I added a section.
What is true:
His on-ice performance is entirely his own. Every shift. Every read. Every goal scored from positions other players abandon. None of that was my signature. That was him.
I love him. I have loved him since he asked me if I get nervous before games and meant it as a gift instead of a test.
Scripps is gone. Miami is gone. URI is gone. I killed the plan. I chose to kill it. Not for him. For the version of us that existed in my head, where I could save him and leave cleanly and never have to stand in the wreckage of a decision I made without his consent.
That version doesn't exist.
I read it back.
I love him.
I closed the laptop.
For the first time in three weeks, the next thing I did was going to be a choice.
Not maintenance or management.
Movement.
Chapter nineteen
Heath
The horn sounded, and the bench emptied. I stood because everyone else did.
Gloves hit helmets. Somebody grabbed my jersey from behind. Varga's voice cut through everything, syllables I couldn't separate from the nineteen thousand other voices competing for the same air. Cross found me and pulled me into a hug that was mostly shoulder pads and momentum. Rook materialized, tapping my helmet twice with his glove.
We'd clinched. I registered the fact how I registered faceoff wins. Data.
Confetti cannons went off. An equipment guy was already at the bench with a snow shovel, swearing about Zamboni intakes. Playoff ice couldn't afford debris.
I hugged people I didn't know. My arms did the work.
Markel was at the tunnel mouth, hands in his jacket pockets. "Good work. Not done."
The locker room was quiet for a clinch. Cross, already unlacing, told a rookie: "This is when it gets mean."
I sat at my stall and started unlacing. Left foot first.
Around me, the room did what it always did. Varga held court. Pratt stretched in silence.
Three weeks ago, I'd been on my kitchen floor with my back against the cabinet, wondering if anything I'd built was mine. Tonight we clinched. I pulled the second skate off and set it beside the first. Blades aligned. Toes pointed forward. My routine hadn't changed since Thunder Bay. On some nights, the ritual was all I had.
My phone sat on the shelf above my helmet. I reached for it without thinking.
I opened the banking app. The balance loaded. I did the math, calmly, not like a 3:00 a.m. spiral that ate through sleep and sent me checking skate rivets a fourth time. Paycheck received. Playoff bonus accruing. Subtract rent, insurance, and groceries. Subtract the monthly transfer. Subtract what I'd already set aside for the surgery.
The gap that had been twenty-six thousand was now eight.
Eight thousand dollars. Manageable. Not comfortable, but the number no longer required me to play every remaining game with no fluctuations in a system that was always fluctuating. I typed the transfer amount. Confirmed the routing number. Hit send.
I closed the app and opened my messages.
Forty minutes ago:
