The noise had died behind him hours ago. Floodlights still hummed in the distance, stretching faint shadows onto the pavement, but the music, the interviews, the applause—that was all back at Valley Parade. Here, it was only the wind and the distant murmur of a city that had already moved on to the next thing.
Ethan Wilson walked with the kind of silence that came after something big. Not shock. Not disbelief. Just... stillness. Like the ground hadn't caught up with what happened on it.
His backpack bumped lightly between his shoulder blades. The match ball shifted inside—still a little damp from the grass, still carrying the weight of everything that had just happened. His first league start. His first ninety minutes. Two assists. The sound of Valley Parade singing his name, not in chants yet, but murmurs—starting to catch. And still, it felt like it had happened to someone else.
