Say it.
Finally, I can’t take the circling anymore.I put my fork down.It clangs a little louder than I intend, and three sets of Carson eyes lock onto me.
I swallow hard.“I need to talk to you guys.”
Mom sits up straighter.Eli’s joking expression drops.Dad sets aside the newspaper without looking away from me.
He knows.
My heart’s beating in that way it does before a big game.
I grip the edge of the table to ground myself.“I’m retiring after this season.”
Silence hits the room like someone cut the sound.For a second, nobody moves.
Then Mom’s hand flies to her mouth.“Oh, Nate.”
It’s not disappointment in her voice.It’s… relief wrapped in worry.
Eli blinks hard, then lets out a low whistle.“Holy shit.”
“Eli,” Mom snaps out of habit, eyes still on me.
Dad doesn’t say anything at first; he just looks at me, really looks, like he’s measuring the weight of what I just said against every version of me he’s seen walk through this kitchen.
“You sure?”he asks finally.
I nod.My throat feels tight.“Yeah.I’ve been thinking about it for a while.The last month just… made it clearer.”
Mom’s eyes shine.“Is it your knee?”
“No.”I shake my head quickly.“My body’s fine.Tired, but… not done yet.That’s not why.”
“Then why?”Eli asks, leaning forward.There’s no judgment in his voice.Just genuine curiosity.“You’ve worked your whole life for this.”
And that’s the thing.
“That’s part of it,” I say, staring down at my hands.“I have worked my whole life for this.And somewhere along the way, it stopped being the thing I love and started being the only thing I am.”
I can feel Mom’s gaze soften, Dad’s sharpen, Eli’s shift.
“I don’t like who I turned into chasing it,” I admit.“I don’t like how easy it was to let other people decide what my life should look like.I don’t like that… that I could hurt someone I love as badly as I hurt Tessa and not even realize how far I’d drifted from the man I wanted to be.”
Mom exhales like she’s been holding that breath for months.“Oh, sweetheart.”
Dad takes off his glasses, sets them on the table, and folds his hands together.“Nate, I want you to hear something and actually hear it.”
I flick my eyes up to his.
He holds my gaze.“I am proud of what you’ve done.Of what you’ve built.Watching you skate out there…” His mouth tilts.“There’s nothing like it.But somewhere in the last few years, I stopped recognizing my boy.”
“I watched you disappear into that world,” he continues, voice low.“Not all at once.Piece by piece.Every time you said yes to something you didn’t want.Every time you let them chip away at what mattered, as long as they called it ‘for the team.’”
My eyes burn, and I grip my knees under the table so tightly my fingers ache.
“I didn’t want you to think that I was trying to hold you here,” he says.“So, I stayed quiet.I told myself you’d find your way back on your own.”
“I didn’t,” I rasp.“Not until it was almost too late.”
