“And yeah, the whole separate-room thing is unusual. But he can skate.”
That part no one argues.
“We just have to fix the stuff he’s weak at.”
Russo looks around the room one more time.
“Like it or not,” he says, “he’s all we’ve got right now.”
10
LEONORA
The rest of the week hurts.
Every morning I wake up with new bruises. My shoulders ache, my ribs feel like someone’s been quietly hammering them overnight, and the back of my thighs throb every time I climb the stairs around college.
Body checks.
They keep coming.
Not malicious exactly. But deliberate.
It doesn’t take long to realize what’s happening.
The team is testing me.
Every scrimmage shift someone leans into me a little harder along the boards. Every puck battle turns into a small wrestling match. A shoulder here, a shove there, sticks pressing into my ribs as someone tries to force me off balance.
They want to see if I break.
Or maybe they want to expose the weakness they already think they’ve found.
Mercer isn’t subtle about it.
The first time he drives me into the boards hard enough to rattle my teeth he just skates away afterward like it’s another drill.
No apology.
I get back up every time. I have to.
But I can feel the difference in size when they lean on me. The extra weight behind their shoulders, the way they can pin me against the glass for way longer than I can pin them.
It’s frustrating.
Humiliating sometimes.
But slowly, day by day, the rest of practice gets easier. My stamina improves. The drills stop leaving me gasping halfway through.
And when the lineup is me, Russo and Zane and the puck lands on my stick, I feel how the three of us are starting to read each other without needing to think.
Those moments feel right. Like something real is forming, even if the rest of the team still watches me like a problem they haven’t solved yet.
By Thursday afternoon Coach gathers us at center ice.
“League games this weekend,” he says.
It’s Friday night then Saturday - back-to-back.
