Chapter 3 Dawson
“Have you checked your email?”
I squint at the bright square of light from the hallway, silhouetting Alex’s familiar stocky, muscular build. After an hour in the dark, empty classroom, my eyes take a minute to adjust.
“How did you—?”
“Find My Friends. And it’s a good thing, too. You haven’t checked it, have you?”
I shake my head, still in a trance. But I pause the video playing on my phone and pop my headphones out.
Only a few days into the season and I’m already scrambling for time.
I had a spare hour after class, so I holed up here to map Dad’s training schedule onto Coach Red’s and to watch some film of last year’s games.
Every time I pull up the Northview match that cost us the season, it makes my stomach knot with nausea.
I still can’t quite figure out how it happened—they’re good, especially their center, Jack Petrov, but we’re better.
All our stats outmatch theirs. But it was one of the toughest games I’ve ever played, checked within an inch of my life and outskated in a way I’m not used to.
Dad had been just as confused. I know because he got quiet, almost silent that whole night and weekend.
The same silent he got when we watched the Stanley Cup finals every year, even though he’d never miss it.
It was an intense quiet. The quiet of someone trying to figure out how to make a story end differently.
When he’d spoken again, it was to say: Work hard enough and you’ll beat them next time.
I did my best to match his expression, shoving down the unfamiliar shame.
Neither of us can control the luck, but the hard work is always in our grasp.
Like it or not, I need to study Northview’s every move before we have another matchup this year.
Alex hops from one foot to the other with frantic energy. I’ve never seen him frown so deeply, and nerves gather in the pit of my stomach. “What’s the email about?”
“Coach Dan said we have a team meeting. In the auditorium.”
“Coach Dan?” My brow furrows too. Dan never calls our meetings. I clamber to my feet. “I’m supposed to work, and I already asked Harper to cover for me once this week.”
My whole body aches from the increase in training since the season started. It’s getting increasingly difficult to fit in shifts at the diner with the extra conditioning and lifting I want to do.
God, I’m so tired of Harper glaring across the room and sniping at me about the hours she’s had to pick up.
When she first started working at the Lakeside Diner (not actually lakeside, but my parents had thought it sounded good) freshman year, I’d been basically useless for a full week.
She was just really… distracting. Her gigantic green eyes tracked my every movement as I trained her, and I totally forgot how to operate the fryer when she put her hair up into a ponytail—it was more than just brown, it was so many shades of mahogany and auburn, and it looked so soft…
I’d made a promise to myself two years ago not to date during the school year.
Hanging out over the summer was okay as long as there were no strings, but once the season started, girls just pulled my focus.
Dad always reminded me I had to stay locked in if Red was going to invest in me.
And clearly I needed the rule, because my resolve was getting tested fast.
Luckily, it only took a few days for the curiosity in Harper’s eyes to turn to disdain.
She was all hands on hips, raised eyebrows, and questions that implied I wasn’t trustworthy or something.
And when that turned into a vendetta against the hockey team last year, filing weekly petitions asking for our funding to get redistributed, I decided the smartest thing was to keep my distance as much as possible.
I can’t wait to leave the restaurant behind next year.
All the better if it shows her I earned every bit of recognition I get from this school. I don’t know why her derision worms its way so far under my skin. Maybe because her words sound familiar. Like they could be coming from my own brain.
“I don’t know what to tell you.” Alex glances over his shoulder, itching to move.
He hates being late, or anything else that threatens the peace on the team.
“This shit seems serious. I had to cancel on Max, and I’ve barely seen him since he got back from visiting his great-aunt in Tokyo.
I promised to take him to the bookstore, so you can imagine how well bailing went over.
The least you can do is ask to trade shifts.
Harper always says she needs the money, right? ”
I sigh, bracing myself for the wrath of Harper Braedon as I swipe open my phone.
Can you cover my shift this afternoon? Last minute hockey stuff.
The little typing bubble pops up immediately. I can almost see her thumbs flying across the keyboard as she reams me out.
Which is more important than anything the rest of us have going on??
I can’t help myself. Probably.
You’re so lucky I need the money. And you owe me.
I give her last message a thumbs-up and pocket my phone, turning back to Alex, who’s still vibrating with nerves in the doorway.
“Let’s go.” I grab my bag. “I have a bad feeling about this.”
When we get to the auditorium, the first thing I see is Coach Dan standing next to Principal Castillo.
Dan’s pasty-white skin is even paler than usual.
Like he’s nervous. I freeze midstep, and Alex crashes into me from behind.
“Bro, what’s your prob—” When he sees what stopped me in my tracks, his gulp is audible.
“What is the principal doing here?” he hisses.
I head slowly down the aisle, mouth dry. “Nothing good.”
Because not only is the principal here, but Red is conspicuously absent.
Alex and I slide into a seat behind the other juniors and seniors, all clustered in the first few rows. The underclassmen fill in the back. Coach Dan and Principal Castillo lean against the edge of the stage, poker faced, watching us all file in.
My heart races. I glance around at the other guys, who seem just as nervous.
The D-men are quiet. Sam’s bent over a textbook, deliberately ignoring everything going on around him, as focused as he is in the goal.
Ryan’s uncharacteristically silent, his leg jiggling nervously, causing his seat to squeak.
But the varsity forwards whisper enough for all of us.
“Think they’re mixing up positions for the season?” Brady rolls up the sleeves of his sweater as if preparing for a fight. “This is my last year. I need to finish strong. If they screw over us seniors—”
Louis Bautista shakes his head, locs swinging. “They wouldn’t bring in the principal for that. And they’d be idiots to mess with a winning game.”
Coach Dan surveys us all, nodding to each guy who enters. He’s quiet and calm. As if there’s nothing strange about this. As if he can’t hear the speculation.
My chest is tight with anticipation.
Frowning, legs outstretched and arms crossed over his chest, Noah asks, “Where’s Coach Red?”
It’s like all the air has been sucked out of the room. I’ve never heard these guys so quiet. Not even in the tense countdown before a face-off. Today, there’s no shuffling, no shifting of positions, not even any audible breathing. We’re all waiting for something we know we don’t want to hear.
Coach Dan and Principal Castillo exchange a glance. Castillo adjusts her glasses on her nose before clasping her hands in front of her.
“He won’t be coaching you anymore.”
There’s one beat of taut silence before the uproar crashes over her.
“Why? What happened?”
“What did you assholes do to—”
“We need him!”
“Is this about the rooster?”
Turns out Principal Castillo can outshout us all. “Boys, it’s school business,” she calls above the crowd, her voice cutting through the chaos.
Noah shakes his head, stone-faced. “He’s our coach. We deserve to know what’s going on.”
The entire team nods and murmurs their agreement.
Castillo and Dan share another look. “It’s going to come out anyway,” Dan says quietly. “And Noah’s right. They should know.”
Castillo sighs and squares her shoulders. My stomach ties itself a little tighter in the split second before she answers, the quiet of the auditorium raising the hairs on the back of my neck. One of those moments that I know will mean no turning back.
“He’s been let go. For misusing funds,” Principal Castillo says.
The silence is sickening.
“What? From where?” Ryan asks, face pale.
Principal Castillo purses her lips. “The new facilities project.”
My stomach drops out in shock. Our coach?
The guy I’ve looked up to as much as my own dad, stealing funds?
I picture the out-of-date equipment in the science wing.
The plan to build more all-gender bathrooms throughout the school.
The petition going around last year for more accessible classrooms and school entrances for wheelchair users.
An image of Harper burns in my mind, hands on her hips and her chin jutted up defiantly. Yesterday she was complaining about how the school puts all its funding into athletics, and that there’s barely any left to go around.
If Red really stole from the funding that had been allocated for facilities improvement… that would be pretty shady.
Alex shakes his head, jaw agape. “For what?” His conscience won’t even let him give us a heads-up about how hard the precalc test is. The idea of stealing money is probably unfathomable to him.
But there’s no answer to his question. “Luckily, Dan will fill his role for the rest of the season,” Principal Castillo says, nodding to him.
We all turn to look at Dan. To be honest, I keep forgetting he’s in the room, and I have a feeling the other guys caught the same amnesia. He didn’t even react to Castillo’s bombshell, just kept his hands clasped behind his back, face steady and placid as always.
Now, he raises a sheepish hand at the team. “I’ll do my best to fill his shoes. They’re pretty big, though.”
The silence in the room turns awkward. Alex and I exchange a glance.
Dan’s a great guy. He’s the kind of coach who cleans up after Red has torn us a new one, reminding us of what we did right instead of wrong, telling us we’ll get back out there and do better next game. Reminding us to be goldfish with no memory of the past, to keep our focus on improving.
But he’s no Red.
I mean, the guy wears glasses. What kind of cutthroat hockey player wears glasses?
Thank God Noah’s the one who says what we’re all thinking. He’s still leaning back in his seat, arms crossed, but his resting frown has turned into wide-eyed shock. “Dan, you know we love you,” he says. “But are you really gonna be head coach?”
It’s the kind of thing only Noah, with his fresh contract to the Gamblers, could say.
It’s everything the rest of us are thinking.
Coach Red is the one responsible for leading the school to championships for the last six years.
He’s the one who coached two Stanley Cup winners.
He’s the one who was going to get me on the ice in front of the scouts who can promise me a future.
Good as our program is, the scouts come because it’s Red’s program—because they were his former players, because he has friends everywhere in the league, because they know the guys coached by him are destined for something big. No one’s coming to games for Dan.
I look at Dan, who’s smiling lightly at Noah. “Sounds like I am” is all he says.
Coach Red would never let Noah get away with that kind of disrespect.
Castillo clears her throat. “Listen, boys. I want you all to win this season as badly as you do. I’ve seen every Hamilton Lakes game since I was a student here myself. Haven’t missed a single one.”
She surveys the room, looking into each of our eyes for a moment.
“This is the very best plan I could come up with. Dan knows the team. He’s been training under Coach Red for years. And you all know as well as I do that we’re not going to find a better replacement at the last minute. Not now that the season’s started.”
Her tone makes it clear this is final. Her words sink in like a stone dropping to the bottom of my stomach. All the good coaches are attached already. No one’s making the leap at this point.
I look around at the team. Half of them are shell-shocked, mouths hanging open and eyes wide. The other half, the ones who’re starting to realize the reality of the situation, are shaking their heads and muttering to the guys beside them.
I’m stuck somewhere in between. My mind is racing, but I can’t move. And I can’t help thinking: None of these guys are as close as me. None of them have as much to lose.
My dad’s words ring in my ears. Talent is nothing without good luck and hard work.
He learned firsthand how one stroke of bad luck can end a career—an MCL tear that required surgery took him out for a whole season at the peak of his game, and there was no recovering from it.
From the way Mom tells the story, he took it in stride, starting the restaurant with his savings when it became clear his career was over.
He’s done everything to make sure that doesn’t happen to me.
There’s no way he can blame me for Coach Red getting fired, but I’m not looking forward to the conversation about how I’m going to have to compensate for the shit luck so I don’t ruin my season.
And the reminder that if I don’t get a good enough scholarship to play in college, there’s always the restaurant waiting for me.
You’re good enough to go all the way, he always says. It’s up to you not to mess that up.
Just a few days ago, I’d thought this season was starting with a good omen. I was skating on fresh ice and my legs were strong and I couldn’t wait for our first game.
But now…
Castillo nods once more before heading to the door. “If I were you, I’d give your new coach full respect. And I’d get to work.”
The door shuts behind her with a deafeningly final click, leaving us all silent in the velvet tiers of the auditorium. I breathe in the dusty aroma hanging in the air. Smells like dreams the curtain came down on.
This is going to be the worst season of my life.