CHAPTER 10
NATHAN
Emily’s ice pack drips in the sink.
One drop.
Then another.
Then another.
I stand in the recovery room doorway long after she walks away, one hand still half-raised like my body forgot it was not allowed to follow.
The hallway outside is empty now.
No red Canada jacket.
No clipped footfalls.
No Emily turning back to say the sentence did not land as hard as it did.
That makes it worse.
The words stay in the room with the melting ice.
I take one step back inside because standing in the doorway feels too much like waiting for permission I already lost. The side room smells like citrus cleaner, damp vinyl, and cold water. The crooked hydration poster stares down from the wall, cheerful and useless.
Pee pale, play strong.
“Terrific,” I mutter.
The ice pack slides against the sink basin with a wet sound.
I should leave.
I should go to Kings media. Or recovery. Or Colton’s daily session of pretending Morgan does not know exactly what he is doing. I should do anything except stand here and replay the look on Emily’s face when I told her I wanted her and disappeared anyway.
I sit on the bench she left.
Bad idea.
I know it as soon as I do it.
The vinyl is still cold.
There is a dark damp mark on the floor where the ice pack dripped between us. Her seat across from mine is empty now, but the room still holds the shape of her: straight spine, one hand tight around the ice, jaw locked so pain could not get the satisfaction of being seen.
I lean forward, elbows on my knees.
The scrape on my knuckle stings when I rub it.
Good.
I deserve something small and sharp.
No.
That’s too easy.
Pain as punishment is still making the moment about me.
I stop rubbing the scrape.
The sink drips again.
That makes it worse.
I had expected anger.
I had earned anger.
I had not expected the way her face changed after I said I did not leave because I stopped wanting her. Not softer. Not forgiving. Almost the opposite.
Like I had taken the story she used to survive and made it unusable.
The door opens behind me.
I look up fast.
Not Emily.
Darius stands in the doorway with two bottles of water in one hand and his captain face already half-engaged.
He glances at the empty bench. The ice pack in the sink. Me, sitting like a man waiting for a referee to review his entire life.
“Bad time?” he asks.
“Yes.”
He steps inside anyway.
Captains.
He sets one water bottle beside me and leans against the small counter near the sink.
“I was looking for the cold tub schedule,” he says.
“No, you weren’t.”
“No.”
I pick up the water but don’t open it.
Darius lets the silence work because that is one of his worst skills.
The sink drips.
He looks toward it. “That’s annoying.”
“Everything is.”
“Specific.”
I twist the cap on the bottle until the seal cracks. “Emily asked why I stopped answering.”
Darius’s expression doesn’t move much. It doesn’t need to.
“And?” he asks.
“I answered.”
“And?”
“She said it made it worse.”
He nods once, slow.
I glare at him. “Helpful.”
“I’m deciding whether you answered the question she asked or the question you wished she’d asked.”
The water bottle crackles in my hand.
I say nothing.
Darius points at me with his bottle. “There it is.”
“I told her I didn’t stop answering because I stopped wanting her.”
Darius’s eyebrows lift a fraction.
“Also told her that answering her would have made me want something I didn’t think I was allowed to keep.”
He takes that in.
The recovery room hums around us.
Finally, he says, “That is probably true.”
“It is true.”
“I didn’t say probably because I doubted you. I said probably because truth can still arrive carrying the wrong bag.”
I close my eyes. “Can you not be like this right now?”
“No.”
“Great.”
The ice pack slides again in the sink.
I stand, cross the room, and move it properly onto the counter because if I hear one more drip, I am going to confess to crimes I have not committed.
Darius watches me do it.
“You want to clean something,” he says.
“I moved an ice pack.”
“You want the room to look less like what happened.”
I turn around. “Did Sienna teach you this, or were you always unbearable?”
“Both.”
I laugh once.
It doesn’t last.
Darius tips his head toward the hallway. “Walk.”
“I have media.”
“You have thirty minutes.”
Of course he knows my schedule.
Captains.
We leave the recovery room and cut through the back corridor toward the small staff balcony overlooking the training fields. Darius doesn't talk on the way. That helps, which irritates me.
The balcony door sticks before it opens.
Warm evening air hits first, heavy with rain that has not quite fallen yet. The sky is thick and grey above the facility lights. Below us, a few staffers move goals across one of the pitches. A ball thuds against a wall somewhere out of sight.
The railing is cool under my palms.
I grip it anyway.
Darius stands beside me, close enough to be present, far enough not to crowd.
For one second, I understand why Emily chose the opposite bench.
Space can be its own language.
“When you left,” Darius says, “did she know the play call?”
I stare at the field.
The question hits before I can pretend not to understand it.
“No.”
“Did she know there was a decision being made?”
My grip tightens on the rail. “No.”
“Did she get a chance to tell you what she wanted?”
The rain starts as a soft tick against the balcony roof.
I look down at my hands.
“No.”
Darius lets the answer sit there.
A staffer below shouts something about cones. Someone laughs. The whole complex keeps moving under lights, practical and loud and unaware that one simple no has opened a hole under my ribs.
“I thought I was doing the right thing,” I say.
Darius doesn't answer.
“I did.” My voice comes out rougher. “Mom was getting worse. Morgan was trying to act like she needed nothing. I had shifts, appointments, bills, school I could barely keep straight. Emily was getting attention from bigger programs. Canadian national camps. Scouts. Everything she deserved.”
The rain ticks faster.
I keep talking because stopping means hearing myself.
“I thought if I told her all of that, she’d try to stay close. She’d make room for me. She’d choose the mess because she was seventeen and loyal and stubborn and...” I swallow. “And because she cared.”
Darius looks at the field.
Not at me.
Good.
I can say it easier if he doesn't watch.
“I didn’t want to become an anchor.”
The word sits between us.
Anchor.
I used to like that word. Solid. Useful. Necessary.
Now it sounds like something tied to a person’s ankle.
Darius shifts his water bottle from one hand to the other. “Did Emily tell you she thought you were an anchor?”
“No.”
“Did she ask you to decide whether you were one?”
“No.”
The answer is getting old.
It’s also getting clearer.
“I thought leaving quietly was kinder,” I say.
There.
The old story.
Out loud, under rain and floodlights, it sounds smaller than it did in my head for years.
Darius turns toward me. “Sacrifice gives someone the truth and lets them decide what to do with it.”
The field lights buzz below.
I do not move.
“Control makes the decision for them,” he says, “then calls it protection.”
Rain taps harder against the roof.
One drop blows sideways and lands on the back of my hand.
I look at it because looking at Darius would require more courage than I currently have.
“That’s what I did,” I say.
He doesn't soften it.
“Yes.”
I nod once.
The word should make me defensive.
It does.
A little.
Then it passes, and what stays is worse.
I see Emily at seventeen with wet hair under my hoodie, pretending the hot chocolate was not awful. Emily on the field today, ice pack against her ribs, asking why I stopped answering. Emily in the hallway, saying it made it worse without turning around.
I had thought I was removing myself from her path.
I had actually removed her from the choice.
“I loved her,” I say.
The rain answers first.
Darius doesn't look surprised.
That makes something in my throat tighten.
“I mean, I didn’t know what to call it then,” I add quickly. “We were young. It was not...”
I stop.
No.
No polishing.
No shrinking the sentence until it becomes safe.
“I loved her,” I say again.
Darius nods. “And you still took away the choice.”
The words hit clean.
No cruelty.
No comfort.
Just truth.
I lean both forearms on the railing and let my head drop.
Below us, a ball rolls loose across the edge of the pitch until a staffer jogs after it.
“Do you ever get tired of being right?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“Liar.”
“Sometimes I’m wrong.”
“When?”
Darius takes a drink of water. “Privately.”
Despite myself, I laugh.
It breaks some of the pressure in my chest, but not enough to let me off the hook.
I turn my head toward him. “How did you learn to stop carrying everyone?”
He looks out over the field for a long moment.
“I didn’t.”
“That is not encouraging.”
“I’m learning,” he says. “There’s a difference.”
The answer lands better than certainty would have.
Darius rolls the bottle between his palms. “With Sienna, with the team, even with the final, I kept thinking if I could hold enough pieces together, nobody else would have to feel the cracks.”
“Sounds familiar.”
“It didn’t work.”
“No?”
He gives me a dry look. “We won the Cup, so I’m tempted to lie and say yes.”
“At least you’re honest.”
“Sienna is very difficult to lie to.”
“She does have investigative energy.”
“And frightening eyebrows when disappointed.”
I nod. “Morgan has those.”
“Family trait?”
“Apparently.”
Darius’s small smile fades. “I didn’t stop wanting to carry things. I started asking whether they were mine to carry.”
Morgan’s rule again, wearing different clothes.
Did she invite you into the problem?
I exhale.
The rain thins to a softer patter.
Across the pitch, someone shuts off one bank of lights. Half the grass drops into shadow.
My phone buzzes.
I pull it from my pocket.
Not Emily.
Of course not Emily.
Tournament schedule update.
I open it because staring at logistics is easier than standing inside my own failure.
Tomorrow morning:
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