When the door clicked shut, it felt louder than any stadium roar. Blaze sat at the edge of the clinic bed, his fingers locked together like he was trying to hold himself steady by force. The room smelled like antiseptic and warm metal, and for a few seconds nobody spoke. The doctor's words still hung there, heavy and unreal, like they were meant for someone else.
A fractured fibula. Ligament strain. Weeks of recovery. No training. No matches. No shortcuts, weeks with football or martial arts, just watching from the stands.
Jason stood the closest to him, but even he didn't know what to say. He cared about the kid more than he ever admitted, but he had always been the type who kept his emotions zipped up unless someone pushed him. Now he didn't have a script. None of them did.
Blaze didn't look up. "Coach… you don't need to sugarcoat it. I know what it means."
Jason exhaled through his nose, slow and tired. "I'm not sugarcoating anything. We'll get through it."
