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I opened his text.

Ellie says you’re behaving. Keep it up or I’ll end you.

The relief lasted about two seconds before the guilt hit. He was trusting me. He was telling me Ellie said I was behaving, and I was leaving her coffee and a donut with a note signed with just my initial like I was a creep.

I replied: I wouldn’t dream of doing anything less.

I mean it, Kedish. She’s been through enough.

I’m well aware of that.

Are you?

I stared at the text, my fingers hovering over the keyboard. The coffee felt like a confession I hadn’t meant to make. If Crim found out, he wouldn’t see it as a thank you. He’d see it as me doing exactly what he’d told me not to do.

He’d be right.

But I couldn’t take it back now.

I’m trying to, I finally typed.

Good.

Another text came through before I could set the phone down.

She’s tougher than she looks but don’t make me regret believing you.

I won’t.

You better not. I know where you live.

I smiled at that, even though my hip was screaming, and I was pretty sure Crim actually would murder me if I hurt his sister again.

Ellie was tougher than she looked. I’d seen it in the treatment room and in the way she didn’t back down when pushed. She’d kept working even when I was being difficult.

She was tougher than anyone I’d ever met.

And I was going to prove I was worth the effort.

I set the phone down and put my vehicle back into drive.

My hip ached, but in that deep, healing way that told me our efforts were doing something. That I was getting better.

But getting better didn’t erase what I’d cost us.

Drachmar would play game one. Game two. Maybe game three if I didn’t heal right. He was good. He had solid fundamentals and decent reflexes. But he wasn’t a wall. He couldn’t read plays the way I could, couldn’t anticipate that split-second before a shooter released as well as me.

The team had worked all season to get where we were. Now they’d go into playoffs without their starting goalie because I’d messed up.

Easing to the side of the road, I pulled up the team group chat on my phone. Scrolled through the messages from earlier.

Drachmar asked about my hip.

Veskar sent a gif of a goalie making an impossible save with the caption “no pressure, backup.”

Tolrek simply said, We’ve got this.

They were moving forward, as they should. Moving on without me.