastian stepped further into the room. “You good?”

“Yeah, yeah. Was just texting Becca for a while.”

“Becca?”

Marcos nodded, heading back toward his bag. “My sister.”

“Oh. I didn’t know you had a sister.”

“I have two.”

Marcos reached down and shoved a pair of socks further into his bag and tried to make his hands behave. His fingers didn’t shake much, but he felt the start of it in his wrists.

“Oh, cool,” Sebastian mumbled.

Marcos heard him shuffle behind him before letting out a low groan.

Marcos turned, seeing Sebastian touching his face, scrunching it up as he did. He had caught the edge of dried blood near his cheekbone and pulled at it too hard.

“In pain?” Marcos asked.