She moved on.
Everything was normal. That was the problem. Everyone was normal, the room was normal, practice was normal, and I was sitting there with my body acting like I was waiting for a door to open.
When Coach walked in for the pre-practice meeting, I did not look at him right away.
I looked at my notebook. At the blank line under the date. At the edge of Roman’s bagel wrapper. At Milo’s stupid hat.
Then I looked.
Declan stood at the front of the room in black team gear, arms folded behind his back, beard trimmed, face unreadable. He did not search for me. He did not pause on me. His voice was even when he started talking about neutral-zone spacing and defensive support.
He gave the whole room less than eight minutes.
He called on Sokolov. He corrected Lowell. He told Milo to stop drifting below the hash marks unless he planned to start paying rent there.
He did not call on me once.
By minute six, I was irritated.
By minute seven, I was embarrassed about being irritated.
By minute eight, my notes had turned into a jagged mess of half words, arrows, and one aggressive underline under support first.
On the ice, it got worse.
Not because he ignored me. He didn’t. That would have been easier to hate. He watched me the right amount. He spoke to mewhen the drill required it. He gave me the same clean, boring coaching tone he gave everyone else.
That was somehow unbearable.
In the first regroup drill, I held underneath until the touch was earned. Perfect timing. Clean release. Tape to tape. Shot on net.
Nothing from him.
Not a nod. Not a “that’s it.” Not even a correction to someone else that indirectly proved he’d seen it.
My head went immediately stupid.
Did he not see it? He saw it. He sees everything. Maybe it was only fine, not good. Maybe I released half a second late. Maybe he’s deliberately not saying anything because yesterday I turned into a pain in the ass. Maybe he thinks if he gives me attention, I’ll make it weird.
I nearly missed the next whistle.
Roman glided by me on his way to the crease. “You planning to attend practice or just haunt it?”
“I’m here.”
“Your body is.”
“Helpful.”
“I try.”
The drill flipped. Milo took a pass, got too cute, and lost the puck. Coach blew it dead.
“Brooks,” he said. “Simple before decorative.”
Milo bent over his stick. “My entire brand is decorative.”
“Then rebrand.”
