Chapter Ten #4
His expression hardened further. “I understand. Your name is there. People see your name.”
Tessa drew in a breath before answering. She had imagined the conversation several times over the previous days, but none of those versions included how personally he seemed to have taken it.
“The headline was too harsh,” she said. “I told my editor that as soon as it went up.”
“But it stayed.”
“Yes.”
“Then what change?”
“Nothing changes for you. I know that.”
Matvei looked away, jaw working once before he returned his gaze to her.
“You wait for bad game.”
The words landed harder than the accusation in the locker room on her first day.
“You honestly believe that?”
“You write good when I am good. First bad game, old problems. Sink team.”
“You did have old problems in that game.”
His eyes flashed.
Tessa continued before he could interrupt.
“You dropped early on the first goal. You put the second rebound directly into the slot. You lost your post on the third. Pat said you started chasing the game, and you said yourself that the mistakes concerned you because they looked like last year.”
“I know how I play.”
“Then you know the story was accurate.”
“You could write different.”
“No.” Tessa shook her head. “I could write it fairly. I could give context and make clear that one bad game didn’t erase your first month. I did all of that. But I was not going to pretend you played well because you had finally started trusting me.”
The final sentence escaped before she could reconsider it.
Matvei went still.
Tessa felt her pulse in her throat.
She should have phrased it differently. She should not have acknowledged the trust so directly, especially when the entire point of the conversation was professional.
But it was true.
“I didn’t expect you to like the story,” she said, lowering her voice. “I didn’t like writing it. That does not mean I’m going to apologize for it.”
Matvei studied her.
“You say you did not write headline.”
“I didn’t.”
“Who?”
“My editor changed it after I filed.”
“You let.”
The accusation reignited something in her.
“I am a reporter, Matvei. I don’t own the newspaper.”
“Then your words are not yours.”
“My words were mine. The headline wasn’t.”
“People do not care.”
“I care.”
The answer came too quickly.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Tessa could hear movement inside the locker room, equipment shifting and distant voices moving closer to the hallway. They did not have long before someone walked through the door and found them arguing.
Matvei looked toward the sound, then back at her.
“When I am nineteen, reporter say same,” he said. “He does not choose headline. Editor does not understand. Radio takes only one part. Nobody chooses, but story still there.”
Tessa’s anger eased without disappearing.
“I’m sorry that happened to you.”
“I do not need sorry.”
“No. You need everyone who covers you now to somehow undo it.”
His expression closed.
Tessa knew immediately that she had pushed too far.
She did not take it back.
“I’m not the person who wrote that story when you were nineteen,” she said. “I’m not responsible for every reporter who used your English against you. You don’t get to decide I’m exactly like them every time I write something you don’t like.”
“You work same.”
“I work for a newspaper. That does not make every decision at the paper mine.”
“Your name.”
“Yes, my name. My reporting. My story. Read it.”
“I read.”
“Then tell me what was unfair.”
Matvei said nothing.
Tessa waited.
His silence gave her the answer.
“The headline hurt you,” she said. “I understand why. It made the game sound like proof that nothing had changed, and that was not what I wrote. But the story said you were bad because you were bad. Those are not the same thing.”
Matvei looked toward the floor.
The anger in his face seemed less certain.
Tessa wanted that uncertainty to feel like victory.
It didn’t.
“I told you,” he said quietly. “When bad game comes, you change.”
“I didn’t change.”
“You think no.”
“I know I didn’t.”
The locker room door opened behind them.
Rick stepped into the hallway, saw them and stopped.
His gaze moved from Tessa to Matvei.
“I can come back.”
“We are done,” Matvei said.
He turned and walked toward the training room.
Tessa watched him go.
The door closed behind him with a controlled click, somehow more final than if he had slammed it.
Rick remained near the locker room entrance.
“You okay?”
“Fine.”
He looked down the hallway. “That didn’t look fine.”
“It’s handled.”
“Is it?”
Tessa adjusted the strap of her bag. “No.”
Rick nodded as though that made more sense.
He did not ask what happened.
Tessa appreciated him for it.
Matvei started the next game.
Tessa did not know whether McDonough had always planned to return to him or whether three days of work with Pat had convinced the coach that the Montreal performance was isolated. The announcement came after morning skate, delivered without ceremony.
“Belly goes tonight,” McDonough said. “Cole gets Thursday.”
Matvei nodded.
He did not look toward the media standing near the back of the room.
That night, he stopped twenty-six of twenty-eight shots in a 3-2 win. The first goal came through traffic. The second followed a defensive turnover near the crease. He played well without producing the kind of dramatic performance that invited redemption stories.
Tessa was relieved.
She disliked that too.
In the locker room afterward, she waited until the group around him thinned.
When she approached, Matvei looked at the recorder in her hand.
His expression remained guarded.
Tessa asked about a second-period save made after he lost sight of the puck behind the net. Matvei explained that he had followed the Ottawa player’s eyes rather than the puck and anticipated the pass into the slot.
It was a real answer.
Shorter than the ones he had given before Montreal.
Longer than the ones he had given after.
Tessa asked one follow-up. He answered it.
Neither mentioned the argument.
When she thanked him, Matvei nodded once.
There was no warmth in the gesture.
There was no accusation either.
Tessa moved toward another player and forced herself not to look back.
Nothing had been fixed.
He still believed that her profession made betrayal inevitable.
She still resented being judged against people whose choices she could not control.
The headline remained online beneath her byline, and no explanation could erase the fact that Matvei had seen her name attached to words she did not choose.
But he had answered.
She had asked.
For now, that was all either of them was willing to give.