"Two turnovers. Zero shots. Markel dropped my deployment in the third. Sent Varga out for the high-leverage shift that should've been mine."
"I know. I was there. You're thinking too much. Like you were on opening night."
Opening night. The version of me that played like every shift was an audition and made himself as small as possible because small meant safe.
"My dad's surgery is scheduled," I said. "February 19th. Out of pocket. Twenty-six thousand left to cover. If I stay on the roster through the end of the season, it works."
"You'll stay on the roster."
"You don't know that."
"I know what I'm watching every day at practice. I know what the—"
"Markel sent Varga out for overtime tonight."
Kieran stopped.
"What if I'm not good enough to stay?"
I said it facing the counter. The counter didn't stare back at me.
"You're good enough."
"You're choosing whether to leave," I said. "I'm trying to earn the right not to be sent away. Those aren't the same thing."
Kieran's jaw tensed.
"No," he said. "They're not. I can't fix that difference, but I will not pretend I don't see what's happening to you right now."
"What's happening to me?"
"You're playing scared. Not of the ice. Of the math underneath it." I looked up. "Tonight wasn't you being bad, Heath. It was you being careful. And careful is what got you pulled from the overtime unit. Markel didn't lose trust. You played like you'd already lost it in yourself."
I exhaled through my nose.
"I don't know how to stop doing the math."
"You don't need to stop. You need to stop letting it onto the ice."
"That sounds like something your dad would say."
He flinched. I'd just touched a nerve.
"That's fair," he said quietly. "It sounds like him because the instinct's the same. I'm standing in my kitchen doing a version of his thing, and you're allowed to call that out."
"I don't want you to fix it. I don't need you to manage my performance."
"What do you need?"
"This. You not pretending the gap isn't there."
He nodded once.
"You will not lose your spot," he said.
"You keep saying that."
"The player I'm watching holds position when everyone else peels away. The only thing slowing him down is the idea that one bad night erases everything before it."
