COLEEN
The silence was the loudest part.
Hayden had been gone three days, and already my body had fallen into the rhythm of waiting.
I was checking my phone without realizing it, listening for a buzz that never came, convincing myself I wasn’t anxious while counting the hours since his last message.
The last thing he’d sent was a blurry photo from the airport shuttle with the caption: “Coach looks like he’s about to murder us all and it’s only Day 1.”
I’d laughed.
And then spent twenty minutes wondering if I should reply with something funny or meaningful or nothing at all.
I chose a simple: “You’ve got this. Be nice to the coach. He has the power to murder you.”
He never replied which I understood because he needed some time to settle in and establish a routing for the next few we
