Chapter 161: The Right Choice
November 2nd, 2010
The team bus rumbled down the dark highway, quiet and tired, but filled with a quiet sense of victory.
Outside the windows, everything blurred together streetlights flashing by, and the occasional glow from a distant gas station.
The loud celebrations from the locker room were already a memory, fading into the calm that comes after giving everything on the pitch.
Everyone was drained in that special way that only comes after a hard-fought 90 minutes.
The air inside the bus was thick with the mix of sweat, muscle rub, and the smell of fast food grabbed on the way out but it felt comforting, like a strange reminder of what they'd just been through together.
There was peace in the silence.
They were tired, but proud.
Dev Patel sat by the window, his forehead resting gently against the cool glass. He wasn't asleep, but he wasn't fully awake either caught in that hazy space where thoughts drift in and out.
