Tomáš leans toward Damián and says something about the round of sixteen. Damián responds. Then Tomáš turns to me.
“Tobík, you should come to the knockout match too. Bring some of your guys again.”
“I’d like to. I’ll check the schedule.”
Damián, in Czech, low, just for Tomáš. I hear it. “Tomáš, if his team has a thing, don’t push it.”
I set my water down. The glass meets the table without a sound.
“I can decide whether to come to a match.”
“I’m only saying you don’t have to feel obligated.” Still trying to keep it light. The half-smile barely holding.
“I don’t feel obligated. I’m an adult. I can answer my brother.”
The Czech is sharp between us now. Tomáš has noticed. His eyes are moving from Damián to me and back. The rest of the table hasn’t caught it. The dinner keeps going on either side of us like two conversations in the same room.
“Are you two okay?” Tomáš asks.
I lift my voice to normal table volume. English. “We are fine. The conversation was about whether I can attend a match. I think I can answer that question myself.”
The English is the cover. The Czech was the cut.
Damián’s jaw tightens. He looks at his plate.
I excuse myself. I tell the table I need the bathroom. I stand, navigate the chairs, walk toward the back of the restaurant and past the bathroom and through the side door into the evening.
I stand on the sidewalk with my hands in my pockets. I’m not crying. I’m not angry in any way that has volume. The warmth that lives in my face has gone somewhere I can’t reach. My jaw is set. I can feel it set. Czech in my own head has gone clipped, functional, the register that Tomáš calls sulking and is not sulking.
I know what just happened. Damián decided what I could say about him. In front of my teammates. The way Tomáš has been deciding what I can do for ten years.
Two minutes. The side door opens. Damián steps out. He stands a few feet from me on the sidewalk. The streetlight catches the side of his face.
“Tobík.”
I don’t turn.
“I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Which part?”
“The interruption. Tomáš. Both.”
I turn to him. “I don’t need another person deciding what’s good for me.”
“That’s not what I—“
“It’s exactly what you did. You decided I shouldn’t finish a sentence about you in front of my teammates. You decided what I’m allowed to say.”
“I was trying to protect—“
“Protect what?” I hear my own voice and it’s level and low and every word is a door closing. “Protect WHAT, Damián? Protect me from talking about the night three years ago that you stopped? Protect me from naming a thing thatalready happened? Protect yourself from being the topic of a conversation? Which one?”
He’s quiet.
“I’ve spent my entire life being managed by people who think they know what I need.” The words come out whole. Not escalating. Every word carrying the full weight of what I’ve been swallowing since I was twelve. “By Tomáš. By coaches. By scouts who looked at my size and decided what position I should play before they watched me skate. By people who think because I’m quiet I don’t have answers. I’ve built a life here, Damián. I have people in it. I had a conversation tonight with a teammate and you put your hand on the conversation because you couldn’t handle me even saying your name in a room full of people you know.”
“Tobík, that’s not—“
