1:00 a.m. Courage

I woke up tonight to a text message.

Not because it woke me, I woke up the way I always do now. Somewhere between midnight and two. My post-accident normal. Sleep early, wake in the dark, write for hours, maybe grab another hour before morning. It’s not insomnia. It’s just… how I exist now.

So I did what I always do. Reached for the keyboard first, got some words out. Then grabbed my phone.

Unread message.

Pool league teammate.

Sent at 1:00 a.m.

And look, I’ve learned something over the years: when people send messages at one in the fucking morning, it’s usually not because they suddenly achieved clarity. It’s because they’re drunk enough to finally say the dumb shit they’ve been sitting on.

So I open it.

And before I get into that, let me rewind a bit.

Nine days ago, I had surgery to fix my lip. They cut me open from the tear line down through my chin—inside and out—removed scar tissue, then stitched it all back together. Functionally? Huge win. My lip lines up again. No hole in my face.

Pain-wise? Yeah… it hurt like hell.

So I attempted to step back from pool for a couple weeks. I asked someone else to run the team while I healed. Seemed reasonable, given that my face had just been sliced the fuck open.

Five days later, we had a match.

Two people couldn’t make it, one of them being the guy who texted me. Which meant we were short. Which meant we were going to get crushed on points.

So I played.

Fresh stitches. Swollen face. Didn’t matter. I showed up, because that’s what the fuck I do.

Fast forward to yesterday, the acting captain sends out the roster. I thank him in the group chat. Simple. Genuine.

And now here I am, 2:00 a.m., reading a message from a guy who just quit the team.

And it’s exactly what you’d expect.

Poor me.

You’re mean.

You didn’t thank me.

Specifically, he’s pissed that I didn’t thank him for stepping up as captain… back when I was in the hospital after the crash.

You know, when I was half dead. Broken bones down my left side. Punctured lung. Fractured face. Soft tissue damage everywhere. And, just for fun, a traumatic brain injury.

I was lying in a hospital bed trying to remember where I was. What day it was. Trying to figure out how to move fifteen feet to the bathroom without putting weight on half my body or passing out from pain.

You know what I wasn’t tracking? Pool league leadership assignments.

I didn’t know who was doing what. I didn’t know I was supposed to be handing out thank-you notes while my brain wasn’t even functioning correctly.

My focus was a little more basic.

Like survival. Like relearning how to exist in a body that suddenly didn’t work.

And now, months later, I’m getting a 1:00 a.m. message because I didn’t properly acknowledge someone during that time?

So yeah, I’m lying here wondering is this alcohol-fueled self-pity, or just a fragile ego finally getting loud?

Honestly, it doesn’t fucking matter.

Because here’s the part that really gets me: I never gave him shit for not showing up. Not once. Even though every time he didn’t, we still had to pay league dues. And every time he was out, I covered it.

Fifteen bucks.

Out of my pocket.

No complaints. No lectures. I just handled it. Because when I commit to something, I fucking commit. And one of the jobs as Captain is making sure that the bag has $75 in it each night.

But now I’m the problem? Because I didn’t say thank you while I was learning how to walk again?

Yeah… no.

Sorry, not sorry.