"Go be stubborn about the right things, Donnelly."
The line went dead. Pickle hadn't told me what to do. He'd done what he always did—crashed into the middle of it and pointed at the thing that was already true, the thing I could see if I stopped letting hurt and frustration sit in front of it.
I pocketed my phone.
Two days passed. I worked out. I practiced. I ate meals that required a cutting board.
Thursday evening, I sat on my bed with my phone in my hand.
The apartment was quiet except for street noise muffled by the windows. The pipe cleaner figure stood on the side table, slightly askew from where I'd bumped it that morning. I straightened it without thinking.
I pulled up the text thread with Kieran. His last message was three weeks old.
Kieran:I'm sorry. I'll explain everything. Please.
Heath:Northbound. Thursday. 9pm.
Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.
Kieran:Okay.
I set the phone on the mattress, looked at the ceiling, and gave myself forty minutes to shower and change. Twice, I nearly talked myself out of it.
The Northbound hadn't changed. The wood bar top was still slightly tacky under the heel of your hand, and the dartboard in the back corner had gained two new guys I didn't recognize.
I slid into a booth near the back corner. The leather was cracked along the seat edge where it met the wall, and someone had carved initials into the table's edge.
The bartender caught my eye from across the room. Lifted his chin. I nodded. He started pouring without asking.
Against the far wall, the tank hummed. Four feet of filtration and blue-white light, mounted high enough to catch the room's attention. Melvin was making his circuit, his body catching the light in flashes of iridescent orange as he turned. One flat, golden eye tracked the room. Unblinking. Unimpressed.
The TV above the bar was running playoff coverage. Ironhawks graphics. Bracket projections. I caught our names in the crawl at the bottom of the screen—Mathers-Donnellyhyphenated with stats, packaged into a storyline someone else had written. The broadcast version of us, running on a loop in bars across the city, while the authentic version was about to sit down in this booth. I looked away.
The door opened at 8:56.
Kieran wore a dark suit without a tie. Top shirt button undone.
He looked at the tank before he looked at me.
He walked over to the booth and sat across from me, his hands flat on the table, palms down.
His knee was close enough under the table that I could feel the warmth of it without contact. My body knew exactly how far away he was, down to the inch, the way it knew the distance between the crease and the post.
I'd asked for the meeting, so I started.
"I understand fear. I get it. I've been scared since October. Scared that I'd lose the roster spot, that one poor game would be the last one, and the money would stop, and my family would feel it. I know what it's like to play every shift thinking it might be the one they take away."
He listened with his full attention and no interruptions.
"And I understand you were scared. That the trade call came in and you looked at the options and decided based on what you had and the fear you were carrying." I took a breath. "I can forgive fear. I can't forgive you deciding I'm fragile."
The muscle at the hinge of Kieran's jaw tightened. I watched it lock.
"You looked at me and decided I couldn't handle it. That I'd break or panic or make the wrong call. That the best thing you could do was make the call for me and let me think the ice under my feet was solid when you were the one holding it up."
My voice was level. I'd expected it to crack. The back of my neck was damp. I could feel my pulse in my palms where they pressed against the table. "That's not protection. That's management. And you don't get to manage me."
The filter hummed. On the TV, someone scored. The guys at the dartboard cheered.
