I can’t stop hearing it.
The words.
Tyler’s casual, rotten tone.
The way the world went silent inside me before I moved.
Coach’s eyes sweep the room like he’s counting who survived. Then they land on me. Then Kai. And his voice finally hits.
“Do you know what you just did?” he says, quiet and venomous.
No one answers because there isn’t an answer that makes this okay.
Coach takes a step closer, stopping right in front of us like he’s blocking the door to the rest of our lives.
“I don’t care how chirpy they are,” he says. “I don’t care if Rushton’s whole bench is made of clowns. We do not”—his gaze cuts to Weston, who flinches, —“donotturn my ice into a street fight.”
Weston opens his mouth, thinks better of it for once, and shuts it. Miracles, again.
Coach looks back at me. “Bennett.”
I lift my head slowly.
His eyes are sharp enough to cut tape. “You’re one of my leaders. You’re one of my guys who keeps his head. What the hell happened to that tonight?”
I swallow.
The answer wants to come out in a hundred different ways, none of them safe. Because the truth is ugly, and it’s not mine to share. Harlow’s pain doesn’t belong in the locker room like a story we pass around for justification. Kai shifts beside me, the smallest movement, like he’s bracing.
Coach’s voice hardens. “You cost us discipline. You cost us power-play time. You cost us control.”
My jaw tightens.
Kai’s voice cuts through—low, rough. “Rushton said something.”
Coach’s eyes flick to him. “Yeah? He said lots of things. It’s hockey.”
Kai’s nostrils flare. “Not like this.”
The whole room changes. Kai doesn’t do this. He keeps things, especially where Harlow is concerned, quiet and private.
“He said something about my sister,” Kai says, voice controlled but shaking underneath. “About her body. About her eating.”
Every muscle in my body goes tight again, like my fight-or-flight never turned off.
Coach goes still. He looks at Kai for a long beat, then slowly turns his eyes back to me.
“Is that true?” he asks.
I don’t hesitate.
“Yes,” I say.
Coach’s jaw works.
For a second, I see the man under the coach—the one with daughters, the one who’s seen boys like Tyler hide behind pretty faces and “good families” and trophies. Coach exhales hard, and for a heartbeat, the room is silent except for the hum of the vents and Asher’s steady breathing from across the room.
Then Coach pinches the bridge of his nose, muttering, “Jesus.”
