Chapter Twenty-Four
Carter
The problem with the day after the day after a championship is that people expect you to become normal.
This is unreasonable.
I am a champion now.
I should receive a transition period.
Possibly a parade.
Definitely better cereal.
Instead, Monday morning arrives with sunlight, sore legs, and Nolan standing in the kitchen wearing a championship hat and eating cold pasta from a pan.
“You look like a raccoon who won regionals,” I tell him.
He points the fork at me.
“Nationally respected raccoon.”
“That is not a thing.”
“It is now.”
Green sits at the table with his laptop open and the trophy highlight reel playing silently.
Again.
The kid has watched his almost-missed, recovered, championship-sequence touch approximately forty-seven times.
I know because I have watched it thirty-two.
Leadership.
Also vanity-adjacent.
Rhett texts the team group chat at eight fifteen.
RHETT: Locker cleanout today. Noon. Do not be late.
Nolan groans.
“No.”
Green looks up.
“Locker cleanout?”
“Freshmen do not clean out,” Nolan says. “You nest.”
Green frowns.
“I do not nest.”
“You have three extra pairs of socks, two notebooks, a backup hoodie, and emergency granola in your stall.”
“That is preparedness.”
“That is nesting.”
I lean against the counter.
Locker cleanout.
The words do something to the room.
Even Nolan stops chewing for half a second.
My stall.
My nameplate.
My tape.
My extra laces.
The place I sat before every game and after every mistake and during every version of me I thought I had to be.
Cleanout is not dramatic.
That is the problem.
No music.
No final buzzer.
Just trash bags and equipment bins and the quiet administrative cruelty of moving on.
I take the pan from Nolan.
“Bowl.”
He looks offended.
“I am grieving.”
“Grieve with dishes.”
At eleven thirty, I drive to the arena.
Alone.
Not because I have to.
Because I want the quiet before everyone else fills it.
The parking lot looks wrong in daylight after a championship.
Too ordinary.
No media trucks.
No students with painted faces.
No roaring crowd.
Just cars, puddles, and a building that holds the loudest night of my life like it happened in another century.
Inside, the capstone wall is still up.
Patty has added a small championship photo strip to the bottom.
Lakeview State Wolves — Champions.
There I am, trophy raised.
There Maren is in one candid near the media table, camera lifted, crying and pretending not to.
I smile.
Then stop.
Because the wall will come down soon.
Not today maybe.
Soon.
That is what walls do when they are built for events.
They come down.
The record stays somewhere else.
I walk to my panel.
My mother’s photo.
The quote.
The pass.
Green.
The championship add-on.
I stand there long enough that the building starts to feel like it is watching me back.
Footsteps sound behind me.
Not Maren.
Coach Adler.
I know because the air becomes more judgmental.
“Vance.”
“Coach.”
He stands beside me.
Hands in jacket pockets.
Face unreadable.
The man won a championship forty hours ago and still looks like he is considering extra conditioning.
“Wall looks good,” he says.
This is shocking.
“You complimenting event design now?”
“Do not make me regret speaking.”
“Yes, Coach.”
We stand in silence.
Then he says, “Cleanout today.”
“Subtle topic change.”
“Direct topic change.”
“Yes.”
“You ready?”
I laugh once.
“No.”
“Good.”
I look at him.
He almost smiles.
Almost.
The world is ending.
“You are allowed not to be ready,” he says. “You are not allowed to pretend that means you are not moving.”
I look back at the wall.
“What if I do not know where?”
“You rarely do at first.”
“That is comforting in no way.”
“Comfort is not always the point.”
“Deeply on brand.”
He turns toward me.
“You have options. Development camp. Assistant youth coaching in the summer. Training center work. Finish school well. Rest.”
The last word sounds obscene.
“Rest?”
“Yes.”
“I do not like that option.”
“I know.”
He studies my face.
“You spent four years becoming necessary. You may need time to learn what you like when no one is asking you to be useful.”
My throat tightens.
I hate that.
I hate how much I need it.
“Did my mother call you?” I ask.
“No.”
“Maren?”
“No.”
“Then stop forming a committee independently.”
“Clean your locker, Vance.”
He walks away.
Devastating man.
At noon, the locker room fills.
Slowly.
Too loudly at first.
Nolan makes a show of throwing away old tape like it personally betrayed him.
Green asks if he should keep his first championship practice puck.
Everyone yells yes.
Rhett starts organizing donation piles because captain habits do not end with a trophy.
Mason finds a hoodie from two seasons ago and looks emotionally suspicious about it.
Jace throws away one sock and says, “War is over.”
No one asks what that means.
Probably safer.
I sit at my stall.
My nameplate above me.
VANCE
Plain letters.
Four years of being a person reduced to five letters and a space that has to be empty by three.
I open the equipment bin.
Gloves.
Extra tape.
Old laces.
Practice jersey.
A photo wedged behind the shelf.
I pull it out.
Freshman year.
Me, Rhett, Nolan before he had learned any restraint whatsoever, and two seniors who have already become legends in the way older players do when memory edits out their worst haircuts.
My grin in the photo is enormous.
Not fake.
Not fully.
I look happy.
I also look like I am asking the camera to prove I belong.
Mason leans over.
“Old one?”
“Ancient.”
He takes it.
Smiles.
“You look twelve.”
“I looked marketable.”
“You looked terrified.”
I snatch the photo back.
“Rude.”
“Accurate.”
He sits beside me.
For a while, we clean in quiet.
Then he says, “I hated leaving my first apartment.”
This is not where I expected the conversation to go.
“Eden apartment?”
“No. Before her. Before here. It was awful. Bad pipes. Thin walls. Heat that only worked when threatened.”
“Sounds romantic.”
“It was mine,” he says. “Leaving it felt like admitting that a hard place could still matter.”
I stare at the tape in my hand.
Married people.
Always with the knives.
“This room was not hard.”
He gives me a look.
“Carter.”
I sigh.
“Fine. It was sometimes hard.”
“It can matter anyway.”
I nod.
Once.
“Yeah.”
Across the room, Rhett lifts a box.
“Anyone claiming these disgusting slides?”
Nolan raises a hand.
Rhett throws them at him.
Green finds three granola bars in his stall and looks proud.
Jace discovers someone taped a rubber duck inside his upper shelf.
He looks directly at Nolan.
Nolan points at me.
I point at Green.
Green points at the ceiling.
The room laughs.
Good laugh.
Room laugh.
Not hiding.
Just goodbye trying not to be too heavy.
At two, my stall is nearly empty.
I keep the photo.
One roll of tape.
A chipped practice puck from freshman year.
The nameplate, Coach says, stays.
Of course it does.
The next guy gets the stall.
Not the name.
That is how rooms continue.
I sit on the bench one last time.
Not alone.
Everyone still around.
Still, the moment feels mine.
Maren appears in the doorway.
Camera bag on her shoulder.
No camera out.
Good.
She looks at me.
Not asking if she can come in.
Waiting.
I nod.
She steps inside.
The room notices immediately and pretends not to with the subtlety of a marching band.
Nolan whispers, “Media Girl in sacred space.”
Rhett says, “Nolan.”
“Maren,” he corrects.
“Better.”
Maren’s mouth curves as she walks to me.
“Am I interrupting?”
“Yes,” Nolan says.
“No,” everyone else says.
I smile.
“Democracy is alive.”
She stops near my stall.
Looks at the almost-empty shelf.
Then at me.
“How is it?”
I could make a joke.
I do not.
“Hard.”
Her face softens.
“Good.”
I huff a laugh.
“Yeah.”
She looks at the photo in my hand.
“Freshman you?”
“Unfortunately.”
“Can I see?”
I hand it to her.
Her smile changes when she looks at it.
Gentler.
“He looks happy.”
“Mason said terrified.”
“Both.”
“Cruel consensus.”
“Accurate consensus.”
She gives the photo back.
“I came to tell you the Athletic Communications job is officially offered.”
The whole room goes silent.
Absolutely silent.
Maren freezes.
I freeze.
Nolan whispers, “I am emotionally invested but scared.”
Rhett turns around.
Tessa is not here, but I feel her influence.
I stand.
Slowly.
“You got the offer?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes stay on mine.
“I have not answered yet.”
Do not make this about you.
Do not make your face a cage.
Do not become the prettiest trap.
I breathe.
“Good.”
Her mouth twitches.
“Just good?”
“No. Internally, ridiculous.”
The room laughs softly.
I keep my eyes on her.
“Externally, I am trying to ask the right question.”
Her expression shifts.
“What is the right question?”
“Do you want it?”
She looks around the room.
The stalls.
The boxes.
The guys trying very hard not to watch.
The evidence of an ending that is also a handoff.
Then back at me.
“Yes,” she says.
Good yes.
I hear it.
The whole room probably does.
My chest opens too fast.
I let it.
“Then I am very happy for you.”
Her eyes shine.
“Medium?”
“Huge,” I say, because some things are too true to scale down. “But respectful.”
Her laugh breaks a little.
Good.
Mine too.
Nolan starts clapping.
Green joins.
Then the whole room claps because hockey players are emotionally unstable and apparently kind.
Maren’s face goes red.
“Stop.”
Nolan stands.
“Congratulations, Media— Maren.”
She points at him.
“Good save.”
“I am growing.”
“We all are,” I say.
Jace groans.
“Do not make the room sentimental.”
“It is cleanout day,” Mason says. “Too late.”
Rhett walks over and shakes Maren’s hand.
“Lakeview is lucky.”
She swallows.
“Thank you.”
Coach Adler appears in the doorway as if summoned by sincerity.
“Ellis.”
She turns.
“Yes, Coach?”
“Congratulations.”
Her mouth softens.
“Thank you.”
“Now do not let Patty assign you four jobs for one salary.”
The room loses it.
Maren laughs hardest.
Coach leaves.
Perfect exit.
Later, after the guys haul their boxes out, after Nolan tries to steal the rubber duck and Jace confiscates it as evidence, after Green asks if alumni can visit the locker room and Rhett says “not whenever you feel emotionally nostalgic,” I carry my box into the hallway.
Maren waits near the capstone wall.
The job offer has changed her.
Not dramatically.
Not like a movie.
Just enough that she stands differently.
Like someone considering staying without apology.
I stop beside her.
“You going to take it?”
“Yes.”
The answer is immediate this time.
My heart does the ridiculous thing.
I let it.
“Good.”
She looks at me.
“Good yes?”
“Very good yes.”
She smiles.
Then looks at my box.
“You okay?”
I look down.
Practice puck.
Old photo.
Tape.
Not much.
Everything.
“I think I am sad.”
“That makes sense.”
“And happy.”
“That also makes sense.”
“And scared.”
“Yes.”
“And I want to kiss you, but if I do, I might avoid feeling the locker thing for twelve seconds.”
Her face softens.
“Do you want to feel it first?”
I hate this question.
I love this question.
“Yes.”
She nods.
“Okay.”
So we stand there.
Beside the wall.
Me holding a cardboard box of leftover hockey life.
Maren beside me.
No fixing.
No rush.
The ache rises.
The stall.
The room.
The jersey.
The last game.
The end.
It hurts.
Then it settles.
Not gone.
Just part of me.
“I loved it,” I say.
“I know.”
“I understand,” she adds.
I smile.
“Thank you.”
She reaches for my free hand.
Holds it.
Not to pull me away.
To stand with me while I finish leaving.
After a minute, I breathe.
“Okay.”
“Good okay?”
“Good okay.”
“New category.”
“We are expanding.”
Her smile appears.
I set the box down carefully.
Then turn toward her.
“Now?”
She looks up at me.
“Now.”
I kiss her in front of the capstone wall.
Soft.
Steady.
No championship roar.
No hallway adrenaline.
Just a Monday afternoon with an ending in a cardboard box and a beginning holding my hand.
When we separate, she leans her forehead against mine.
“I am taking the job,” she whispers.
“I am cleaning out my locker.”
“Big day.”
“Medium?”
“Huge.”
I smile.
“Externally?”
“Respectful.”
“Trying.”
She laughs.
Then picks up the box before I can.
I stare.
“What are you doing?”
“Helping.”
“I am an athlete.”
“You are carrying one emotional box and making it symbolic.”
“Because it is.”
“Then I will carry the less symbolic side.”
There is no side.
It is a box.
I let her carry it anyway.
Together, we walk toward the exit.
The capstone wall behind us.
The locker room behind us.
The ice behind us.
Not gone.
Behind.
Outside, the day is bright and cold.
Maren shifts the box in her arms.
“Where to?”
I look at the parking lot.
The campus.
The town.
The whole terrifying, open after.
“I do not know yet.”
She nods.
“Good.”
I laugh.
“Yeah.”
Then I take my side of the box.
And we keep walking.