“Solid as granite, born to brawl.
Our fire, our fury, our Sebring Wall!”
Megan throws her head back, laughing. One of the wives beats her fists on the plush armrest in time to the song.
I turn toward her, stunned. “I can’t believe y’all are singing about Alex.”
Megan blinks and smiles. “You’ve never heard The Wall chant?”
“Never.”
She gestures toward the screen. “Because he used to stop everything. Nobody could break through him. He was a legend even before the captain’s band. That chant started in the stands years ago.”
I stare at the screen again. At my fiancé, who never once mentioned that he had his own song.
He told me about the game. About the bruises and surgeries and the sacrifices. But not this. Not the way an entire stadium rises to its feet, roaring his nickname like a battle cry.
It hits me.
He’s not just my Alex.
He’s theirs too.
And somehow, he’s carried all of that weight and still remains a humble man who tucks a blanket around my legs when I fall asleep on the couch. A man who kisses me like I’m something sacred. A man who’s never once made me feel second to anything.
He’s so much more than I ever realized. And somehow… he still chose me.
The cheers fade into the pulse of the game again, the screen flickering between the pitch and crowd shots. Megan tips back the rest of her wine and points to one player in the thick of it—broad shoulders, jersey pulled tight across his back, boots slicing through the turf.
“There’s my Bradley,” she says with a little smile, proud and anxious all at once. “Number fourteen.”
I squint at the screen, catching the number as the camera zooms in. It’s a storm of limbs and grit, very little time to breathe between collisions.
Then one of the opposing players goes down hard. A collective hiss cuts through the suite, a mix of empathy and experience.
“Oof,” someone says. “That’s gonna hurt tomorrow.”
But the guy gets up—shaking it off as if it’s nothing—and the wives around me settle again.
A few minutes later Bradley takes a hit––a brutal, shoulder-first slam to the ribs that sends him flying backward. Megan’s hand shoots to the back of the couch, her wine glass clinking against the side table as her knuckles go white.
He doesn’t get up.
The screen zooms in. He’s curled on his side, one hand gripping his hip, the other planted in the grass. A ref bends toward him, and another player yells for the med staff.
No one in the suite is laughing now, the silence thick with tension and unsaid fear.
It takes a few minutes, but Bradley rises––limping, wincing––but on his feet.
Megan exhales. Her eyes are glassy, but she doesn’t cry. She nods and sits back.
Around her, the wives shift. Someone reaches for her hand. Someone else says, “Tough bastard,” with affection. They’ve all seen this before. They understand the choreography of pain and pride. And how to hold each other together when it frays.
I watch the big screen, and in my chest, something drops. Not in fear but in clarity.
This is how it’s going to be––loving someone who plays a brutal game. Watching the person you love get knocked to the ground, not knowing if this is the time he won’t get back up. Pretending not to break while your whole body goes cold.
Megan stands and folds the blanket that was in her lap. “I’m going to check on him.”
