“Yes.”
The answer hit harder than anything he had shouted in the mud.
I stood too quickly and the ledge tilted beneath me.
Vance caught my arm.
I jerked away.
“Don’t.”
He let go.
We stood facing each other in cold rain, both of us knowing the impossible thing that had just happened.
I had saved his life.
And he was about to end my course.
“I made the shot,” I said.
“You did.”
“Under pressure.”
“Yes.”
“No hesitation.”
Something in my voice cracked on the last word.
Vance heard it.
His expression softened for less than a second.
“You made the shot,” he repeated. “And you hid an injury that could have made you unsafe. Both things are true.”
I hated him for being right.
The medics confirmed the fracture that afternoon.
Small, but real.
My course status changed before sunset.
Medical removal.
Selection incomplete.
I stared at those words on the form until they blurred for reasons that had nothing to do with my eye.
Fourteen days of mud, sleep deprivation, stress drills, timed runs, judgment exercises, and humiliation reduced to two words that felt like failure.
Medical removal.
Vance signed the form.
I watched him do it.
