My mind returns to Mitch and my sister. He and Ashley got together so long ago I don’t remember introducing them but they both swear I did. I gave a sloppy, immemorable speech at the wedding that referenced their shared passion for itineraries. Now they’re getting divorced. Ignoring it until you can’t is the only reasonable human response. The clichést of clichés: Mitch got caught banging his paralegal. He swore he’d ended it, then got caught again. Ashley kicked him out of their Capitol Hill apartment and served him with papers. It splattered public two weeks into the season. Another group chat was formed, sans Mitch. Unfair to boot him for his personal life, went one argument. More unfair to Thrope to not boot him, went the counter. The latter won out because Ali argued it, and she’s both our alpha and our lawyer. So we’d play out the rest of the year, and find a replacement in the offseason. Could I have quit the league? Made a quiet act of loud solidarity with my sister? Yes. But I didn’t. Mitch put us in this position. Not me.

He pulls a piece of paper from his jacket. It’s folded down the middle with crisp exactness; Mitch has always been an attentive person. He begins to read in a low whisper, his voice shaky but rehearsed. His letter includes words like unhappiness and change and finding our true selves. It does not include words like abortion. When he starts talking about the past, and the importance of old friendships, I tune out and study his face. Its worn, pallid, large, raccoon eyes may not signify sleeplessness but sure as hell suggest it. There’s gray in his stubble, too, and not just here or there. He’s miserable. Of course he is.

My eyes slide over to the game on the television, and not only because Mitch’s kicker is lining up for a field goal. When I look back, he’s stopped reading from his letter.

“You ever cheat?” he asks.

It’s a sudden question. It’s also one he possesses the answer to.

“Julie,” I say. “You remember all that.” I pause and narrow my eyes to shards. “We were 17.”

I hate Mitch, I know now that I always will. But deep down? Deep down, I understand him. That hurts more than turning against a friend from the past ever could.

“Just her?” he asks. “That’s it?”

“Yes,” I lie.

Once. A couple times. On girlfriends, sure, but that doesn’t change the hurt, only its scale. I have to forgive myself, I think, watching Mitch fold up his paper speech and ask for another round. But I don’t have to forgive you.