Chapter 21: Hit Me

Nate's POV

On Thursday night the locker room was empty except for one man.

Travis stood at his stall in a gray sweatshirt, packing a duffel.

His nameplate was still on the wall.

The C had been cut out of his jersey, and the white thread hung off the fabric in torn ends.

I shut the door behind me.

"Come to gloat?" he asked, without turning.

"I came with a page."

I held it out. The owner's office had printed it that afternoon, three short paragraphs in Lena's own words.

Travis took it and read it standing up.

I watched his face while he did. He read the way he did everything, quickly, looking for the part he could soften.

"No separation in June," he said. "I lied about the date. My wife did not leave me. I left her."

"That's all of it."

"I won't say that last line."

"It's what happened."

"It makes me look like a..."

"Like what?"

He stopped.

I waited. The ice machine rattled somewhere in the wall.

"Like a coward," Travis said, finally.

"You sent her a dress, Trav."

"I know what I sent her."

"In August you said you couldn't be the man who left her."

I kept my voice flat.

"So you found a way to make her do it."

He dropped the page on the bench.

For a moment his shoulders sagged.

I saw the kid I had met at his first training camp, who tipped the equipment manager twenty dollars.