The Overnight Prodigy

Chapter 37: Something Like Respect

The shift in their dynamic became visible to the rest of the club almost immediately, in small ways that accumulated over the following weeks into something unmistakable Marcus seeking Ethan out for informal sparring sessions after official practice ended, offering corrections with a patience that hadn't existed in their earlier interactions, occasionally sitting with Ethan and his usual group at lunch rather than maintaining the careful social distance he'd kept since the beginning of the year.

"This is genuinely surreal," Jason observed, watching Marcus join their lunch table for the third time in a week, chatting with Sophie about a shared class with the easy confidence he brought to everything. "Six months ago this guy looked at you like you were something he'd scraped off his shoe. Now he's asking Sophie about her chemistry notes."

"People change," Ethan said, though he understood the shift better than he let on, the draw having apparently done something to recalibrate Marcus's entire assessment of him not just as a competitor worth respecting, but as someone worth actually knowing.

"You gonna tell him? The secret, I mean. Since you two are apparently besties now."

"I've been thinking about it." Ethan watched Marcus laugh at something Jason had said, easy and unguarded in a way that felt entirely different from the careful, assessing person Ethan had first met at the corkboard sign-up sheet. "He asked already, actually. After the semifinal. I told him I'd explain eventually."

"And?"

"And I think eventually might be soon. He's the first person outside my family who's ever really understood what it feels like to actually train for something, to put in the reps and watch the gap close slowly instead of all at once. I think if anyone's gonna believe me without thinking I need a psych evaluation, it's him."

Jason considered this with more seriousness than his usual lunch-table demeanor. "For what it's worth, I still think it should be me first. I've been asking since like October."

"I know. I haven't forgotten."

"I'm just saying. Seniority matters."

The opportunity came a week later, during one of the informal sparring sessions Marcus had started arranging, the gym mostly empty after regular club hours, just the two of them working through technical exchanges with the relaxed, exploratory energy of two people no longer trying to prove anything to each other.

"Can I ask you something serious?" Marcus said, breaking from a drill, toweling sweat from his face. "And I want an actual answer this time, not another 'it's complicated.'"

Ethan took a breath, feeling the familiar weight of the decision settle over him, heavier this time than it had ever felt with Jason or Sophie, precisely because Marcus's respect had been so hard-earned and Ethan didn't want to risk losing it over something that still sounded, even in his own head, faintly insane.

"Okay," he said. "But you have to actually let me finish before you decide I've lost my mind."

"Deal."

He told him. The dream, the voice that wasn't quite a voice, the strange, complete understanding that arrived whenever he read or watched or listened to something, the specific distinction between understanding and mastery that had defined every single struggle of the past several months. He watched Marcus's expression move through skepticism, then something more considering, then, by the end, a kind of settled acceptance that surprised Ethan more than outright disbelief would have.

"That's insane," Marcus said finally.

"I know."

"But it actually explains a lot. The speed you picked things up. The specific gap between your reads and your execution that took months to close. I noticed that gap from day one, actually I just assumed you were naturally gifted and slow to translate it physically. Never would have guessed the real explanation." Marcus studied him for a long moment, something thoughtful behind his eyes. "You know what the weirdest part is? It doesn't actually change how I see you. You still did the work. Whatever head start you got from some dream, the reps were still yours. The draw we fought was still real."

"That's basically what Grant told me. My other coach. The one I mentioned."

"Smart guy." Marcus reset into his stance, gesturing for Ethan to do the same. "Come on. Let's finish the session. I want to see if I can find that redirect again before you get too comfortable explaining your secret origin story."

Ethan laughed, more freely than he had in months, the specific relief of finally sharing the truth with someone who hadn't flinched away from it settling into something that felt, for the first time since the dream, entirely uncomplicated.

They ran through the redirect a dozen more times before finally calling it a night, Marcus offering small corrections between attempts with the same patient attentiveness he'd shown Ethan since the draw, neither of them bringing the conversation back up directly, though something had clearly settled between them that made the rest of the session feel lighter, easier, less like two people carefully circling each other's respect and more like two people who'd simply arrived at trusting it.

"You gonna tell Sophie next?" Marcus asked, as they were packing up, toweling off in the emptying gym.

"Eventually. I think she already half-suspects something, honestly. She's been giving me this look for months."

"The 'I know you're hiding something and I'm being very patient about it' look?"

"That's the one."

"Yeah, tell her soon. From what I've seen, patience like that doesn't last forever, even from someone who clearly cares about you as much as she obviously does." Marcus zipped his bag, offering Ethan a knowing look that suggested he'd picked up on considerably more about the dynamic between Ethan and Sophie than either of them had ever openly discussed. "Trust me on this one. I've got two older sisters. I know what running out the clock on someone's patience looks like."

Ethan filed the advice away alongside everything else Marcus had unexpectedly become a source of over the past several weeks, and walked home that evening turning over, not for the first time, exactly how and when he was finally going to have that particular conversation.