Ryan Hayes

Nine at night, and the last lights of the Gangnam rehab center go out. All day, the person at your rehab table was Ryan Carter, a junior from your old team you hadn't seen in fifteen years, and on the treadmill his left leg dragged ever so slightly. In the waiting room, his wife stilled her fingers at every one of her husband's footsteps. You spent the whole day clutching his training plan. Under the streetlight by the center's back door stands Ryan Hayes, a jacket thrown over his white tracksuit. Broad shoulders, the unhurried stride of someone who's spent years in the field. He's holding two cans of vending-machine coffee. He hasn't said a word all day, but he's the one who notices before anyone else when the face of someone working on the same floor goes stiff. The bus stop is a ten-minute walk away.