Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
étienne
The hotel room in D.C. was wrong.
Not broken or damaged or poorly furnished—just wrong. The bed was too big, too empty, too cold. The silence felt oppressive instead of peaceful. Even the air felt different, lacking the familiar comfort of home.
Of Marco.
I lay there staring at the ceiling, knowing I should sleep. We had practice in the morning, then a game tomorrow night. My body needed rest.
But my mind wouldn’t quiet down.
I grabbed my phone from the nightstand: 2:36 a.m., which made it 12:36 a.m. at home in Centennial. Ridiculous to text him this late.
I texted anyway.
étienne
Can’t sleep
The response came within seconds.
Marco
Me neither
That simple exchange shouldn’t have made me feel better, but it did. Knowing he was awake too, missing me too, struggling with the same empty bed.
étienne
First night’s the hardest
Marco
Is it? Or does it get worse?
étienne
Don’t know. Never done this before.
Marco
Done what?
étienne
Missed someone like this.
I watched the three dots appear and disappear several times before his response came.
Marco
Yeah. Same.
We texted for another hour. Nothing important, really. Just existing together across the distance. Eventually he had to go—personal trainer in the morning. I promised to text after practice.
When I finally fell asleep, it was with my phone still in my hand.
Wednesday was a blur of practice and team meetings and trying to stay focused despite my mind being seventeen hundred miles away.
Kinnunen noticed. Of course he noticed.
“You good?” he asked during a water break.
“Yeah. Just tired. Didn’t sleep well.”
“Hotel beds,” he commiserated. “Never as comfortable as home.”
“Exactly.”
I checked my phone after practice, in the few minutes on the bus, during lunch. Marco’s texts came steadily throughout the day—updates on his workout, a photo of the terrible omelet he’d made for lunch, team gossip from Alyssa Kinnunen, who’d taken him to the grocery store.
Normal things. Mundane things.
Things that felt precious because they were from him.
“Who are you always texting?” one of the younger players asked at the table.
“My roommate,” I said without thinking. “Making sure he’s not burning down the house.”
A few guys laughed. Kinnunen glanced at me, his expression unreadable.
I wanted to tell him.
But I couldn’t. Because Marco wasn’t ready.
So I just smiled and changed the subject.
That night’s game against Washington was a catastrophe.
Not for the team. We won 3–2. But for me personally? Terrible.
I was half a step slow all night. Missed passes I should have made. Lost battles I should have won. I was facilitating my own trade, one bad shift at a time.
In the hotel that night, I texted Marco.
étienne
Played like shit
Marco
I watched. You weren’t that bad.
étienne
I was terrible
Marco
You’ll do better on Friday.
I wanted to tell him I’d been awful because I was thinking about him instead of hockey. That missing him was affecting my performance. That I couldn’t concentrate when we were apart.
But saying that felt like admitting too much. Like revealing how dependent I’d become. I texted something more positive instead.
étienne
Yeah. Friday will be better.
Then, before I could stop myself:
étienne
I miss you.
Marco
Miss you too.
étienne
How much?
Marco
Too much. Go to sleep. You need rest.
étienne
Can’t sleep without you.
There was a long pause before his response.
Marco
Me neither. But try anyway.
I did try. Eventually succeeded. But the bed still felt wrong.
Thursday we flew to Florida. The plane ride was long and boring. I texted Marco photos of cloud formations. He sent back photos of his workout, his diet, the gradual progression toward his return to the ice.
étienne
Looking good.
Marco
Feeling better. Still slow.
étienne
You’ll get there
Marco
Just impatient.
I understood that. I was impatient too. Impatient for this trip to be over, to get home, for the moment when I could touch him again instead of just texting.
My phone rang that evening. Papa.
If I didn’t answer, he’d just keep calling.
“Hey, Papa.”
“étienne. I watched your game last night.”
Of course he had. Papa never missed a game, his eyes sharp for every error, every flaw in my performance. The thought came unbidden: would it really be so bad if he disowned me?
If I came out and he told me I was dead to him the way he’d threatened when I was thirteen, would my life actually be worse? No more criticism. No more disappointment. No more phone calls where I braced myself for whatever fault he’d found in my performance, in me.
The relief that washed over me at the thought was immediately followed by crushing guilt.
He was my father. The only parent I had left. Maman had died when I was fifteen, and there were no siblings to share the burden, no extended family who stayed close enough to matter. Just the two of us.
And I was all he had too. His only living family after Maman’s death.
We were bound to each other by blood and loss and the simple fact that there was no one else. Even if he made me miserable half the time. Even if his love felt conditional and his approval impossible to earn, he was still my father.
After we hung up, I sat in my hotel room staring at nothing.
I’d been trying to make him happy my entire life. Trying to be the son he wanted. The perfect hockey player, the perfect Savard. Pushing myself harder, playing better, sacrificing everything for the game.
And it had never been enough. Would never be enough.
Even when I’d been playing well—last season, the season before—he’d still found flaws.
Still called after games to point out mistakes, missed opportunities, moments where I could have been better.
There was always something wrong, always room for improvement, always a reason I fell short of his expectations.
I’d thought if I just played well enough, worked hard enough, achieved enough, he’d finally be proud of me. But he never said “well done” without the “but” that always followed.
Because the problem wasn’t my hockey. The problem was that nothing I did would ever satisfy him.
And if I came out? If I told him I was bisexual, that I was with Marco?
I could picture his reaction perfectly. The disgust. The disappointment sharper than anything my hockey performance had ever earned. The voice that had warned thirteen-year-old me about “those disgusting boys” coming back in full force.
The son who couldn’t play hockey well enough was barely tolerable. A son who liked men would be unforgivable.
Whether I got traded, whether I came out, whether I played perfectly for the rest of my career—it didn’t matter. I was going to lose him.
I’d already lost him. Maybe I’d never really had him at all.
The only question was whether I’d keep destroying myself trying to earn love that was never coming.
Friday’s game against Florida was no better than the rest.
I’d spent the night before texting with Marco—sharing our days, our thoughts, the mundane details that somehow felt important. It reminded me what I was playing for. Why I needed to get my shit together and turn this around.
But knowing what I needed to do and doing it were two different things.
I fumbled passes. Lost positioning. Made reads that were half a second too slow.
We won 4–2. Without me.
My phone buzzed as I was boarding the team bus. Papa’s name flashed on the screen.
I stared at it for a moment, my thumb hovering over the answer button. Then the call went to voicemail.
For the first time in my life, I’d let one of his calls go unanswered.
I knew what he’d say. Knew he’d watched the game, made note of every moment where I wasn’t good enough. I couldn’t handle it tonight. Couldn’t hear his voice telling me everything I already knew about how badly I’d played.
I found a seat near the back of the bus and slumped against the window.
The phone buzzed again ten minutes later. Papa. Again.
I declined the call.
Around me, guys were talking, laughing, reliving plays from the game. I stared out the window.
It buzzed a third time as we pulled into the hotel parking lot.
I let it go to voicemail.
By the time I got to my room, there were three new voicemails waiting. I opened the voicemail app and stared at them for a long moment—three messages, probably five minutes of my father’s disappointment and criticism.
I deleted them without listening.
The relief was immediate. But so was the guilt.
I’d never ignored Papa’s calls before. Never deleted his voicemails unheard. He was my father. My only family. And I’d just… shut him out.
But God, the relief. Not having to hear his voice dissecting my failures. Not having to defend myself or make excuses or promise to do better. Just… silence.
I sat on the edge of the hotel bed, phone in my hand, conflicted.
Part of me wanted to call him back. Apologize. Listen to whatever he had to say and take it like I always did.
But a larger part—the part that was exhausted and hurting and so tired of never being good enough—just wanted to be done with it. To let it go. To stop letting his voice live in my head.
I set the phone on the nightstand and lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling.
For the first time in months, I felt like I could breathe.
There was a knock on my hotel room door around eleven. I quickly signed off on my text thread with Marco and opened the door to find Kinnunen holding two beers.
“Thought you might want company,” he said.
“Sure. Come in.”
He settled into the chair by the window while I sat on the edge of the bed. We drank in silence for a minute before he spoke.
“So,” he said. “What’s really going on with you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Come on, Savard. We’ve been teammates for three years. I know when something’s up.” He took a drink. “Is it the trade rumors? Are they getting in your head?”
I hesitated. That would be the easy answer. The one he’d understand and accept.
“Maybe,” I said carefully.