Chapter 61
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
DYLAN
She’s gone.
I read the message three times, like the words might rearrange themselves into something softer. Something temporary. Something less like a gut punch.
I’m going home for a bit. I’m okay. I promise.
I don’t remember walking out of the locker room. Don’t remember saying goodbye to anyone or even registering the heavy silence in the corridors. Just the slam of the exit door behind me and the way the cold hits harder than usual.
Her car’s not in the lot. She didn’t wait for me.
I sit in mine for a full ten minutes, her message still glowing on the screen like a wound I can’t stop poking. Every part of me itches to ignore what she said, track her down, beg her not to do this.
But I know Mia. If she says she needs space, she means it. She doesn’t bluff. Doesn’t play games. She’s the realest person I know. And now she’s gone quiet.
I don’t start the engine. Don’t go anywhere. I just sit there, head against the steering wheel, eyes burning, feeling like everything’s unravelling one thread at a time.
She was right here. Last night she curled into me like she belonged there.
And now it’s just me and the sound of my own goddamn breath shaking.
I end up at home eventually, but I don’t remember the drive.
I don’t do anything for hours except pace the floor and check my phone like some desperate addict waiting for a hit. I leave my bag by the door. The lights stay off.
Every time I glance at the couch, I see her sitting there in my hoodie, legs tucked beneath her. I swear I can still smell her perfume in the cushions. Still hear the way she laughed when I accidentally dropped a whole slice of toast face-down on her sock this morning.
I replay that scene like it means something. Like I can rewind us to when things were simple, before the noise swallowed everything. I know why she left. I know this circus is killing her. It’s killing me too.
It’s late afternoon by the time I finally pick up the phone.
There’s only one person I can call when I feel like this, when I’m cracked open and hollow and a breath away from completely falling apart.
Mum answers on the third ring. “Dyl?” Her voice is soft, warm, and everything I didn’t know I needed. I don’t say anything at first. Just breathe.
“Love?” she asks, gentler now. “What’s happened?”
My throat tightens. “I think I’ve messed everything up.”
There’s a pause. I can hear the faint clatter of a mug being set down. “Talk to me.”
“It’s Mia,” I say, dragging a hand through my hair as I sink onto the edge of the bed. “She’s gone. She left this morning after we went to the rink. Said she needed space.”
“Gone where?”
“Back home. She just texted after she drove off.”
Mum exhales like she knows exactly what that means. “Did something happen between you?”
“Only everything.” I press the heels of my hands to my eyes.
“It’s all gone to hell, Mum. Someone leaked pictures of us.
There are articles. Social media’s tearing her apart, calling her unprofessional.
And now the team’s investigating. She went to talk to the GM this morning, probably tried to fix it, and then she just left. ”
“She’s protecting herself,” Mum says quietly. “Trying to breathe before it drowns her.”
“I know,” I whisper. “But she shouldn’t have to do it alone.”
“Neither should you.”
I pause. There’s a silence between us that carries weight. Years of things we haven’t said. Of phone calls I should’ve made. Moments I should’ve reached out. I never really let her in, not since Dad started being a prick. Not since I started holding everything so tight I forgot how to let it go.
“She believed in me,” I say, voice cracking. “Even when I didn’t have faith in myself. Even when I acted like a selfish prick. She still saw something good in me.”
“She’s not the only one,” Mum says.
I choke a laugh. “You’re biased.”
“I’m your mother. I’m allowed to be. But that doesn’t make me wrong.”
I lean back against the wall. “I don’t know what to do, Mum. I don’t know how to fix this.”
“You can’t fix it all at once,” she says. “You just have to show up. Keep being the man she saw in you. The one who stayed when things got hard.”
“What if I’m not that man?”
“You are,” she says firmly. “You’ve just never let yourself believe it.”
I press my fist to my chest like it might keep everything from spilling out. “I love her, Mum.”
“I know.”
“And it’s not just about her. She makes me feel like I matter. Like I’m more than just goals, the speed and hype.”
“Because you are,” she says. “You always were.”
It hits how starved I’ve been for that kind of affirmation. How little of it I ever got from Dad. From coaches. From anyone who didn’t have something to gain from me being a machine on the ice.
But Mia? She never wanted anything from me except me.
And I let her walk away thinking she had to handle this on her own.
“Mum?”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t want to be the reason she walks away from the job she’s worked her whole life for.”
“Then don’t be.”
I blink. “It’s not that simple.”
“No, it’s not,” she agrees. “But if you love her, you don’t let the world paint her into a villain and stay silent. You stand beside her. You fight with her.”
I nod slowly. “I’m scared.”
“That means you care.” I close my eyes. “I’m proud of you, Dylan,” she adds, softer now. “Not because of hockey. Not because of the goals or points or how fast you can skate. I’m proud because you’ve learned how to feel. That takes more strength than anything you’ve ever done on the ice.”
The silence stretches again. But this one feels different.
Less hollow. More like a lull after a storm. “Thanks, Mum.”
“You’ll be alright,” she says. “And so will she. Just don’t give up on her. Even if she needs space, don’t let her think you’ve stopped choosing her.”
“I won’t.”
“I love you, Dyl.”
“I love you too.”
After the call, I just sit there. Letting the weight of everything settle.
Then I do something I should’ve done from the start.
I open my laptop, pull up the media policy, and start reading.
Properly this time. Not just headlines or bullet points.
I go through every line, every clause, every section.
And then I open a new document and start writing.
Not to the press.
Not to the board.
To her.
Because maybe she needs space right now, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t need to know I’m still here. Still fighting. Still hers.