The hotel is a Marriott on the edge of Ridgewood. It’s the kind of place that exists purely to be functional. We check in and Calloway runs a brief team meeting in the conference room. There’s nothing I need to contribute to, and then there are a few hours before the evening game. The team disperses.
I take my key card and find my room.
Room 214.
I wonder which room he’s in and then I’m annoyed that I’m wondering that.
My phone buzzes.
Jake.
Good luck tonight. Let me know how they get on.
Thanks, I type back.Will do.
MATEO
Forty minutes to game time.
I find the stairwell at the end of the corridor, sit on the third step, and put my head in my hands.
There are scouts in the building.
I know they’re here because Calloway mentioned it so casually in the team meeting - I know he didn’t want me to freak out about it. But it was like he was saying it directly to me - “Scouts, Russo. If you want to get signed, DO something about it!”
Good version: I play well. They notice. Someone makes a call.
Bad version: I play the way I’ve been playing so far - a good captain, good enough play but not good enough or close enough for people making those decisions. They’ll scratch me off and go back to whoever else is on their list and I’ll finish this season and graduate and that’s it. That’s the whole thing. I become someone who almost made it, who was close, who had a shot and didn’t convert, and I spend the next forty years at some desk somewhere being the guy who used to play hockey. Maybe I can brag about it at the water cooler. Or have a son I can push too hard and live vicariously through.
I press the heels of my hands into my eyes.
I’m the captain.
I don’t spiral. That’s not what I do. I get on the ice and I lead and I don’t let the weight of things show because the team is watching. The team needs to believe, and if I don’t believe, then no one does.
Except I’m in a stairwell and I can’t breathe properly.
The door opens.
Elida stands in the doorway - she takes in the sight of me. She doesn’t say anything for a moment.
Then she comes in and lets the door close behind her and sits down on the step beside me. She’s close enough that her shoulder is against mine. She doesn’t speak, just sits there, and I stare at the floor and try to find the breathing thing again.
“Sorry,” I say eventually.
“Don’t be.”
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t have to be fine.”
She’s looking straight ahead, elbows on her knees. She seems calm and unhurried.
“This might be… If this doesn’t go well tonight, I think that’s probably it for me. In terms of being seen. In terms of any of it.” I laugh, short and humorless. “It’s only college hockey, right?”
“Don’t do that.”
“What?”
