"So," she said, turning to face me, her green eyes catching the city light, a slow, knowing smile playing on her lips. "How does it feel? To be the most talked-about man in English football?"
I leaned against the railing beside her, close enough that our arms were touching, and thought for a long moment.
How did it feel? It felt… strange. It felt unreal. It felt like I was living someone else's life, like at any moment someone would tap me on the shoulder and tell me there had been a mistake, that I needed to go back to the night shift, back to the shelves, back to the flat above the kebab shop.
But underneath all of that, beneath the imposter syndrome that I had carried with me like a stone in my pocket for as long as I could remember, there was something new. A deep, quiet sense of peace. A sense of belonging. A sense of finally, after all these years, being exactly where I was supposed to be.
