Emma doesn’t interrupt; she holds space and watches me work through it.
“Like,” I go on, slower now, “most people can tune stuff out, right? Background noise, whatever’s not important. I don’t think I do that. Or I didn’t realize I wasn’t doing it. So when it stacks up, it’s not just loud. It’s everything. All at once.”
Emma nods immediately. No hesitation. No confusion. “Okay.”
“And patterns,” I add. “I can’tnotsee them. Out here, it’sgreat. It’s why I love it here…” I gesture vaguely with my stick toward the ice. “Why I’m good at this.”
“Yeah,” she says, a hint of a smile in her voice. “No argument there.”
“But off the ice…” I trail off, searching for the right way to put it. “It’s like my brain keeps trying to solve things that aren’t…solvable. Conversations, people—stuff that doesn’t follow rules.”
Emma winces lightly. “People are the worst for that.”
Can’t argue with that. “They really are.”
She skates backward now, facing me fully, eyes locked on mine in that way she has when she’s dialed in. “I can remember when we were younger, and you would focus only on me when you had to be a part of a group conversation.”
I nod, the memory coming back to me as well. It was a crutch, but it helped. Still does, these days. If I’m somewhere that I feel like I’m not fully tethered and uncomfortable, I try to make eye contact with someone I do feel a connection with, someone who I know, if I’m speaking. The person is usually an Emma-type or, these days, I do it with some of the guys on the team, like Liam. Can’t be just anyone, I have to trust them. And I’m practiced at it, because they don’t realize it’s happening.
“You know, all that you’re going through doesn’t mean that you’re suddenly a different person,” she says simply. “You’re you.”
“I know that, too.”
She lifts a brow, still wrapping herself around my diagnosis as well. “But, I guess itfeelslike it anyway.”
“Yeah.”
She nods once, and I can see she gets it. From here, we fall into a rhythm again, passing the puck back and forth. Tape to tape. Clean. Predictable. Just a couple of grown-up hockey kids messing around.
“I read something,” she says after a second. “About how adiagnosis doesn’t change who you are, it gives you better instructions.”
I catch the puck, stilling it. That lands somewhere solid.
“You know, instructions would be nice,” I admit.
She grins. “You love instructions.”
“I do,” I say, deadpan. “Huge fan. Give me a flat pack from Ikea any day of the week, and I’m your guy.”
She laughs, pushing the puck past me just enough to make me work for it.
“Good news is,” she adds, softer now, “you don’t have to figure it all out at once.”
I hook the puck back, sending it her way again.
“Good,” I say. “Because I’ve got therapy in a few hours and I’m pretty sure that’s where most of the unravelling’s going to happen.”
Emma smirks. “Lucky therapist.”
I shake my head, but there’s a small smile there now. “Not to change the subject, but how’d I do today?”
“Not bad,” she says with a shrug.
I huff. “Ringing endorsement.”
“But,” she adds, pointing her stick at me as she glides backward, “soon? It’s just you and them.”
“Oh, Lord,” I mutter. “Give me strength.”
