I don’t know why I kept coming here. That was the honest answer. I just couldn’t stay away and he hadn’t told me to fuck off yet, which I was treating as implicit permission.
My alarm vibrated. I needed to be in the weight room in five minutes. I stood and watched from the doorway for one more minute, unable to help myself, and then turned and went to find the rest of my team.
???
Thomas was in a mood, which meant we all suffered equally and with full accountability.
He ran us through a conditioning circuit that had Petrov questioning his life choices out loud in three languages before the first rotation was finished. Morrison moved through it with the grim efficiency of a man who had made peace with suffering, which was either admirable or alarming depending on the day. Volsky’s shoulder was visibly better—fuller range of motion, no compensation pattern on the overhead movements—and I caught Thomas clocking it with the satisfied expression of a man watching his work pay off.
Avery worked hard. He always worked hard, that was never the question with him. The question with Avery was channelingit—he had the engine of someone twice his experience level and occasionally the judgment of someone half it, which was exactly what a 22 year old looked like. I got on him about his footwork during the skating drills and he took the correction and applied it immediately, which was the thing about him that made the investment worthwhile.
“Better,” I said.
“I know,” Avery replied with a grin.
Morrison snorted from six feet away. “He knows,” he confirmed to no one in particular.
Petrov glided past on the outside edge and added, deadpan, “He’ll take it from you. Not from me.”
We ran the power play unit twice in the afternoon session and it clicked the way it only did when everyone was reading the same ice. Morrison distributing from the half wall, Volsky crashing the near post, me finding the seam at the right circle. Avery in the bumper learning to be useful without the puck. The second rep ended with Avery pouncing on a rebound in the bumper—his first power play goal in practice—and Thiessen took his blocker off and stared at it like it had personally offended him.
“Sorry, Thiessen,” Avery called, not sounding sorry.
“No you’re not,” Thiessen said.
“No,” Avery agreed pleasantly.
???
We had a home game—a win against St. Louis—and then a few days at home before heading to Buffalo.
Every morning, I was at the rink early, coffee in hand, taking a seat in the last row. Théo was always already there. He had his own rhythm now, a structured progression I’d started to recognize—edges and footwork first, then spins, then jumpwork. He was meticulous about the warm up in a way that suggested it was non-negotiable, a ritual that had to be observed in full before anything else was permitted.
The triple axel was coming back. Slowly, reluctantly, like something he had to earn back rather than simply retrieve. I watched him fall on it twice in one session and get up both times with the same expression—not frustration exactly, more like he was having a private conversation with his body that hadn’t reached a resolution yet.
On our day off, I came in to use the treadmill. Maybe I’d get a massage from the physical therapist afterwards. I told myself that was the reason since my building had a gym that would be emptying out by now.
The massage was more torture than relaxation—twenty minutes of Mason digging his fingers into the scar tissue around my knee while I stared at the ceiling and tried not to swear. He worked the muscles of my quad and calf with the kind of pressure that made my eyes water, finding every knot, every adhesion, every spot where my body had tried to overcompensate.
The row of treadmills had a little window that overlooked the rink. I’d spent a lot of time staring at that view over the past year—first from a stationary bike when running was still off the table, then from an elliptical when they finally cleared me for low impact cardio, then finally from the treadmill itself. Four months before I could run again. Six months of watching my teammates skate while I was stuck up here and tried not to lose my mind.
Now running felt like a gift I’d never take for granted.
I slipped on my headphones and set the pace to something that would hurt just enough to quiet my brain. I ran six miles and watched Théo through the glass.
He was doing drill after drill—edges, turns, rockers and counters up and down the length of the ice—the blade work so intricate and precise it barely looked like work from the outside. Relentless. Determined in the specific way of someone who had something to prove.
I knew that feeling. I was living it. Every morning in the weight room, every session on the bike, every drill I pushed through even when my knee screamed at me to stop—it was all the same thing. Proving I still belonged. Proving the setback hadn’t broken me.
Watching him, I recognized something I hadn’t expected. Kinship.
I tried to figure out what it was about a 21 year old figure skater that I couldn’t stop thinking about.
I didn’t come up with an answer.
But I kept coming back.
???
