What Dylan Knows
848 Words
Cheryl’s pov.
Dylan blocked me outside the film room three days after the comments started. He held a coffee in each hand, extending one before I recognized him.
"Peace offering," he said. "For the retreat."
I took it. Refusing took more energy than a week of watching strangers debate my merits left me with. "You didn't make things weird. Celeste did. You just stood near it."
"Fair." He fell into step beside me, distinct from the tension Carlson carried into every room. "I read the comments.
Anyone who's watched you break down tape for two years knows you didn't need Carlson feeding you information. You were better than half the coaching staff before you two became a thing."
"Thanks." I meant it, though I was tired of needing reassurance from people who weren't the source of the problem.
"Can I tell you something? Off the record, since you're a journalist now." He offered a half-smile, but his expression turned serious. He glanced down the hallway and lowered his voice. "Things are happening with the team you should know. If you're building a profile on this program."
"What kind of things?"
"Substances. Not weed, not the usual college stuff. Something serious, moving through guys on different teams." He kept his voice low against the hallway noise. "I don't know the supplier. But at least two guys changed this season, and it's not from training."
My stomach tightened, an instinct closing around a name I wasn't ready to consider. "Why tell me?"
"Because you dig into things instead of just reporting the score." He shrugged, eyes steady. "If it's what I think, it will blow up, and I'd rather you be ahead of it than surprised."
I thought about Carlson's exhaustion after practice, the way he snapped during drills he used to handle easily, the edge that crept into him over the last two weeks.
I blamed Celeste's campaign and nothing else. I pushed the thought away before it formed; entertaining it felt like a betrayal I wasn't ready to commit without proof.
"If you hear anything specific," I said, "names, timelines, anything concrete, will you tell me?"
"Yeah. I will." Dylan studied me, thoughtful. "I hope I'm wrong. I like this team. I don't want to watch it fall apart over something stupid."
Amara found me twenty minutes later in the library. I relayed the conversation while she took notes in the shorthand she used for the Celeste file.
"That's a lead," she said. "Not proof, but a lead. I'll look into supply patterns on campus. Dealers leave footprints, financial or social."
"You think it's connected to Celeste?"
"I don't know. Might be separate. A campus this size always carries something beneath the surface that has nothing to do with your family."
She closed her notebook, studying me with the expression she used whenever she thought I avoided the obvious.
"You're worried it's Carlson."
I hadn't said it aloud. Hearing it in her voice made the weight in my chest heavier.
"He's been different lately," I admitted. "Tired in a way that doesn't match his training. Sharper with people. I told myself it was Celeste, the comments. But.."
"But you aren't sure."
"No."
Amara reached across the table and squeezed my hand, the same gesture she used the day we started building the file against Celeste. "Then we find out. Carefully. You don't accuse him without proof, and you don't let this ruin what exists between you before you know if it's real. We watch. Quietly."
I nodded, throat tight. I thought about the box of old photos he showed me, the way he talked about his father's statistics-driven love, the fear in his voice about what happened the moment his numbers slipped.
If something was wrong, I understood it sitting there. It wouldn't be because Carlson chose it. It would be because he ran out of options, the way I once did, sitting on a journal full of feelings I never meant anyone to see.
I walked back to my apartment slower than usual, replaying every small thing I dismissed over the last two weeks.
The way Carlson's hands shook after practice, blamed on long drills.
The nights he texted that he was too wiped to come by, when exhaustion never stopped him before. The edge in his voice on the phone with Richard, smoothed over the second he realized I noticed.
None of it, on its own, meant anything. Together, it sat heavy.
I thought about the interview, about him telling me hockey was the only thing he did well enough for his father to notice, about the terror underneath what happened if his performance dropped.
I understood, in a way Dylan's warning forced me to, the pressure that pushes someone toward something they know is wrong because the alternative feels like disappearing entirely.
I didn't want that for him. I didn't want to be the person who found out and had to decide what to do with the knowledge.
I just hoped, whatever it turned out to be, we reached it before it cost him everything.
- Writer
