Page 94 of Arctic Titans of Northwood U: Volume 2

I was clutching the arm holder of the couch like my life depended on it. “Why can’t we ever talk about anything else here?”

“Go ahead,” Michael said. “Bury your head in the sand. But it won’t help you, Seby. You can pretend all you like that this isn’t how things are, but you lost your path long ago.” He turned to Dad. “He never should have been allowed to play hockey. That’s where it all started.”

“What are you talking about? It’s a sport. It’s a sport millions of people love.” I was growing more desperate by the minute and they could hear it in my voice. Sweat was breaking out over my body. I wanted Tyler here to hold my hand. And thinking of him filled me with guilt. I couldn’t even stand up to my dad and brother.

What had I ever done to deserve Tyler? I’d been cheated on. That was why Tyler had made the move. To cheer me up. To help me out. To give me something good. Even his kisses weren’t something I asked for by myself, but something that happened because I was a loser.

I was a goddamn coward and everything good I had in this life was the work of a braver person.

“Enough,” Dad said, waving his hand. “We don’t mean to conspire against you, Sebastian. This is simply a conversation.”

Michael seemed like he wasn’t done talking, but he clenched his teeth and kept his words to himself.

When I left the living room, I passed Eryn’s room upstairs on the way to mine. Her door was slightly ajar and I knocked, then pushed my head through. “How are you?” I asked in a hoarse voice with no preamble.

“Used to it,” she said casually. She closed her laptop screen and looked at me from her bed. It was a nicely decorated room with all the usual things that interested a high school senior and then some of the unique interests that belonged only to Eryn, such as the small microscope she’d saved money for months to buy for herself.

“What are you watching?” I asked, figuring she was likely binging some show in her downtime.

“Colleges,” she said lightly.

My heart leaped. The mood of the evening made me feel like I had nothing smart to say. My approval hardly mattered. After all, the best I’d ever achieved was to follow my passion and I still hadn’t landed an agent. But I looked Eryn in the eyes and said, “Just get out of here, okay?” It was barely louder than a whisper. “And if you need help, come to me.”

I moved back from her door as she nodded and thanked me. The hollowness within me made my last words echo mockingly through my head. I couldn’t help myself. How could I ever hope to help anyone else? I could be added to excellence and the equation would result in mediocrity.

Eryn would be smart to stay away from me as much as I wanted her to stay away from our fucked up family. If Dad and Michael had their way, she’d never leave the goddamn kitchen. And me? I would just trap her in my own misery.

When I shut myself in my room, I reached for my phone. I needed Ty. I always needed Ty. As I glanced at my screen, there was a message waiting for me.

Tyler: So far so good. Dad’s in a great mood. How are things on your front, soldier?

I locked my phone and stuffed it inside my pocket. The urge to call him and tell him about the evening conversations was too strong, but the result was obvious. I would just upset him when he was having one of the rare good moments with his dad. Mr. Morgan had been haunted by his failed marriage for years, and his moods had always been unpredictable, even before the divorce, so I decided to ignore the message.

I fell onto my bed and buried my face in the pillow.

Was there even a chance for me? I was starting to think that the NHL was a pipedream. Two guys were picked from our team last year. Cam and Riley had been drafted against all odds and on the same team no less. How likely was it that Tyler and I would get drafted, too? Odds were one of us would be picked or neither would. And if one were to get the contract, it was obviously going to be Tyler.

Dad was right, even if he danced around saying it aloud. Everything I tried in all these years amounted to nothing. And I had to start coming to terms with it.

Chapter Sixteen

TYLER

Most of our house appeared unused. The upper floor got no attention from Dad other than preparing my room. It was visibly dusted, with fresh linens on the bed, and my things were displayed neatly on shelves and other surfaces. Our photos together here and there. A framed photo of me and Sebastian when we were seven. Two boys hugging each other with toothy smiles and glimmering eyes. Outside my room, the house seemed still, asleep. Dad used little more than the downstairs bedroom, kitchen, and the living room. In fact, he was barely using those beyond the necessities. After work, he retreated to the garage, building his train set with such iron focus that knocking on the door wouldn’t get you admitted. He simply heard nothing when he was in his bubble.

I stepped into the garage from the side door connecting it to the main hallway in the house. Dad’s back was turned to me. He had his conductor’s hat on, and a brush dipped into red paint, meticulously adding details to a tiny piece of metal he would glue onto the front of the new locomotive.

I leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, and watched. He wasn’t slouching like he tended to when he was face to face with someone. There was nothing timid about him now. He was fully in control of what he was doing and aware of the immensity of his project.

The garage was a world of its own. He no longer pulled the car in. There was no room for the car. Instead, he turned it into a universe populated with the people he dreamed up. Or so I imagined. It was hard to tell what was going on in his head sometimes. I remembered the episode when he disassembled the entire project and dragged bags upon bags out to the curb. He’d given up on the trains for a long time before returning to them.

I supported it. They were therapeutic in a sense, although they weren’t therapeutic enough. And now that he was seeing a real therapist, I double-supported his evening occupations.

I was about to clear my throat to announce myself when he spoke. “Don’t just stand there, Tyler,” he said in a gentle voice. Sometimes, when I was a kid, the gentle voice was scary because it followed his more melancholic episodes. It was like he would try smoothing the fright away by being extra sweet with me, so the two twined together and became inseparable in my heart. “Come and see.”

“I heated up lasagna,” I said.

Dad looked at me over his shoulder, the brush held still in his hand. “Would you mind if we ate out here?”