Love in extra time

LOVE IN EXTRA TIME

“We don’t start with courage. We start with fear.”

— Anaïs Nin

Ashford, Ohio, wasn’t a place where legends were born. It had no skyscrapers or streets named after people whose stories were known beyond state lines. It wasn’t a town you escaped to, nor one you pilgrimaged to in search of a new beginning. Rather, it was a dot on the map that existed because it did—and endured thanks to the persistence of its inhabitants, like an old house no one wants to tear down, even though everyone knows it needs constant repairs.

Time didn’t slow down in Ashford. It simply had no ambition to speed things up. Mornings started early, regardless of the weather. In winter, people left their homes before dawn, in summer they allowed themselves a few more minutes of laziness, but the rhythm remained constant. Grocery stores knew their customers by name, and hairdressers remembered not only preferences but also fragments of life stories. In Ashford, no one disappeared without a trace. If someone was missing, the town noticed—and remembered.

The town learned to survive winter and heat, crisis and stagnation, without grand words or dramatic gestures. Here, successes were not celebrated nor failures dwelled on longer than necessary. Life unfolded in between—in daily duties, in a repetition that provided a sense of security. Meaning came not from ambition, but from continuity.

There was one thing, however, to which Ashford returned regularly, almost instinctively. A single, shared axis around which everything fell into place, though no one ever explicitly named it. On the day it was about to happen, the city changed pace. Not abruptly, not theatrically—rather subtly, as if someone had turned an invisible dial.

Shops closed their doors more quickly. Hairdressers worked more efficiently. Conversations in queues took on a different rhythm. There were fewer complaints, more half-words and broken sentences that ended with a meaningful glance. People smiled more often. They checked their watches less often. As if everything only made sense when the stadium lights came on on Riverside Road that evening.

Evelyn Moore always parked by the old gate. Not because it was closest, nor because it was more convenient. Quite the opposite—the asphalt was cracked, and the metal fence reminiscent of a time when no one spoke of sponsors or image clauses. The gate creaked with every gust of wind, as if to remind her that she had been here longer than most people, longer than most of the stories being told.

She liked this part of the stadium.

Because it smelled of truth.

Grease from the hinges, freshly mown grass, and something else—something hard to name. Perhaps a memory. Perhaps the shadow of time that has settled in the walls like dust, impossible to completely erase.

From the trunk, she pulled her camera bag and the notebook she always carried with her. The leather cover was slightly worn, as if each year of work had left its mark. The pages inside were full of small, dense notes—some written hastily, others carefully, almost meticulously. She closed the trunk and leaned against the car for a moment.

She stopped.

It wasn’t because she lacked confidence. Evelyn had learned to function in spaces that demanded resilience. Press conferences, conversations with people who didn’t want to talk, moments when a single question could shatter someone’s composure or reveal something meant to remain hidden. All of this was her daily reality—poised, predictable in its unpredictability.

She stopped because that spot had a sweet spot that always managed to hit her. Without warning. Without asking for permission.

She used to come here with her father.

The image came back suddenly, like a light flicking on in a dark room. She remembered his hand on hers when she was little, freezing in her thin jacket. His fingers were rough, smelling of soap and something metallic that reminded her of work and safety. He explained the rules to her patiently, as if every detail were important. He drew lines in the air with his finger, explaining things she didn’t yet understand, but she listened intently because it was him.

What she remembered most was his silence. Watchful. Intense. As if in those moments he spoke more than he ever could with words.

This place was different now. Or she was different. It was hard to separate the two. She only knew that she could no longer look at the stadium without realizing what was missing—and that the absence weighed more than the presence.

Father didn’t come here anymore.

Not because he didn’t want to. But because some things can’t be undone, even if the entire city desperately wants them to. There are decisions made once, and consequences that last forever. Evelyn didn’t like to think about “why.” The word was treacherous. It opened doors that took too much energy to close. She preferred to think about “how.”

How to live on.

How to work.

How to be in control.

That’s why she returned to Ashford.

Evelyn remembered that as a child, she didn’t yet understand why her father needed these Saturday evenings so much. Back then, it seemed like a game, an excuse to get out of the house, to meet friends. Only later did she understand that it was about something much simpler—a framework. A moment in time where the world had a clear beginning and end, rules to follow, and a score that encapsulated everything in a single, legible number.

Now, standing by the stadium, she could clearly see how much Ashford needed that same framework. How much the people around her clung to familiar paths, familiar places, repetitive gestures. This wasn’t stagnation. It was a form of defense against the chaos that lurked beyond the town’s borders—and that sooner or later reached everyone.

Evelyn sighed softly and moved towards the entrance. Before crossing the stadium threshold, she paused for a second, as if to make sure she was truly ready to enter this place again.

Evelyn walked through the turnstiles more slowly than the situation warranted. No one rushed her, no one paid attention. It was one of those places where presence didn’t require justification. Just being there was enough. The stadium on Riverside Road wasn’t large, but it held something that couldn’t be designed or recreated. The weight of the years. A memory that needed no plaques or monuments.

The stands continued to fill. People entered singly or in pairs, carrying cups of coffee, paper bags, jackets slung over their shoulders. They greeted each other with brief gestures, a nod, sometimes a single word. There was no excitement for grand events. There was familiarity. A sense of everyone being in the right place, even if they couldn’t quite put their finger on it.

Evelyn headed toward the media zone. She knew the route by heart, even though it had been years since her last visit. She didn’t need to look at the markers. Her body remembered faster than her mind. This hit her harder than she expected. How much was still written within her, even though it felt like she’d left it all behind her a long time ago.

She sat down on a low stool and set her bag down beside her. She would get the camera out later. It wasn’t needed now. She looked around calmly, letting the image come to her. The pitch line. The benches. The tunnel leading to the pitch, still empty, dark, almost vacant. This place always made her a little uneasy. As if it held the promise of something yet to come.

The hum of conversation drifted from the stands. The melding of voices formed a backdrop that was an inseparable part of every Saturday afternoon in Ashford. Evelyn listened to them fragmentarily, picking out individual words, fragmented sentences. Someone was talking about work. Someone about the weather. Someone about a child who had come to the stadium for the first time. None of these topics were important in themselves. What mattered was their repetition. That they formed a framework.

She suddenly realized that this was precisely why this place was so difficult for her. Ashford didn’t allow for distance. It was impossible to be merely an observer here. Every step, every scent, every sound drew her into a web of memories that didn’t ask for permission. She could feign professionalism, but her body reacted faster than reason.

She reached for the notebook, but didn’t open it yet. She ran her finger along the edge of the cover, as if examining its texture. The gesture was familiar, reassuring. It reminded her of who she was now, not who she had once been. A journalist. Someone who had come here with a specific purpose, a task to complete.

Yet the thoughts refused to obey.

She spotted a man a few rows away, sitting in the exact same spot as her father. Same posture. Same clasped hands. For a moment, her heart skipped a beat before she could react. She looked away almost immediately, irritated by her own reaction. She hadn’t come here for ghosts.

But the ghosts were still present.

Ashford didn’t forget. And it didn’t let others forget. This town lived with memory not sentimentally, but practically. As if the past were a tool, not a burden. Evelyn always struggled with this. For her, memory was something dangerous, unstable, susceptible to distortion. That’s why she trusted facts. Dates. Quotes. Things that could be verified.

She glanced at her watch. There was still some time left. Just enough time to gather her thoughts. To decide where she would begin. She knew that what she wrote couldn’t be just a description of a place or people. It had to touch on something deeper, even if she didn’t name it directly.

She inhaled the cool air and felt the tension in her shoulders slowly dissipate. She wasn’t here by accident. Even if she couldn’t yet pinpoint why. Sometimes, meaning came only after the fact, not before.

Evelyn opened her notebook.

The pages were still blank, but this time she didn’t feel it as a failure. Rather, it felt like a space. A place waiting until she was ready to fill it with something real. Not to close the story, but to allow it to reveal itself.

She closed the notebook almost instinctively, as if to momentarily shut herself off from her own thoughts. She knew she needed this moment of suspension. It always happened this way when she returned to places she knew too well. First came the desire for control, then resistance, and only finally, acceptance that not everything could be sorted out.

She glanced toward the stands again. People were chatting calmly, as if time had little significance. That always surprised her—how readily Ashford accepted permanence. No one expected breakthroughs. No one demanded more than the day could provide. There was a quiet wisdom in this that she hadn’t been able to appreciate for a long time.

She thought that perhaps this was why she wanted to leave so badly. Ambition didn’t fit in this landscape. The need for movement, change, constant self-examination was alien here. And she always felt that if she stayed, something inside her would freeze for good.

But now she saw it differently. Ashford wasn’t a place that held people back. It was a place that allowed them to return—if only they were willing to look at each other without escaping. The thought was uncomfortable, because it touched on something she still couldn’t name.

She leaned back on the stool and picked up the pen. She could already feel the familiar tension that accompanies the moments just before writing. Not fear, but responsibility. She knew that every sentence she wrote would be a choice. And choices, even seemingly innocent ones, always reveal something.

She sat still for a moment, letting her thoughts sink to the bottom. She knew this peace was fragile, but it was enough to take another step without backtracking.

Evelyn tore her gaze from the bleachers and looked at the notebook differently than before. Not as a waiting place, but as a tool. Something to help her get her work done, rather than a mirror for thoughts that wandered aimlessly. That slight shift in perspective was familiar. She knew it always occurred just before she stopped hesitating.

She began to organize in her mind what she had seen since arriving. Not images—impressions. A sequence of tensions, gestures, silences. This was her way of regaining control. Not by shutting off emotions, but by giving them structure. She had always believed that if something could be named, it ceased to be threatening.

She reached for the pen and slowly turned it between her fingers. The metal was cool, solid. It was enough to focus her attention. She knew then that this text couldn’t be just a record of a place, or an account of an event yet to unfold. It had to refer to a moment earlier—that ambiguous moment when everything was still possible, yet already marked.

She lifted her head and looked at the grass. It was still empty, untouched, as if waiting for something to inevitably change her. Evelyn thought she felt exactly the same way. She’d returned here not to retrieve anything, but to see what else she could see without escaping.

There was no sentimentality in this thought. It was a decision.

Evelyn knew that what she did always walked a fine line. Between commitment and distance, between empathy and detached observation. Over the years, she had learned how to manage this boundary, how to keep other people’s stories from touching her too deeply. But Ashford never respected these rules. Here, the lines were blurred from the very beginning.

Maybe that’s why she put off returning for so long.

She ran her hand across her knee, straightening slightly on the stool. She picked up the pen, this time deliberately. Without hesitation. She opened the notebook to the first page and looked at the blank pages with a different attitude than before. Not as a challenge, but as a tool. Something to help her organize what was already working within her.

She wondered for a moment where she should begin. With a description of the place she knew all too well. Or with the people who shaped its rhythm. Or perhaps with her own return, though that topic seemed too personal, too close to home. But she knew she couldn’t pretend she wasn’t there. That she was merely a neutral eye, suspended somewhere above it all.

This realization was uncomfortable, but also honest.

She realized that this time, describing the facts wouldn’t be enough. That a mere record of events wouldn’t convey the tension she’d felt from the moment she parked at the old gate. She had to allow herself something more—not sentimentality, but presence. To be a part of this story, even if it meant relinquishing some control.

She glanced at the stands again. The spectators had already filled almost every seat. Faces blended into a single mass, but individual gestures were still distinct: someone was adjusting a scarf, someone was leaning forward to speak to a neighbor, a child was swinging his legs, impatient and bored at the same time. Each of them brought their own reason, their own anticipation. Evelyn was one of them, though she had long pretended otherwise.

She realized that this very moment—just before—was the most important for her. The point where the story doesn’t yet take shape, but already exists. Where all the elements are in place, though no one knows how they will connect. This was something she also knew from her work. The most intense phase of any text, before the first sentence closes off the possibilities.

She tightened her fingers around the pen.

She no longer thought about her father directly. His presence was somewhere in the background, calm, unobtrusive. As if it had ceased to be a wound and had become context. Something that didn’t demand constant attention, but influenced everything that happened. This change surprised her. She wasn’t ready to call it relief, but she felt something shift.

She took a deep breath.

Evelyn knew this return was more than a professional endeavor, even if she tried to frame it as such. Nothing in Ashford existed solely in one dimension. Every place was simultaneously what it was now and what it had once been. This tension between present and memory permeated everything she saw, making it impossible for her to remain completely indifferent.

She realized she didn’t have to defend herself against this. She didn’t have to prove to herself or anyone else that she could maintain a cool detachment. Maturity no longer meant pushing emotions aside, but the ability to embrace them. This idea was new, unfamiliar, but it brought with it a strange peace.

Evelyn knew that if she was to write this piece honestly, she had to let Ashford speak through her as well—not instead of her, not above her, but alongside her.

She hadn’t written a single word yet. And for once, it didn’t matter. She knew the story she was about to tell wouldn’t begin the moment pen touched paper. It began earlier—in the return, in the car stopping at the old gate, in the smell of grass and metal, in the decision to enter the stadium instead of turning back.

What I write down will only be an attempt to give it shape.

Evelyn bent over her notebook.

And history—the real one—was already in motion.