Chapter 009

Ivy Pov:

The words on the screen seemed to pulse, growing louder the longer I stared at them, until the room itself felt like it was tilting.

Sources Say Team Knew for Weeks.

"That's not possible," Coach Lockwood said, his voice low, dangerous. "Nobody outside this room knew until tonight."

"Clearly someone did," Noah said, his gaze cutting toward Morgan so sharply that even Anna, standing quietly by the door, seemed to hold her breath.

"Don't look at me." Morgan's voice pitched higher, defensive in a way that did nothing to convince me of her innocence.

"I didn't leak anything."

"You knew things you shouldn't have," Noah said. "You knew about Ivy's grandmother. You knew we'd been spending time together before anyone else on this campus did. Now a story breaks claiming the team's been hiding my condition for weeks, and you're sitting right here."

"That doesn't mean I did it!"

"Enough." Lockwood's palm slammed against his desk, silencing the room instantly. He scrolled further down the article, his jaw tightening with every line.

"This says a source close to the program confirmed Carter's been showing symptoms since the championship game, and that coaching staff chose performance over player safety." He looked up, eyes hard.

"That's not speculation…that's specific. Someone gave them details only a handful of people would know."

My stomach churned. If this got out to scouts, to the league, to everyone watching Noah's career with a magnifying glass…it wouldn't just hurt him. It could end everything before it began.

"Who else knew?" I asked. "Besides us, right now, in this room…who else had access to that information?"

Lockwood's eyes flicked toward Morgan again, and this time the accusation in them was impossible to miss.

"I want to see your phone," he said.

Morgan's face went white. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me. If you've got nothing to hide, you won't mind."

"That's an invasion of my privacy," she snapped, clutching the phone tighter to her chest. "You can't just demand that."

"I can if I suspect a player's confidential medical information came from someone under my program," Lockwood said evenly.

"And right now, you're the only person in this room who hasn't answered a single question honestly."

The tension stretched thin enough to snap. Morgan's eyes darted toward the door, toward Anna standing squarely in front of it, arms crossed, clearly not planning on moving.

"Fine," Morgan finally bit out, though her hands trembled slightly as she unlocked her phone and thrust it toward Lockwood.

"Look all you want…you won't find anything."

Lockwood scrolled through her messages, his expression unreadable, while the rest of us waited in unbearable silence. Noah leaned heavily against the doorframe, his breathing shallow, and I found myself drifting closer to him without quite deciding to, my hand brushing his arm in silent support.

"There's nothing here," Lockwood finally said, though his tone carried suspicion rather than relief.

"But that doesn't mean much if she deleted it before handing it over."

"I didn't delete anything," Morgan said quickly. Too quickly.

"You deleted something in this office fifteen minutes ago," I said. "I watched you do it."

"I was clearing out spam messages, not leaking medical information to reporters!"

"Convenient timing," Anna muttered from the doorway.

Morgan shot her a venomous look but said nothing further.

Lockwood handed the phone back, his frustration evident in the tight set of his shoulders. "I can't prove anything right now but I promise you, if I find out anyone in this program leaked confidential information about one of my players, there will be consequences severe enough to end more than just a semester." His eyes swept the room, landing on each of us in turn.

"That goes for everyone."

The threat hung heavy in the air. Morgan stood, smoothing her skirt again, her composure cracking at the edges despite her best efforts to maintain it.

"I think I've been accused enough for one night," she said stiffly. "If you'll excuse me."

Nobody stopped her as she swept out of the office, though I caught the way her hand trembled slightly around her phone, the way she glanced back once before disappearing down the hallway.

Lockwood exhaled heavily once she was gone, dragging a hand down his weathered face. "This is a mess," he said.

"A public mess, now, which means it's about to get a lot worse before it gets better."

"What happens now?" I asked.

"Now, I make calls. Damage control, university PR, maybe a statement." He glanced at Noah. "And you, son, are seeing the team doctor first thing tomorrow, and depending on what they say, you might not be playing Saturday regardless of what any article says."

Noah's jaw clenched, but for once, he didn't argue. The fight seemed to have drained out of him, replaced by something heavier, more exhausted.

"Go home," Lockwood said, his voice gentler now. "Both of you…get some rest. Tomorrow's going to be a long day."

The drive back to my apartment was quiet, heavier than before, the weight of everything pressing down on all three of us. Anna kept glancing at Noah in the rearview mirror, concern etched across her features, while I sat beside him in the back seat, close enough to feel the tension radiating off him in waves.

"Ivy," he said quietly, once Anna had stepped out to grab something from the store on the way, leaving us alone for the first time since the office.

"Yeah?"

"Earlier, at your apartment, before Anna knocked…I said something. About a garden. Behind the chemistry building." His eyes found mine, searching, desperate. "Was that real? Did I actually remember something?"

My chest tightened. "Yes," I whispered. "It was real."

Something in his expression cracked open, hope and fear tangled together so completely I couldn't tell which one was winning. "

Tell me more," he said. "Please. I need something real right now. Something that isn't falling apart."

I opened my mouth to answer, but my phone buzzed sharply in my pocket, the sound cutting through the quiet car like a gunshot.

I glanced down, and my blood went cold. An unknown number, a single message glowing on the screen.

Tell him the truth about the garden, or I will. And trust me, my version won't be nearly as flattering. My hand went cold around the phone, my thumb hovering over the screen like touching it again might make the words disappear.

"Ivy?" Noah's voice cut through the haze, laced with concern. "What is it?"

I shook my head, shoving the phone face-down against my thigh. "Nothing. Just a spam text."

"You went white as a sheet over spam."

"Noah, please." My voice came out sharper than I intended, and I watched him flinch slightly, confusion flickering across his face. I softened, guilt twisting in my chest.

"I just need a second, okay?"

He studied me for a long moment, and even with half his memories gone, even with everything else stripped away by the accident, I could see him reading me the way he used to…patient, quiet, unwilling to push somewhere I clearly didn't want to go.

"Okay," he said softly. "But whatever it is, you don't have to carry it alone. Not with me."

The irony of that statement nearly broke something in me. He didn't remember the garden, didn't remember the nights we'd spent whispering secrets under the stars, didn't remember any of the promises we'd made to always be honest with each other no matter what. And yet here he was, offering exactly that kind of honesty without even knowing it.

The car door opened before I could respond, Anna sliding back into the driver's seat with a bag of snacks and an oblivious smile that faded the instant she saw my face.

"What happened?" she asked immediately. "Ivy, you look like you saw a ghost."

"I'm fine," I said, too quickly, my grip tightening around my phone.

Anna's eyes narrowed, clearly not buying it, but she said nothing further as she pulled back onto the road, the silence in the car turning thick and uncomfortable.

I stared out the window, my mind racing through every possibility. Who had my number? Who knew about the garden…a place Noah and I had only ever spoken about in private, somewhere no one else should have known existed?

My phone buzzed again in my lap.

I glanced down before I could stop myself, dread pooling low in my stomach, same unknown number with another message.

Meet me tomorrow alone or Noah finds out everything…about the garden, about what really happened the night of the accident, and about why his memories didn't just disappear on their own.

The car swayed as Anna took a turn, and beside me, Noah shifted closer, his eyes catching the glow of my screen before I could hide it.

"Ivy," he said slowly, his voice dropping into something quiet and unsteady. "What does that mean? What really happened the night of the accident?"