Built For Almost

There was no painkiller for pressure.
Neil had tried everything else.

Ice baths that left him numb to the bone.
Late-night stretches until his hands cramped.
Strengthening routines pulled from obscure YouTube channels.
He even started logging every bite of food - like maybe if he ate just right, trained just right, behaved just right, his knee would forget it was breaking.

It didn't.

If anything, the ache had evolved. It had grown teeth.
Some days it was dull and whispering. Others, it was all-consuming.
But the worst part wasn't the physical pain.
It was the doubt.

The whispers in his head that said:
You're falling behind.
You're not who they think you are.
You're one bad step away from losing everything.

And so, he smiled harder.
Trained longer.
Lied better.

...

The team started to notice.

Little things.

Zay looked at him too long during drills.
Ethan cracked a joke about him limping and got a dead stare instead of a comeback.
Even the coach tilted his head more often when Neil sprinted, like he was seeing through the facade.

It made Neil feel like a cornered animal - chest heaving with the weight of invisible chains, eyes wide and gleaming with the raw gleam of fear and fury. Trapped between the cruel teeth of fate and the echoing growl of his own heartbeat, he stood-defiant, desperate, trembling on the edge of lashing out or collapsing, not knowing which would come first.

...

Neil got good at lying.

Not just the big stuff - "I'm fine," "Just tight," "Didn't sleep much."
But the little things.
How he tied his left shoe just a bit slower, to stall.
How he started stretching farther from the group.
How he kept tape in his bag, wrapped tight under his leggings so no one could see the swelling.
How he faked a cough when Coach Langley asked for volunteers to go first.

He moved like a shadow of himself, but no one looked long enough to notice something was wrong.
Except maybe Zay.

Zay was watching.

Too closely.

Neil started avoiding him, too. Left early. Arrived late. Barely slept in the dorm. Kept his headphones in longer.
Everything became routine: run, pretend, escape.
Run, pretend, escape.

But he was running out of places to hide.

...

It was Friday when things started cracking for real.

The coach had them doing 150s - three rounds, full pace.

Neil made it through the first with a limp so subtle it almost passed for fatigue.
By the second, his knee screamed at the halfway mark.
By the third, he couldn't even finish.

He pulled up at 80 meters, chest heaving, eyes stinging.

The others passed him.
Zay jogged back toward him. "Yo, what-?"

"I said I'm fine," Neil snapped, already walking off.

Zay didn't follow. But he didn't leave, either. Just stood there, jaw set, watching him go in silence.