Rumor Has It I'm Dating the Football Captain

Chapter 99: Chapter 99: Two Years Without Him

Two Years Later

The spring air smelled like rain and blooming flowers.

Westbridge campus was completely alive. The concrete paths were packed with students rushing to their final exams. Freshmen were laughing loudly on the green lawns. Across the athletic complex, black and white footballs were flying across the practice pitch.

The journalism office was just as busy and chaotic as it had always been. The printers were loud. The coffee maker was constantly empty.

Everything looked exactly the same.

Except the people.

Audrey sat at the main layout desk.

She no longer looked like the nervous second-year reporter who had walked into the newsroom two years ago. Her posture was relaxed, and she carried a quiet, undeniable confidence.

She typed the final period on her keyboard. She hit the print button. She watched the paper slide out of the machine, grabbed it, and walked it directly over to the head professor.

Mrs. Higgins took the warm paper. She pulled out her red editing marker out of habit.

She read the sports feature from top to bottom. She read it a second time.

Mrs. Higgins slowly put the cap back on her red marker. She did not circle a single word. She did not cross out a single paragraph.

”You have outgrown this office, Audrey,” Mrs. Higgins said quietly.

Audrey smiled. ”I learned from the best.”

Mrs. Higgins opened her desk drawer. She pulled out a thick, official-looking white envelope and handed it across the desk.

”What is this?” Audrey asked.

”The national sports daily called me yesterday morning,” Mrs. Higgins explained smoothly. ”They were very impressed with your coverage of the collegiate finals. They want you in their city office.”

Audrey stared at the envelope. She opened the flap and pulled out the crisp letter. It was an official confirmation. She had been hired as a full-time sports journalist. She was starting her actual career the minute she graduated.

Audrey felt a massive wave of pride swell in her chest. She had built her own future.

The athletic complex was loud with sharp whistles and shouting voices.

Coach Miller stood on the sidelines with his arms crossed over his chest. He watched the defensive line run their tackling drills.

The football team was completely different now. The pitch was full of fresh faces. They had a brand new captain who yelled entirely different commands. The old scandals, the media drama, and the chaotic WFA rumors were completely gone.

Coach Miller smiled softly.

The program had survived. They had rebuilt the defensive line. They had won games. It was exactly what Mason Calloway would have wanted for his team.

The new freshmen did not know the history. They did not know about the blackmail or the luxury hotel deals. But whenever Jackson and Leo returned to campus to visit, the young players completely stopped what they were doing.

They idolized the giant alumni. They watched Jackson and Leo walk across the grass like absolute legends, totally unaware of the heartbreak those players had survived to get there.

Cardboard boxes completely took over the small apartment.

Zoya stood in her bedroom. She was carefully packing her heavy textbooks into a box. She wore a simple white t-shirt and jeans. Her dark hair was pulled into a neat, professional bun.

Audrey leaned against the wooden doorframe. She held two mugs of coffee.

”Are you ready?” Audrey asked softly.

Zoya looked at the glossy acceptance letter from the top law school in the country resting on her desk. She had achieved the exact statistical outcome she had calculated for herself.

”As ready as I will ever be,” Zoya replied quietly.

Audrey smiled, handed Zoya a mug, and walked back out to the kitchen to keep packing.

Zoya turned back to her bookshelf. She reached up to grab her oldest, thickest contract law textbook. As she pulled it off the shelf, a small piece of yellow paper fluttered out from the pages and gently hit the floor.

Zoya paused. She set her coffee down.

She bent over and picked up the paper. It was an old, faded sticky note. The handwriting was completely messy.

Eat your muffin, encyclopedia.

Zoya stared at the note. Her heart gave a sudden, quiet ache. The logic and the rules completely faded away for just a single second.

She did not throw the paper in the trash. She did not put it back in the textbook. She carefully folded the small yellow square in half. She opened her leather wallet and slid the note perfectly behind her driver’s license.

She zipped the wallet shut. She never told anyone.

The newspaper office was finally quiet for the evening.

Ben stood near the back storage closets. He was officially leaving. He had spent the last two years securing a major editorial job, and he was finally cleaning out his old archived desk materials.

He pulled a dusty cardboard box off the top shelf. He sneezed violently as a cloud of dust hit his face.

He looked inside the box. Sitting right next to a stack of old layout margins was a tiny, resilient green cactus in a ceramic pot.

Ben let out a loud, genuine laugh. He pulled the small plant out of the box and dusted off the pot with his thumb.

Daisy walked around the corner. She wore a bright floral dress, holding a stack of fresh photo proofs. She stopped when she saw what he was holding.

”You kept him,” Daisy smiled brightly. Her eyes were incredibly warm.

Ben looked at Spike the cactus. Then he looked at Daisy. The chaotic, stressed energy that usually surrounded him was completely gone.

”Some things aren’t meant to be thrown away,” Ben replied softly.

Daisy stepped closer. She gently bumped her shoulder against his arm.

”I am glad,” Daisy said happily. ”He needs sunlight in the new city.”

”I will put him by the window,” Ben promised.

The athletic dorm room was a complete disaster zone.

Leo was aggressively fighting the zipper of his large suitcase. He was sweating.

Chloe sat cross-legged on his bare mattress. She held up a completely deflated, muddy football.

”Leo,” Chloe sighed, tossing the ball slightly. ”You do not need to pack this. It is actual garbage. It smells like dirty rain.”

”It is not garbage!” Leo defended quickly. He let go of his suitcase and immediately grabbed the ball from her hands. ”It has extreme sentimental value, Chloe. I stopped a championship goal with this exact ball.”

”You cannot even inflate it,” Chloe pointed out logically. ”There is a massive hole on the side of the leather.”

”I will put it on a shelf,” Leo insisted stubbornly. He hugged the dirty ball to his chest. ”It represents my legacy.”

Chloe rolled her eyes, but she was smiling widely. She reached over and tossed a roll of packing tape at his chest.

They laughed loudly.

There was no drama. There was no anxiety about who was texting who. There was no fear about the future. They were entirely comfortable. They were just two people who had grown up together, totally secure in whatever came next.

Audrey walked across the campus alone.

The sun was slowly setting. It cast a warm, golden glow over the familiar brick buildings. She had her messenger bag slung loosely over her shoulder. The spring breeze felt nice against her skin.

She passed the journalism building where she had first met Ben. She passed the quiet library steps where she had first met Zoya.

Finally, she reached the tall metal gates of the football pitch.

Audrey stopped walking. She rested her hands lightly on the cold metal fence.

The field was full of new players. They were running evening drills under the stadium lights. They were laughing. They were shoving each other in the grass.

None of them knew who she was.

None of them had ever met Mason Calloway.

To them, he was just another legendary name hanging on the stadium wall.

The world had kept spinning without them. The hurricane had passed, and life had already moved on to the next season.

Audrey watched a new striker kick the ball directly into the net.

She smiled softly.

It was not because her heart did not hurt anymore. The quiet ache was still there, buried deep in her chest where nobody else could see it. She still thought about dark eyes and broad shoulders when the campus got too quiet.

She had tried calling him after he left. Once. Then again a few days later. His phone had been switched off every time. Eventually, she stopped calling. But she had never stopped wondering whether he had changed his number or simply wanted to disappear from her life.

Audrey smiled because she was finally okay with moving forward too.

She did not need to hide in an apartment anymore. She did not need to build walls to keep herself safe. She had survived the storm, and she had built a beautiful, successful life in the aftermath.

Audrey let go of the metal fence. She turned her back on the pitch and continued walking down the path.

In the distance, across the main green lawn, graduation workers were busy. They were carrying stacks of white chairs and setting them up in perfectly straight rows across the grass.

Tomorrow, Westbridge would say goodbye.