I pulled my hand away.The loss of contact felt like a physical blow.
“Austen, please.”His voice cracked, fracturing under the weight of the room.Tears pooled in his eyes, spilling over before he could blink them back.“I love you.”
The words hung in the air, suspended in the fluorescent hum.
It should have been a victory.It should have been the solution to the equation.Instead, it felt like a casualty.
“I know,” I said.And I did.That was the worst part.He loved me, but he feared his father more.“But love isn’t enough to fix this.”
I shouldered my duffel bag.The strap dug into my shoulder.
“I won’t be your secret,” I said, my voice thick.“I won’t be the thing you hide in the dark.And I won’t stay here and watch you lose this dream, Luke.Because if you miss the draft… if you fail… you will look at me one day and you will hate me for being the distraction.”
“I could never hate you,” he choked out.
“You would,” I said gently.“And I love you too much to let that happen.”
He stood there, clutching the puck so hard his knuckles turned white.He looked young.Terrified.Not the big star goalie people stare at on the Jumbotron, just a boy who’d been told his whole life that he had to be alone to be great.
“If you walk out,” he whispered, “I don’t know how to do this.The shoulder, the scouts, the pressure… I can’t do it without you.”
“You have to,” I said.“It’s the only way you’ll know if the dream is actually yours, or just your father’s.”
I waited.
Slowly, painfully, he stepped aside.
I opened the door.The hallway air hit me, cooler, smelling of the same old floor wax and silence.
“Austen?”
I paused, hand on the frame.I squeezed my eyes shut, fighting the urge to turn around, to drop the bag, to fix him one last time.
“I’m sorry,” he sobbed.
“I know.”
I walked out, letting the door close gently behind me.The latch clicked into place like a bone breaking.
I walked down the hall, down the stairs, and out into the night.
I didn’t look back at the window, knowing if I saw him standing there I would cave and go running back to him.
I just walked, letting the freezing air burn the tears off my face.
Chapter 34
Goals Against Average
Luke
The room froze.This wasn’t the productive calm of a Tuesday night.It was a void—a hollowed-out space where air and life used to be.
Austen’s side of the room was empty.The desk was cleared—no highlighters, no laptop, no sticky notes color-coded by urgency.At some point, he’d even stripped his bed.There was no evidence that I’d ever had a roommate.I finally got the single I had thought I desperately wanted.
It had been three days.Ninety-six hours of dead air.
I sat on the edge of my bed, staring at the spot where the puck used to sit on his shelf.It was gone.
