Chapter 21
TWENTY-ONE
SKYLAR
Skylar was proud of himself for how far he’d come that year, not just for his hockey, but also for the effort he was putting into keeping a handle on his emotions. So far in the NHL, he hadn’t embarrassed himself.
The tides turned in Vancouver after hearing that one of his favorite regulars at Heathens—his friend—had passed.
He couldn’t hold it in anymore. He got checked to the ice, puck stripped off him, goal scored.
He looked like a fool. He imagined what the play would look like on the broadcast as the announcers played it over and over again.
Max came over to help him up, and he lost it, letting out a scream and breaking a stick over his knee on the way back to the bench.
He spent the rest of the period with his rage cranked up to eleven, unable to find his calm center, unable to take a deep breath.
He knew he’d be warming the bench for the rest of the game.
Afterward, he got called to the coach’s office and it was strongly suggested he work with a sports therapist for a calm state of mind.
He normally would have agreed that was a good choice, but he had too much tension in his body to receive the suggestion gracefully.
He could tell he was pissing his coach off, and that was the last thing he wanted.
They had one more game back in Minnesota before All-Star break, and he had an ultimatum to come back in a week with a therapist lined up.
Once again, he was grateful that the NHL gave separate hotel rooms to the players because he knew he was going to have his own little tantrum.
On the bus back to the hotel, Walker sat next to him and didn’t say a word. If anyone knew the space Skylar needed after a bad game, it was Walker.
What he wanted most was to call Adam, but he was embarrassed. He wanted Adam to know only the best parts of him, and that night, his best parts weren’t on display. Instead, he called his best friend, and finally, right before it went to voicemail, Beck picked up.
“Rough game,” Beck said.
“You saw.”
“I caught the last period. You didn’t look good out there.”
He was right. Skylar hadn’t looked good. He’d been a mess, playing poorly because he was emotional and feeling bad for himself, then playing worse as he spiraled.
“Thanks for picking up. I miss you. You’re a hard man to get a hold of.”
“You know the AHL,” Beck said. “Every single day is a grind.” Skylar knew, but he also knew that they got pockets of time to themselves. Beck could have responded to a text if he’d wanted to.
“Well,” Skylar said, “we already know that I feel like shit. How are you doing?”
“That’s a hard question to answer these days.”
“What do you mean?”
“My knee is fucked. It hurts more every game.”
“What are the trainers saying about it?”
“I’m not telling them shit about it.”
“Don’t be an idiot. Don’t be a hero.”
“I’m not trying to be a hero, just trying to be a hockey player.
Every year I play brings me closer to the end, and now it’s feeling like this is the last I got.
How ever many games I can get out of this knee, that’s as many games as I’ve got left, and I don’t think I’m going to make it to the end of the season like this. ”
Something about focusing on his friend’s pain, focusing outside of himself instead of on his grief and his longing for Adam, helped to center Skylar and calm him down. He needed to be the rock, and he could be that for Beck.
“You’re gonna need that knee for the rest of your life,” Skylar said carefully, knowing that if he were on the other end of this conversation, he would not be welcoming to what he had to say.
“Getting a few more AHL games out of it before it’s dust, before your knee is bones grinding against each other because you don’t have any cartilage left. It’s not worth it.”
Skylar knew as well as anyone that the Iowa Stars wouldn’t win the Calder Cup. They were an okay farm team that fed into an okay NHL team, and while he loved the boys on that team, it was just hockey.
“I’ve been trying to make this decision for weeks. My heart’s not ready for it. I don’t know what’s on the other side of this.”
Oh. Skylar had been so focused on why his friend wasn’t paying attention to him that he’d missed this. Beck was struggling. It wasn’t about Skylar.
Skylar wanted to give him a hug. Beck wasn’t a touchy-feely person, but Skylar could squeeze a hug out of him every once in a while. If they were in the same place right now, he thought he could do it.
“Can you afford to take some time off?”
Beck hummed. “I don’t think there’s any way I could jump out of hockey and into another job. No one’s gonna hire me to be an accountant or brand strategist, whatever people do when they sit in front of a computer. I don’t know how to do that.”
“You could coach,” Skylar suggested. He knew Beck would be not only capable, but good at it.
“No one is going to hire me to coach.” Beck was having a pity party for himself. Skylar kept his other career suggestions to himself. He’d try again when Beck was feeling more receptive.
“You’re going to have a lot of life after hockey, and prolonging that transition isn’t going to change the outcome of it,” Skylar said.
“Sounds like you’re trying to talk me into retiring.”
“I’m trying to talk you into preserving your body for the rest of your life. I think you should talk to Coach McCoy, tell him what you’re feeling.”
“Chase knows.”
Chase. Since when was Beck on a first-name basis with their coach?
“And he’s letting you play?”
“For now. Until something happens, he’s keeping it to himself. If I tell anyone else about what’s happening with my knee, they’re going to force my hand.”
“Maybe they’ll put you on IR and have you do some physical therapy.”
“Maybe,” he agreed. “It’s weird down here without you.
I thought I was prepared for you to make the big league.
I knew it would be quieter, and I was right.
It’s also not as much fun. At some point, the chance that you have to win the Stanley Cup has passed, and all that’s left is playing hockey with your friends. And now my friend is gone.”
Skylar, who had been crying about the loss of Gil already that day and who had his emotions threatening to spill over that evening, couldn’t help but cry.
With hockey, there were lots of opportunities.
You got to travel, you got to compete at the highest level in your sport.
Arguably, you could get some glory, but not much fame, especially not in the States. But he didn’t need that.
What hockey couldn’t give you was stability. All it did was tear people apart.
“I’m on All-Star break after one final game in Minnesota, and then I’m going to come down to Iowa. Surprise Adam. Maybe bother you.”
“It’d be nice to see your face,” Beck acquiesced. Beck wasn’t the biggest emoter, and Skylar would never call him enthusiastic. He liked eking a feeling out of him every now and then.
“All right, put me down for a couple couch naps, then,” Skylar said.
“How’s your NHL dream going?” Beck asked. Skylar flopped back on the bed, still in his suit, to stare at the ceiling.
“Aside from feeling like I fucked something up tonight, pretty okay. The problem I’m having right now is that one of Adam’s regulars died, and the wake is at Heathens the day before I get back, and I can’t make it.
” His voice cracked. Not only did he want to be there for Adam and for Grace and for Ron, he wanted to be there for himself, for the memory of his friend.
Not for the first time, he resented the NHL for its unforgiving schedule and relentless expectations. To be an NHL player was to be at the will of the league. Skylar hated the will of the league.
“It’s at Heathens?” Beck asked. “What time is it?”
“I think it starts at four, four thirty.” He hadn’t remembered the details well because he knew he wouldn’t be able to go.
“Okay. We have practice tomorrow, and then I’m free for the rest of the day. I’ll go for you.”
“Beck, you don’t have to go for me. I know Heathens isn’t your favorite spot in the world, and Adam isn’t your favorite person.”
“No, it isn’t. And no, he’s not. But you’re one of my favorite people in the world.”
“Thank you,” Skylar choked out. “Don’t tell Adam that I’m coming for All-Star break. I want to surprise him.” Beck agreed.
They got through a bit more conversation. Skylar told him about his trip home to Edmonton, Beck about how his upstairs neighbors flooded the bathroom and now he had renovators coming later that week, before they hung up.
Skylar was stuck on Beck’s willingness to go to the wake in his stead.
There had been moments in their friendship when he felt like he was too much, too pushy, too annoying, like Beck would rather not have to deal with him.
But then Beck did stuff like this, and it was a reminder that just because he didn’t match Skylar’s enthusiastic energy didn’t mean that he wasn’t his friend.
He had a couple voice notes waiting for him from Adam.
A sweet pep talk before the game and an impossibly sweeter pep talk after letting him know that his passion made him special and that he’d seen how far Skylar had come on the ice with his emotions, and that this wasn’t a setback, but a new way to go forward.
Skylar was alone in Vancouver, but the people in his life who cared about him made him feel a lot less alone.
Skylar knew that Adam was used to doing things alone, so he was tentative about surprising him for All-Star break when he had so much else going on in his life.
Adam was a nose-down worker, which was something that Skylar admired about him, but since he kept things so close to his chest, he could be hard to read.
The morning after their final game before All-Star break, Skylar packed up his SUV for the week, got on I-35, and headed south. At the beginning of the season, he had imagined getting called up and never coming back to Iowa. Now, he was vibrating with excitement.