“I don’t know.”The words rip something open in me.“I want to.God, I want to.But I don’t know if wanting is enough.I broke something in her.I saw it.I can’t unsee it.”
He nods slowly.“Then maybe fixing it isn’t the point.”
The anger flashes hot.“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means,” he says calmly, “you don’t make this about you changing to get the girl.You hurt her.You lied.You let people use her.The consequence of that might be losing her for good.You don’t get to decide how she heals.You only get to decide who you’re going to be now.”
I go still.
The kitchen hums around us.Fridge kicking on.Wind pressing against the windows.Somewhere outside, a cow bellows low and lonely.
“Who I’m going to be,” I repeat, the words tasting unfamiliar.
He nods.“Not for the cameras.Not for the GM.Not for the boys on the ice with you.Not even for her.For you.You came back here tonight, son, whether you meant to or not.That tells me something.Somewhere under all the lies and pressure, you still remember how to come home.”
My vision blurs.I tip my head back and stare at the ceiling, breathing hard, trying not to break apart.
“I’m tired,” I admit, and it feels like the most honest thing I’ve said in months.“I’m so damn tired, Dad.Not of the game.Of… everything around it.Of the person I have to be to hold it all together.”
He’s quiet for a long beat.
Then, softly: “Then maybe it’s time to stop trying to hold everything together and just… let some things go.See what’s still standing when the dust settles.”
My fingers tighten around the mug.
“What if I don’t like what’s left?”I ask.
He gives me a sad, small smile.
“Then you put in the work and build something better,” he says.“From the ground up this time.Not for them.For you.”
We sit there at that old kitchen table, the same one where I did homework, signed my first junior contract, and told my parents I was leaving home.Only this time, I’m not leaving.
For the first time in months, the buzzing panic in my chest eases just a fraction.
“It’s late,” Dad says eventually, pushing his chair back with a creak.“Your mom will skin me alive if she wakes up and realizes I let you sit at this table all night instead of pointing you toward a bed.”
I huff out something that’s almost a laugh.“Is she still keeping the spare room ready?”
He snorts.“Your room.She never stopped calling it that.Go on.Sheets are clean.Posters are still on the wall.Maybe seeing eighteen-year-old you will remind you who you were before the world started taking pieces.”
The hallway to my old room feels shorter than I remember.
The room is smaller than the spaces I live in now.Single bed.Old desk.Faded posters of my favourite players.A stack of worn-out sports magazines in the corner.The window looks out over the back field; the one Eli and I used as an imaginary rink before the pond froze solid.
I sit on the edge of the bed.
The springs groan.
I toe off my shoes and lie back, staring at the ceiling where glow-in-the-dark stars still cling in a lopsided constellation Tessa would probably tease me for.
I settle into the sound of the wind, the distant low of cattle and the creak of the old house easing around me.
I think of Tessa on her porch, wrapped in that old sweater, eyes filled with hurt.
I think of the way her voice shook when she said,I hope you figure out who you are, Nate.
I don’t know who that man is yet.
