Chapter 3: Growing Pains
The apartment smelled like stale pizza and regret. Chad stood at the sink, rinsing the one non-stick pan they owned, his back to the chaos of the living room. Dawn light filtered through the slats of the blinds, cutting the gloom into dusty stripes. He’d slept in fits, his brain replaying the doctor’s flat, professional tone on a loop. The person who walked into that club no longer exists.
A floorboard creaked behind him. He didn’t turn.
“Morning.”
K’s voice was sleep-rough. He heard her pad into the kitchen, felt the shift in the air. The scent of her body wash—something sweet, like coconut—cut through the grease smell.
“Coffee’s made,” he said, his own voice a gravelly mess.
He turned finally, leaning against the counter. She was standing by the coffee pot, wearing an old NFL tee that had once been baggy on her. Now it stretched taut across her chest, the fabric straining at the seams, the hem hitting high on her thighs. Her hair was a tangled mess of gold. She looked soft and rumpled and utterly alien.
She reached up for a mug from the cabinet, her arm extending. The movement pulled the shirt tight. He saw her face change. A sharp, indrawn breath. A flinch that tightened her features, her free hand flying instinctively to cup the side of her right breast.
“You good?” he asked.
“Fine.” The word was clipped. She got the mug, set it down a little too hard. She poured the coffee, her movements stiff. When she went to add sugar, her reach across the counter made her wince again, her shoulders hunching.
“K.”
“It’s nothing.”
“You’re moving like you got tackled.”
She slammed the sugar canister down. “It’s just… my chest is killing me, okay? It feels like someone pumped them full of concrete and then kicked me. Satisfied?”
Chad blinked. He’d seen Kyle play on a fractured ankle, taped up and snarling. He’d never heard him—her—complain like this. It wasn’t a complaint of pain, but of bewildered, intimate agony. “Is that… normal?”
“How the hell should I know what’s normal?” she snapped, then sighed, deflating. She carefully cradled her breasts through the thin cotton of the shirt, her eyes closed. “The doctor said… cycles. And symptoms. This is a symptom, I guess. It’s like they’re twice as heavy and everything aches. Even the damn air hurts them.”
The sheer bodily vulnerability of it left Chad stranded. He was built to fix problems—block a defender, lift a couch, change a flat. This was a territory with no playbook. “Didn’t they give you something? At the pharmacy?”
“They gave me the pill. Which takes, like, a month to regulate anything. This is now.” She took a cautious sip of coffee, her expression grim. “I looked it up last night. Heating pad. Ibuprofen. Support. Whatever that means.”
Chad stared at the microwave, at the faded signatures of college players they’d idolized. A heating pad. He could do that. It was a tangible thing. “Okay. I’ll go get one.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Do you have one?”
She was silent.
“I’ll go get one.” He pushed off the counter. “What else? Chocolate, or…?”
A faint, miserable smile touched her lips. “Is that your expert medical opinion, Dr. Henderson?”
“It’s my ‘my sister used to cry during commercials when she had cramps’ opinion. So. Chocolate?”
“Dark. And maybe those… you know. The pads. For… leaking.” She couldn’t look at him, her cheeks flushing a deep pink. “The stuff the doctor said might happen. Just… get the kind for a heavy flow. To be safe.”
Chad felt his own ears grow hot. This was a door in their friendship that had never been cracked, let alone kicked off its hinges. He gave a tight, single nod. “Heating pad. Ibuprofen. Dark chocolate. Pads. Heavy. Got it.”
The CVS was brightly lit and deeply humiliating. He felt like a burglar in the feminine hygiene aisle, a gigantic man-mountain looming over pastel boxes adorned with words like “Ultra,” “Security,” and “ComfortFlex.” An elderly woman gave him a wide berth, clutching her handbag. He grabbed the largest box with the most assertive branding, then practically sprinted to the home health section for a heating pad.
At the checkout, the teenage cashier scanned the items with practiced boredom. Heating pad. Chocolate. Extra-strength ibuprofen. The box of pads. His face was a stone mask.
“Long night?” the kid asked idly, bagging the items.
“Something like that,” Chad grunted, shoving his card into the reader.
When he returned, the apartment was quiet. He found her on the couch, curled on her side, knees drawn up. She’d changed into soft-looking gray sweatpants and a loose tank top. Her eyes were closed, but they opened when he dropped the bag on the coffee table with a crinkle.
“Mission accomplished,” he said.
“Any casualties?”
“Just my dignity.” He pulled out the heating pad, plugged it in, and handed it to her. She fumbled with the cord, her movements still careful. He unwrapped the chocolate bar, broke off two squares, and placed them on the arm of the couch near her head. He filled a glass with water and set the ibuprofen bottle next to it.
Then he stood there, useless, in the center of the room.
K arranged the heating pad over her chest, sighing as the warmth seeped through the fabric. She looked small. “Thanks, Thor.”
“Don’t mention it. Ever.” He sat heavily in the armchair opposite, the old leather groaning. He picked up a football from the floor, turning it over in his hands. The familiar pebbled texture was a comfort. “This is gonna be a thing now, huh? Every month.”
“According to the internet, yeah. A fun, new, recurring feature of my existence.” She took a square of chocolate, nibbling the edge. “Sorry you have to… deal with this.”
“I’m not ‘dealing with it.’ I’m getting supplies. There’s a difference.” He tossed the ball lightly, caught it. The silence settled again, but it was a different kind than the one in the truck. This was domestic. Awkward, but woven with a new, terrible normalcy.
Her phone buzzed on the table. She glanced at the screen and went very still. The color drained from her face, the chocolate forgotten in her hand.
Chad knew. “Your mom?”
K nodded, a single jerky motion. “It’s Tuesday.” FaceTime Tuesday. A ritual for years.
The phone buzzed again, a cheerful, insistent trill in the quiet room. It felt like an alarm.
“You can’t ignore it forever,” he said softly.
“Watch me.” But her hand crept toward the phone. She stared at the screen, at the picture of her mom’s smiling face. The buzzing stopped. A second later, a text notification chimed.
Mom: Sweetie! Missed you! Call when you can. Dad says hi and remind Chad about Sunday. Love you!
K made a small, choked sound. She dropped the phone face down on the couch as if it had burned her. She pulled the heating pad closer, curling tighter into herself, presenting her back to him and the room.
Chad looked from the huddled form on the couch to the vibrant, messy proof of their old life around them—the signed jerseys, the trophies, the framed photo on the bookshelf of two grinning boys in helmets, arms slung over each other’s shoulders. That boy in the picture was gone. The evidence of it was shivering under a heating pad on their couch, hiding from her mother’s love.
The momentum of the morning, of the pharmacy run, stalled and hardened into a cold, looming dread. The medical reality was one thing. The biological curveball was another. But this—the inevitable, shattering collision with the past—that was the hit coming. And no play in the world could block it.
The silence in the apartment became a thick, hearable thing. It was broken not by a voice, but by another, different buzz from K’s discarded phone. This one was short, sharp—a notification, not a call. She uncurled slightly, her hand groping for the device without looking. She swiped the screen, her eyes scanning the new message. A harsh, single laugh escaped her, devoid of any real humor.
She turned the phone toward Chad. On the screen was a gym locker room mirror selfie, all stark fluorescent light and gleaming sweat. A massively muscled guy named Derek, an old teammate from their college offensive line, grinned, flexing. His text read: Leg day payoffs! You still lifting, K? Or you letting Thor do all the work?
“Another shirtless pic, bro,” she said, her voice flat and tired. “Our old teammates are relentless.” She dropped the phone onto her chest, the screen glowing against the dark fabric of her tank top. “They’re stuck in a loop. A group chat I can’t escape. It’s just protein shakes, lift stats, and fuckin’… pectoral updates.”
Chad studied the familiar lines of Derek’s torso, the dumb, friendly grin. It was a broadcast from another universe.
It was a broadcast from another universe. Chad just grunted, his grip tightening on the football. “Derek’s a meathead. Always was.”
K didn’t answer. She was still staring at the ceiling, but her thumb moved, scrolling. Another photo loaded. A closer shot, droplets of sweat tracing the deep grooves between Derek’s abdominal muscles. The lighting was brutal and perfect. She let out a slow breath.
Her voice was quiet, almost conversational, when she finally spoke. “I mean, look at this shit.” She bit her lip, a quick, unconscious motion. “Gotta admit, though. Derek is kinda looking good. No homo, but those abs and those big pecs… he’s putting in the work for sure.”
The words hung in the stale air. They were phrased in their old language, the casual disclaimers of the locker room, but the delivery was all wrong. It was softer. Appreciative. The heating pad hummed on her chest.
Chad felt a cold ripple down his spine. It wasn’t jealousy. It was something more vertiginous—the floor of their shared reality cracking open another inch. He watched her look at the picture. Really look at it. Her expression wasn’t the old, competitive sizing-up of a brother-in-arms. It was something far more complicated, a distant, curious hunger that seemed to unnerv her as much as it did him.
“No homo,” Chad echoed, the phrase tasting like ash. “Right.”
She flinched, finally tearing her gaze from the screen. She looked at him, and her eyes were wide with a fresh kind of panic, as if she’d just heard the words herself. “I didn’t mean… it’s just a physique. It’s impressive. Like a sculpture.”
“Yeah.” Chad stood up abruptly, the football falling from his hands and thudding dully on the carpet. He couldn’t be in this room anymore, with the smell of her coconut soap and the electronic glow of another man’s body on her phone. “I’m gonna… hit the gym. You need anything else?”
He was already moving toward the door, grabbing his keys from the bowl. The action was too loud, too sudden.
“Thor.”
He stopped, hand on the doorknob, but didn’t turn.
“It doesn’t mean anything,” she said to his back, but her voice lacked conviction. It was a thin plea.
“Never said it did,” he replied, his tone flat. He yanked the door open. “Lock up behind me.”
The door clicked shut, leaving K alone in the silent apartment. The heat from the pad seeped into her aching body. The phone screen, now dark, reflected the terrified confusion on her own face. She had spoken without thinking, a reflex from a dead life, and it had summoned a ghost that now stood between them, solid and breathing.
She had spoken without thinking, a reflex from a dead life, and it had summoned a ghost that now stood between them, solid and breathing.
The apartment door didn’t slam again for two hours.
K heard the key in the lock, the heavy tread of his sneakers on the floorboards. She hadn’t moved from the couch. The heating pad had gone cold. The chocolate was a melted smear on the wrapper. She stared at the blank television screen, seeing only the ghost-image of Derek’s abs and Chad’s retreating back.
Chad moved through the living room like a storm front. He smelled of cheap gym soap and hard sweat. He didn’t look at her, beelining for the kitchen. The fridge door opened with a suck of air, and she heard the crack of a can—not beer, but one of those vicious citrus energy drinks he loved.
He drank it in three long gulps. She watched the muscles in his throat work.
“You’re back,” she said, the words stupid and small.
“It’s my apartment.” He crushed the can with one hand, the aluminum crumpling with a sound like breaking bones. He tossed it toward the recycling bin. It clattered against the wall and fell to the floor. He left it there.
“How was the gym?”
“Loud.” He finally turned, leaning against the kitchen entryway. His gray tank top was dark with sweat at the chest and under his arms. He’d pushed himself, hard. She could always tell. His eyes were the color of a winter lake. “You still dying?”
“A little less.” She sat up slowly, the ache in her breasts a dull, familiar throb now. “Chad, about what I said—”
“Forget it.” He cut her off, his voice flat. “It’s nothing. You’re adjusting. Weirder shit has happened.”
But it wasn’t nothing. The ghost was still there, drinking another energy drink in their kitchen. The silence stretched, taut and thin.
“My mom texted again,” she said, just to fill the void. “She’s getting worried.”
Chad’s shoulders tightened. He stared at the crushed can on the floor. The hum of the refrigerator kicked on, a low, pervasive drone.
“You know you can’t dodge this forever, K.” His voice was quieter now, stripped of its gym-intensity. He walked over and picked up the fallen can, placing it precisely in the bin. When he turned back, his expression was unreadable. “It’s the next play. You gotta call them.”
“And say what?” Her own voice climbed, tinged with the panic she’d been swallowing all day. “Hi, it’s your son. Just kidding, I’m a daughter now? They’ll have a collective stroke. My dad will drive up here with a priest and a shotgun.”
Chad ran a hand over his close-cropped hair, a gesture of pure frustration. He walked to the window, looking out at the brick wall of the adjacent building. He spoke to the glass, his reflection cloudy and grim. “You’re gonna have to talk to your parents eventually.”
“I know that,” she snapped.
“No, listen.” He turned, and his face was earnest, stripped of its usual jock-irony. He was trying, painfully, to logic his way through a minefield. “They’ll understand. Maybe not at first. But they will. Look, they lost their jock son.”
He took a step toward the couch, his hands moving in the air as if diagramming a play. “But now they have a hot daughter. See? It’s a trade. Your mom will be thrilled, bro. Seriously. She can finally take you shopping for shit that isn’t from the team store. You can talk about… I don’t know, shoes or whatever. It’ll be good.”
He finished, his expression hopeful, as if he’d just solved a complex equation.
K stared at him. Her mouth hung slightly open. The sheer, catastrophic simplicity of his words hung in the air between them, so profoundly ridiculous and heartbreakingly sincere that all the air left the room.
A sound escaped her—a choked sputter that bloomed into a real, ragged laugh. It hurt her sore chest, but she couldn’t stop it. It was too much. The aching body, the phantom longing for a teammate’s physique, the terror of her parents, and now this—Chad’s earnest, reductive, disastrous attempt at comfort.
“‘A hot daughter’?” she wheezed, tears streaming down her face, though she wasn’t sure if they were from laughter or despair. “That’s your pitch? ‘Hey, Linda, sorry your boy’s gone, but check out these D-cups!’”
Chad’s hopeful look shattered, replaced by a flush of defensiveness. “That’s not what I meant!”
“It’s exactly what you meant!” She gasped for breath, wiping her eyes. “You think my mom gives a single damn about going shopping? You think my dad gives a shit about a ‘hot daughter’? He taught me how to throw a spiral in this parking lot!”
The laughter died as suddenly as it came, leaving her hollow and raw. She looked at him, at his confused, wounded expression. He was trying. He was just so catastrophically bad at it.
“They lost their son, Chad,” she whispered, all the humor gone. “You don’t just replace a person like a broken piece of equipment. You grieve.”
He stood frozen in the center of the room, his earlier certainty dissolving. The diagram in the air was gone. He just saw her, small and broken on the couch, surrounded by the relics of the person she used to be. His logic had nowhere to go.
The momentum of the day, of the confession and the flight and the return, crashed into this impossible wall. The next play was unclear. The clock was running. And they were both, suddenly, very afraid of the next snap.