I stare down at the table. “Enlighten me.”
“Your father probably never lost a second of sleep worrying about who he was hurting.”
Every muscle locks up.
“What happened with Toutain crossed a line,” Noah continues calmly. “You know that. The League knows that. But ugly behavior during a triggered moment doesn’t automatically make you an abusive man.”
I swallow hard.
“It scared me how fast I lost control.”
“Good.”
I look up sharply.
Noah shrugs. “You know why that fear matters? Because it means you don’t want to become him.”
I stare down at my hands for a second, jaw tight enough to ache.
Because he’s not wrong.
“For what it’s worth,” Noah says more quietly, “I’ve coached a lot of goalies. A lot of men. I’m not worried about you becoming your father.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No.” He swallows once. “I do.”
Silence stretches between us. It’s not empty, just heavy in a different way now.
“You’re intense,” Noah says. “Protective. Hypervigilant as hell. You carry too much responsibility for everybody around you.” He lifts one shoulder. “But none of those things make you abusive.”
I stare at him.
“You know what I think?” he asks.
“What?”
“I think you’ve been trying to raise yourself since you were twelve years old.”
That one almost destroys me. I look away immediately, jaw tightening hard enough to ache. Noah pretends not to notice, which honestly makes me love him a little for it.
After another minute, he reaches into his jacket pocket and slides a folded piece of paper across the table toward me.
“What’s this?”
“Therapist recommendation.”
I blink down at it.
“She worked with me after Natalie and Steve died,” Noah says. “And again, later, after the Arthur situation blew up.” His mouth curves faintly. “She’s terrifyingly perceptive. You’ll hate her for probably the first three sessions.”
A startled laugh escapes me.
“There’s the first genuine sound you’ve made all night,” Noah says dryly.
I shake my head and tuck the paper into my pocket carefully. Then I sit there for a second, staring out across the bar while the game plays overhead, and my lungs finally loosen enough to let me breathe all the way in.
Not fixed or magically healed.
