You’re not a coach, Elida. Not at your core. You’re a figure skater. Maybe you haven’t figured out how to take back what you want?
I’ve thought about it every day since.
“Maybe. I’ve been thinking about skating again. Actually skating. Not coaching.”
“Yeah?”
“It’s probably nothing. I just - I miss it. Maybe more than I let myself admit.”
“That’s not nothing.”
“It feels impossible. After everything.”
“Most things that feel impossible aren’t,” he says simply.
“Can I take you to dinner? Properly. This weekend.”
I hold my coffee in both hands and study him. He deserves a proper chance.
“Yes. That would be nice.”
Jake Skelly might be exactly what I need.
MATEO
I know scouts have been to see me and I know I played well. I’m also in my last year of college, so I’m not surprised when Calloway calls me in for a ‘proper conversation’ to discuss my future.
I sit across from him. He has a folder open on his desk and he waits for a moment before he says anything, which is very Calloway - giving you time to settle before he starts, not rushing.
“I’ve had a few conversations,” he says. “About you.”
I wait.
“Someone who was at Ridgewood and saw you play. He’s been making some calls.” He pauses. “There’s interest, Mateo.”
Something leaps in my chest. It’s finally happening.
“Which team?” I ask. I can’t keep the excitement from my voice.
“It’s developmental. And conditional. Nothing signed, nothing promised. I want to be straight with you about what that means before you get ahead of yourself.”
I feel instantly deflated. “Oh. Okay.”
“It’s not the NHL.”
I knew this. I’ve always known this, on some level, in the place where the seventeen-year-old fantasy meets reality. Butknowing something and hearing it said out loud in your coach’s office are different things, and for a second I sit with the feeling of disappointment.
“Right. Okay.”
“It’s a development contract,” Calloway says. “Europe-based, but you’d have some say over where. It’s a lower salary than you’d probably like. Rinks that aren’t always what you’re used to. You’re one of several players they’re considering. You’d have to earn it properly.”
“But they think there’s something there?”
“They think there’s something there,” he says. “Yes.”
Something there.Notyou’re exceptionalorwe want youor any of the sentences I’ve been playing over and over in my head since I was seventeen. Just - something there.
But maybe it’s enough.
