The doors closed.
I pressed twelve.
"Floor?" I asked.
"Same."
The elevator climbed.
The lighting was brutal. In the mirror panel to my right, I saw both of us. Kieran Mathers in a charcoal suit, posture correct. Heath Donnelly, two feet behind and to the left, leaning against the back wall with his arms crossed.
Heath pushed off the wall and spoke.
"Do you ever get nervous before games?"
His voice was low. The question hit wrong.
It didn't land in the professional register, the teammate-to-teammate frequency where the expected response is something easy and deflective.Everyone does. It's part of the job. You learn to use it.
It landed somewhere else entirely.
I turned.
Heath looked at me. Arms still crossed, shoulders slightly drawn in, but his face was open, unguarded without being fragile.
The question wasn't a test. It wasn't seeking reassurance. Heath was telling me something. Packaging it as a question because that was safer, but the content was clear.
I was scared tonight. I'm telling you because I think you might understand. I'm not ashamed of it.
"Yeah," I said. "Sure. Everyone does."
It sounded like I was speaking to a reporter, reflexive.
The silence that followed told me how badly I'd missed.
Heath didn't flinch. Didn't look away. He absorbed my non-answer the way he absorbed crosschecks, stayed planted.
"That's not—" I stopped. Tried again. "That was a shit answer."
"Little bit."
The corner of his mouth rose into a half-smile
"What kind of nervous?" I asked. My voice sounded less managed.
Heath uncrossed his arms. Let them hang at his sides.
"Third period," he said. "I tightened up. You could probably see it."
I had. He hesitated half a step before committing to the net front.
"I wasn't thinking about the game." He looked at the floor numbers that weren't moving. "I was thinking about turning into the reason we lost it. Like—the thing people remembered wouldn't be the shifts that worked. Only the one that didn't."
He was describing his fear with the same plainness he described everything.Skate rivets. Blade alignment. Nothing's ever wrong. I check anyway.
I caught the message. He was scared, and he was standing in the fear like it was just another piece of net-front traffic to absorb.
The elevator jolted.
