Can’t stop knowing that I put him there.
Even if it was the right call medically, it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
And judging by the look on his face in that hallway, it’s the hardest thing he’s ever had to accept.
12
ROMAN
October 11-13, Canada
Calgary
It feelswrong to be in the visitor’s tunnel in a suit.
I should be on the ice. In gear. Leading warm-ups like I have for the past few seasons. Instead I’m standing here in dress pants and a button-down, watching Dex run the drills I designed, listening to the sound of skates and sticks and my team getting ready for a game I can’t play.
The suit is perfectly tailored, but it feels like a fucking costume.
My shoulder rolls in the socket easily. No catch. No instability. Just a minor ache that barely registers compared to the worse hits I’ve played through. The mobility is there—I tested it this morning doing the exercises Marnie prescribed.
I could be in gear right now.
“Shoulder check?” Marnie appears beside me with her tablet, all business.
Professional. Distant. Like Friday night didn’t happen. Like I didn’t stand in that hallway listening to Barrett call the lines without my name, feeling like I’d been gutted. Like she didn’t have tears in her eyes when she walked away.
“It’s fine.”
“That’s not a medical assessment.”
Her voice is clipped. Clinical. The same tone she uses with Rodriguez when he’s being difficult.
“It feels stable. Minor ache. Mobility at about 85%.”
She makes notes without looking at me, stylus moving across her tablet screen. Her hair is pulled back in that ponytail she wears for games, professional and severe.
“October twenty-third,” she says quietly.
“Twelve days.”
“I can count.”
Dex crashes into the boards during a drill, pops back up laughing. The team looks good. Loose. Ready.
They don’t need me.
“They need their captain,” Marnie says, reading my mind.
“They’re doing fine.”
“Fine isn’t the same as complete.”
I want to respond, but Rodriguez skates by and gives me a salute that makes me remember I’m supposed to be supporting them, not wallowing in my own shit.
“Anything else?” she asks, still not looking up.
Everything else. But I don’t know how to say it.
