End Game

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Nate

I don't take days off. Haven't in months—not since the last time she reached out. But today, I couldn't do it. My chest felt heavy, my body restless, like no amount of training was going to burn it off.

I slept in. Grabbed a coffee at The Study. Sat on a bench and half-listened to some sports podcast, the voices droning like white noise. Then I laced up and ran until sweat stung my eyes, circling campus, cutting past the residence halls, hoping the pounding in my chest would quiet everything in my head. It didn't.

I FaceTimed my moms and my three foster siblings. Seeing their faces helped, for a little while. But when I hung up, the silence was louder. I cleaned my room. Showered. Made a protein shake I didn't even want. Threw on shorts, a black T-shirt, and a cap. Still, the unease sat there, gnawing.

Because of the text. The one waiting on my phone that I still refused to open. I already knew what it said. I always knew. It was from my birth mother, Crystal. 

Our "relationship," if you could even call it that, was the most toxic part of my life. Every time she popped up, it ripped me open all over again. She gave birth to me, sure, but she was never a mother. She couldn't be—not with the needle, not with the men, not with the way she chose the high over me every single time.

My childhood was a nightmare I keep trying to outrun.

My dad, Darius, died in a car accident before I was old enough to even know him. That left me with her. She was barely twenty and already breaking apart. By the time I could form memories, I was starving more often than I was full, learning how to fall asleep to shouting and slamming doors, watching her sink deeper into drugs.

The first time they found me, I was a toddler, wandering the street in a diaper at night, looking for food. A neighbor called the cops. That was just the start. I'd get pulled away, dumped in foster homes, then shoved back with her whenever she pretended to clean up. Over and over. Every relapse, every lie, every boyfriend who scared me more than the last.

By four years old, I already knew what it meant to pack up my life into one ragged backpack—three shirts, a pair of jeans, and a one-eyed bear I clung to like it could save me.

Some homes were okay. Some were worse than Crystal. People who saw me as a paycheck, not a kid. People who didn't even bother learning my name. By middle school, I'd learned to keep my head down, blend in, do my homework, act like I was fine. I wasn't. I never was.

Then I got lucky. Thirteen years old. Two women decided I was worth fighting for. My moms. They gave me what I didn't even know how to ask for—stability, love, safety. They locked Crystal out of my life with court orders, fought like hell to protect me. For the first time, I had a home. But the scars were already carved deep. Even when they gave me everything, I carried the guilt.

I tried, later, to let Crystal back in. I wanted to believe she could be different. I wanted to believe I wasn't abandoning her. But she hadn't changed. She was thinner, weaker, a shell that smelled like cigarettes and rot. Her eyes were empty. And I couldn't save her. I had to face that.

So I never blocked her number. And every few months, she reeled me back in with one message. Always money. Always reopening the wound.

So yeah, I already knew what today's message said. And still, my chest felt like it was caving in just knowing it sat there, waiting.

By the time I dragged myself to the library for study group, I still felt like I was dragging my past behind me. All I wanted was to bury myself in the study session, zone out to balance sheets and econ graphs. Business classes were brutal, football was heavier than ever, and these weekly study groups were the only thing keeping me above water.