The hotel room is too quiet.
I lie on my back staring at the ceiling, counting the same cracks over and over.
I’ve been here for hours.
The game feels like a lifetime ago. The blood, the way Zane looked at me in the medical room - all of it distant now, like something that happened to someone else.
But it happened to me. And he knows.
A soft knock on the door.
“It’s me.” Tara’s voice, low and calm.
I go and open the door for her.
She steps inside carrying a takeout container. The smell hits me immediately. Soup. Chicken, maybe. Warm and salty.
“You need to eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“I don’t care.”
She sets the container on the nightstand and sits on the edge of the bed. The mattress dips under her weight. I still don’t move.
“Let me check the wound.”
She peels back the bandage carefully, studies the line of the cut in the dim light from the bathroom.
“It’s healing well,” she says quietly. “You can play tomorrow.”
I should feel relieved.
I don’t feel anything.
“What if he tells someone?”
The words come out flat.
Tara’s hands still for just a second. Then she presses the bandage back into place.
“He won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know him. And I also know this is his opportunity. The scouts are here because of this run. Because of how the team is playing. And whether he likes it or not right now - he needs you on that ice.”
“That’s a terrible reason to trust someone.”
“It’s not trust. He wants this as badly as you do. Maybe more. He won’t risk it.”
I want to believe her.
But I saw his face when he walked out. The hurt underneath the anger. He looked at me like he didn’t know me anymore.
Tara stays for a while.
She makes me eat the soup - sits there until I’ve finished half of it and checks the wound one more time before she leaves.
