Brody — hand on my shoulder, no words, just there for a second, then gone. Aiden last, door held, eyes asking. I shake my head. The door closes.
I sit in the empty locker room with my gear still on and I run the second period on a loop. The read was right. The move was right. Everything was right except the fraction of a second.
The ghost came back when the room got loud.
I’m not going to pretend it didn’t.
My gear bag is on the bench.
I open it for my phone and the Post-it is right there on top. Her handwriting — small, slightly slanted, the handwriting of someone who writes fast and doesn’t worry about it. A drawing of Brick looking judgmental. His actual face. Somehow she got his actual face — the half-closed eyes, the considering tilt of the head. And underneath it: acceptable.
I stare at it.
Three weeks.
I’ve been carrying this for three weeks without noticing. Through two playoff series and a Conference Final and every practice in between and it was just — there.
She drew this for me three weeks ago.
Didn’t hand it to me.
Didn’t make it a thing.
Just left it where I’d find it eventually.
The anger doesn’t leave. But it shifts.
I find her in the tunnel.
Same equipment crate. Same spot. She’s been here long enough that the postgame noise has gone muffled above us and she’s got that specific stillness of someone who has run out of arguments with herself for one day.
I sit down next to her.
I put the Post-it on the crate between us.
She looks at it and closes her eyes for a second.
“I forgot I drew that.”
“I know.”
A little quiet sits there.
Then she says, “You let in three.”
“Yeah.”
“That wasn’t all because of me.”
I look at the Post-it. Then at her.
“Not all of it,” I say.
She winces.
“I’m not doing this if you’re going to be careful with me.”
“I’m not being careful. I’m being accurate.”
