Chapter 19 Unraveled #2
For a second, I think about lying. But it’s Maya, and she always knows. “It’s complicated.”
She makes a noise. “You love complicated. Is it that guy, the goalie?”
I don’t know how she does it, but there it is.
“Yeah. Darius. He’s… God, May, he’s the best person I know.
And I fucked it up so bad. I let myself get used by this other guy, Vincent, and now—” I can’t say the rest. I don’t want to explain the article, the betrayal, the way my words are now a weapon pointed at my own head.
She doesn’t rush me. She never does.
“It’s not your fault,” she says, and I want to believe her so badly it hurts. “You always did this thing where you let everyone else set the tempo. Even in hockey. Even with me. But if this Darius is worth it? Then you get to decide. No one else.”
I shake my head, but it’s not really a no. “It’s too late.”
“No, it’s not,” she says, with that old edge of stubbornness that always won every fight at the breakfast table. “It’s only too late if you give up. You gonna do that, or are you gonna get back up, like always?”
The sound I make is not a laugh, but it’s not a sob, either. “You sound like Dad.”
She laughs, and for a second, the world doesn’t feel like it’s ending. “That’s gross, but thanks.”
I sit there, breathing, letting the moment settle. “Thanks, Maya.”
“You need anything, you call me. I don’t care if it’s three in the morning or if I’m at work or if you’re in jail for punching a reporter, okay?”
“Okay.”
She lets another silence linger, then, almost offhand: “For what it’s worth, Mom already knows. Moms always know. She just didn’t want to push.”
That’s it. I’m done. The dam breaks and I let myself cry, really cry, snot and all, because if Maya says it’s okay, then maybe it is.
When I can talk again, I say, “He sounds like a person, not a performance,” and the words are raw and true in my mouth. “Don’t lose that,” she says.
We hang up after that, but I leave the phone on the bed, screen up, just to feel less alone in the room. There’s a lightness in my chest, a space I didn’t know I was still saving. It’s scary as hell, but it’s mine.
I sit there for a long time, replaying the conversation, the way her voice steadied me, the way she just took it in stride.
Then I stand, walk to the window, and look out at the night. It’s cold, but not empty. The world’s still spinning. The city’s still moving. My story isn’t over, not yet.
I know what I have to do.
And for the first time in a long time, I’m not afraid to do it.
———
The kitchen table is a museum of bad habits.
There’s a half-eaten Pop-Tart next to my water bottle, a pile of unopened mail, and a Sharpie-doodled playbook page that starts with “don’t fuck this up” and ends with a stick figure decapitating another stick figure, both wearing my number.
In the center, my laptop, glowing like a dare.
It’s almost midnight, but my head is wide awake, nerves sparking with every flash of the cursor.
I’ve spent an hour staring at the empty text box, every word I try out in my head bouncing back with a loud, ugly ring of “you sure about this?” I type, I delete, I type again.
I hear Maya’s voice, steady as an outboard motor, “No one gets to tell your story but you.” I hear Darius, too, the way he said “let me handle it” like it was a shield he wanted to hold for me, even as I insisted on grabbing it myself.
I crack my knuckles, close my eyes, and start to type.
It comes out in a rush, a straight bleed from my brain onto the page.
“Last week, a journalist I trusted decided to make my life into a story. He told me it was about courage and survival, but what he really wanted was to sell the aftermath. He took my words and twisted them, made it sound like I was a liar, like I was in on the worst thing that ever happened to my team.”
I keep going, barely breathing. “It’s true I knew Caleb Holt. We were friends. We grieved together. That’s all. But the rest? It’s a lie. The only thing I ever wanted was to belong.”
I delete “to belong.” It sounds too needy. I write, “to be seen.” That’s worse. I delete again.
My fingers hover over the keyboard. I think about how many people will see this, how fast it will move, how there’s no way to call it back once I let it go.
I type, “He made me feel like I mattered. That was the whole trick, wasn’t it?”
I leave it in.
The next part is the hardest, “I’m not going to pretend it didn’t hurt. Or that I’m not angry, or ashamed, or scared. But if you want the real story, here it is, I watched four of my teammates die. I stepped over my captain's body to survive.
And I spent the last year trying to convince myself I could be normal again if I just tried hard enough. Turns out, nobody gets normal after something like that.”
I add, “I wish I could tell you the rest, but it’s complicated.
If you’re looking for some dirt, here’s what I’ve got, I loved someone who wasn't supposed to love me back.
He made me feel like the only person in the room.
And I let someone else fool me into thinking I didn't deserve that. I was wrong.”
I sign it with my number, #72, and my name. I want to say more.
I want to go back and change the verbs, make it sound smarter, funnier, more like the guy who can skate through any disaster and come out with a joke.
But I’m done with that.
I hit “post.”
For five seconds, nothing happens.
Then the phone on the table explodes with light.
The notifications hit so fast the screen can’t keep up, like it’s being punched by a hundred tiny fists.
At first it’s just the regulars, Tommy, Raz, the team group chat, a couple of reporters. Then it’s strangers. A blue checkmark from a sports blogger I hate.
Three DMs from numbers I don’t recognize. Then more. And more.
I want to smash the phone, or throw it out the window, or flush it down the shower drain and pretend I never saw any of it. But I don’t.
I just sit there, breathing through the pulse in my hands, watching as the comments pile up, a rising tide of opinion.
Most of it is noise. Some of it is support. A lot of it isn’t.
I set the phone to silent, flip it over so the screen is down, and get up from the table.
I walk to the window, stare out at the city lights, the distant haze of a bar closing, the headlights flickering across wet pavement.
The world looks the same as it did an hour ago, but inside everything is sideways and raw.
I go back, pick up the phone, and dial.
He picks up on the first ring.
For a second, neither of us says anything.
It’s just the sound of his breath, even and slow, like he’s measuring every inhale before letting it out.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Darius says, voice quiet but sharper than I remember.
I swallow. “Yeah, I did. I'm done getting back up and pretending the hit didn't hurt.”
He’s silent for a moment. Then: “I read it.”
Of course he did. “You think I made it worse?”
He laughs, the sound brittle. “No. You made it real. Which is all anybody can ask.”
I don’t know what to say, so I just breathe. The relief is so heavy it makes me dizzy.
There’s a click on the line, then the sound of Darius exhaling. “I’m proud of you,” he says, softer this time. “Even if I wish I could have protected you from all of this.”
My chest hurts. “You did. You do. Just…” The words catch. “Let me have this one, okay?”
He lets the silence hang, then, “Okay. But next time, we handle it together.”
I nod, even though he can’t see me. “Next time.”
We don’t say goodbye. I just listen to the sound of him breathing until the line goes dead.
I go back to the kitchen table, phone still lighting up every five seconds. I pick it up, scroll through the messages, the comments, the ocean of reaction.
There are some good ones. “You’re a legend, Rosen.” “Steelhawks for life.” “Fuck the haters.” There are bad ones, too, but I skip past them. I know better than to let the poison in.
After a while, I close out of all of it. I walk to the bedroom, sit on the edge of the bed, and pick up the book from the nightstand.
The Borges. The one Darius gave me.
The ticket stub is still there, marking the page. I open it, but I don’t read. I just hold the book, press it to my chest, and close my eyes.
The city outside is still moving, still awake, still hungry. The notifications keep coming, a steady drumbeat of the world refusing to let me forget who I am.
But for the first time in a long time, I don’t mind the noise.
Because this time, it’s my story.
And I get to decide how it ends.