We talked for another hour. Nothing important. A podcast Varga had recommended that turned out to be conspiracy theories about airline food. Whether Pratt's pregame ritual actually worked or was only a raft of goalie superstitions. How Chicago winters compared to Wisconsin's. At one point Heath laughed hard enough that his shoulder shook against mine, and I pressed into it instead of moving away.
He didn't ask about juniors again.
When I returned home, my laptop sat on my desk where I'd left it that morning. Lid closed. Marine biology journals flanking it. Grad school brochures underneath, deadlines underlined in black.
I grabbed it and sat on the couch.
Three browser tabs. Scripps. University of Miami. URI. Application portals partially completed.
I had a personal statement draft saved in a separate document. Four paragraphs that read like a cover letter for a life I hadn't started living yet.
I read the first line.
My interest in marine biology began during volunteer work at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, where I discovered that the patient, measurable work of animal care offered something my professional career could not: the experience of choosing to be present.
Accurate. Well-constructed. No longer the entire truth.
The experience of choosing to be present.
I thought about Heath's apartment. His knee against mine.
Nobody had ever described me the way Pickle's Post-It described Heath. I was the opposite, a person who occupied space so efficiently that no one noticed the occupation. Present the way furniture was present. Functional. Expected.
I closed the laptop. The screen went dark. My apartment was silent in a way Heath's never was—no radiator or L clatter.
The applications stayed where they were. Open. Untouched. Waiting for the me that was getting harder to describe with each passing day.
Chapter nine
Heath
Five games in eight days. Vegas, LA, San Jose, Anaheim, Arizona. I'd scored in three straight, all net-front, chaotic, and replayed enough times that the broadcast teams had stopped sounding surprised and started sounding curious. The beat writers had shifted a degree or two in their framing.Is Donnelly crowding Mathers for ice time?
I didn't crowd anyone. I stood where Coach Markel told me to stand and let physics sort the rest.
During morning skate at the Vegas practice facility, the ice was NHL-spec but felt different—drier air and a faster surface. The building was a massive refrigerator plunked down in the Nevada desert.
Markel stood at the whiteboard behind the bench. Dry-erase marker in hand. He didn't raise his voice or call anyone over.
He wrote.
By the time I came off my third lap and grabbed water, enough guys had stopped that I figured something had changed.
I looked at the board. Markel had redrawn the lines. My name had moved.
Heath Donnelly and Kieran Mathers on the same line. Kieran on the right, me staying on the left.
Not a tryout. It was a decision made in dry-erase.
Varga bumped my shoulder going past. "Oh shit. You and Mathers—together? The internet's going to have a stroke."
"It's a line combination."
"It'scontent, Donnelly. Pure, uncut content."
Across the ice, Kieran was mid-drill. If he'd seen the board, nothing in his body showed it.
Markel materialized beside me. "Stay where your skates are." Same instruction as opening night. "You're arriving early. Let the plays come to you."
