Chapter 33
thirty-three
ROOK
The walk to Coach Pearson’s office stretches ahead of me. There's no frantic energy left in my limbs, no performance brewing in my chest. It's just the death march from a guy whose entire identity detonated in front of three hundred witnesses yesterday.
Inside his office, through the frosted glass, I can see two silhouettes.
One I'd recognize anywhere as Coach—broad shoulders, the patient posture of a man who’s survived thirty years of hockey players doing spectacularly stupid things—and the other is sharp-angled, sitting rigid like a praying mantis waiting to strike.
Galloway.
Of course.
I knock twice.
“Come in.” Coach’s voice carries the tone that says he vouched for me to the administration, and I thanked him by setting myself on fire in public.
I open the door. As predicted, Galloway sits in the chair across from Coach’s desk, his eyes practically glowing with satisfaction.
His PBU championship ring—class of ninety-two, a fact he mentions more often than vegans mention being vegan—catches the fluorescent light as he twists it around his sausage finger.
Coach Pearson sits behind his desk, arms crossed, looking every one of his fifty-eight years plus interest. The lines around his eyes seem deeper, excavated by meetings exactly like this one.
And suddenly, it strikes me that being the 'team-dad' sort of coach rather than the 'shouter-in-chief' hurts more in these moments.
“Fitzgerald,” Galloway says.
“Sit,” Coach says.
I fold into the empty chair, and as I look around, the office feels smaller than usual, all those framed championship photos closing in.
Maine’s face grins down at me from last year’s picture, frozen mid-celebration with his arm around my shoulders, both of us holding the trophy like we’d just discovered fire.
Christ, what would he think of this spectacular fuckup?
“I assume you grasp the gravity of your actions,” Galloway begins, his voice dripping with the kind of bureaucratic pleasure usually reserved for DMV employees denying license renewals. “Your behavior at the gala wasn’t merely inappropriate…"
I open my mouth. "I—"
But my protest dies in utero as Galloway holds up his hand. "It constituted a flagrant violation of the athletic department’s code of conduct. Public humiliation of a fellow student-athlete is something I take extremely seriously, and given how Ms. Morgan reacted… well…”
“Art.” Coach’s voice cuts through Galloway’s monologue like a referee’s whistle. “We agreed I’d handle this.”
Galloway’s jaw tightens, but he leans back with a magnanimous wave. "By all means…" he says.
He knows he's already won.
Coach looks at me with that expression that somehow broadcasts both I expected better and I haven’t completely written you off yet, and then he lets out a long sigh and leans forward. "James, what you did was wrong, are we clear on that?”
I meet his eyes directly. This time, there's no deflection and no jokes. “Crystal clear, Coach.”
The simplicity catches them both off guard. Galloway actually scoots forward, probably expecting the full James Fitzgerald circus—wild hand gestures, elaborate justifications, possibly interpretive dance—and Coach’s eyebrows climb toward his receding hairline.
“You humiliated another athlete and you humiliated this program,” Coach continues, each word deliberate as a face-off win. “You humiliated yourself.”
Each accusation lands like a direct hit, so I simply nod.
“One week suspension, effective immediately,” Coach says. “You won’t dress for the BC game and your captaincy goes to a team vote when you return.”
The potential loss of the C hits harder than expected. Not the prestige, because I never gave a shit about that, and never thought I deserved it. But the thought of losing it makes me think of all the younger guys who somehow look to me for leadership I’m apparently allergic to providing.
“Additionally,” Galloway interjects, physically unable to resist, practically bouncing in his chair, “your academic standing remains… tenuous. If you fail to lift your GPA or make one more stumble, you’re finished.
It'll be no playoffs and no championship defense.
You'll be a cautionary tale for future students.”
He’s practically glowing, radiating satisfaction like a space heater set to ‘smug.’ This is his moment, his perfect revenge for my interference with Morgan’s team and speaking up in her defense.
The cosmic joke that I’m being crucified for trying to help while he’s doing victory laps isn’t lost on me.
The old Rook would have exploded and turned this into a one-man show.
But I’m exhausted from performing my own life.
“Understood, sir,” I say, looking directly at Galloway’s ferrety face. “Loud and clear.”
My quiet acceptance short-circuits him. His eyes narrow, scanning for the punchline, the meltdown, the dramatic exit… as if I’m ruining his script. But Coach has seen and heard enough, so he mercifully dismisses me with the nod of his head.
I leave, closing the door with the gentle click of a man who’s finally run out of sound effects, and then trek to the locker room. The moment I enter, conversation flatlines. Twenty pairs of eyes swivel toward me, and Schmidt freezes mid-word.
The silence begs for my usual performance. Any other day, I’d already be halfway through a bit about walking in on my own wake, and then asking who brought potato salad. The compulsion rises, bile-hot in my throat, but I swallow it down.
Because Leo’s words echo: You need to sit with this one. Alone.
I don’t claim center stage. Instead, I just nod at the guys, then drop onto a bench near the wall, back against cold metal lockers. The chill penetrates my shirt, anchoring me. It gives the guys an out to ignore me if they want or to actively choose whether they want this conversation.
They do.
One by one, they gravitate closer. Schmidt and Cooper flank me like bodyguards. Kellerman hovers nearby, practically vibrating at a frequency only dogs can hear. Even Nash and Stiles drift into range, maintaining their contractually obligated coolness. The rest hover, further away, but still here.
“I fucked up.” The words come out stripped and raw, with no theatrical coating.
I look at Schmidt and Cooper. “The gala wasn’t heroic.
Wasn’t helpful. It was…” The admission sticks like peanut butter to the roof of my mouth.
“It was me feeling scared shitless and out of control and making noise to cover it.”
The confession burns as it comes out, but leaves something almost clean in its wake. It has a visible effect on the guys; while Schmidt’s gray eyes remain steady, something shifts in his expression. Cooper leans forward, elbows on knees. It’s still a show, but one with some goddamn depth for once.
“Week suspension,” I continue, studying the fascinating rubber floor matting." The next words feel like pulling teeth. “Captaincy up for vote when I return.”
“Rook, come on—” Kellerman starts, voice cracking like he’s thirteen again. "Who else is going—"
"No, it's open to anyone who wants to put their hand up, and I probably deserve to lose it." I cut him off. "But suspending me doesn’t unfuck what I fucked. It doesn’t help the women’s team, doesn’t erase the humiliation, and doesn’t fix the disaster they call a locker room, the one we just escaped. ”
I take a breath that goes all the way to my toes.
“So tonight, nine o’clock, I’m heading over there.
Their facilities are criminal. Peeling paint, no storage, lights that look like they’re sending Morse code.
We all saw it and we all ignored it, because it was temporary for us, but not for them.
So tonight, I'm going to start fixing it. "
The silence expands, but I let the quiet exist without stuffing words into it. And, as I head to my locker, Schmidt’s hand lands on my shoulder. Heavy. Warm. Real. Just for a second, but the message transmits clearly: This is what actual leadership looks like, dipshit.
It feels like the first day of rehab from my addiction to being the loudest guy in every room.
As I enter the women's locker room—which had been the shared locker room until recently, while the men's was out of action—the fluorescent lights overhead greet me with their version of electrical Tourette's, flickering at a frequency that could trigger seizures in healthy adults.
"Christ, I don't miss this shithole," I whisper.
I dump my supplies on the concrete—two gallons of primer, three of paint, and brushes the Lowe's guy recommended. My entire December food budget, now transformed into an apology, but I don't mind, because this is the work I need to do, with no audience and no applause.
The silence fills the room like water in lungs. I'd hoped guys would show up to help me, but then my doubt shows up right on schedule, wearing my father's voice after beer number three: Nobody's coming, champ, because that's what happens when you whine like a little girl in front of your guys.
I crack open the first tin of primer with a screwdriver and get to work, the roller feeling good in my hand, substantial and real and deliberate. Attacking the first wall, I start at the top corner, working my way down in steady, overlapping strokes.
The primer goes on thick, erasing years of neglect with each pass, and it feels like progress. Like maybe if I can fix this room, I can fix other things too. The thought is so pathetically optimistic I almost laugh, but the sound dies in my throat.
With half the wall done, the transformation is already dramatic, from the sight of despair to something that at least suggests possibility. Tomorrow, the women will walk in here and feel a little better about their space, even if they don't know who did this.
And that's the point. No signature, no credit, no grand reveal.
Just work.
But then the door creaks, and I momentarily think I've been busted.
Schmidt materializes first, wielding a toolbox, and he gives me The Nod. You know the one. It says I'm still mad at you and still think you're an idiot but I'm here anyway without wasting actual words. And, without even a word, he gets to work repairing the rickety benches the girls have to use.
Leo Cooper follows, hauling enough electrical supplies to rewire a small city. Kellerman practically sprints in, trying so hard to look serious he might sprain something. Martinez has his father's tool belt wrapped around him twice, because the kid's built like a ferret who learned to skate.
They all come.
Every fucking one of them.
Even Nash.
We spread out without discussion, each claiming territory like it's a face-off-dot, each doing the job they're most comfortable tackling (or Googling…). There's no music and no chatter, just the sound of hard work.
Schmidt builds stick racks in the corner with the focus of a bomb tech. Every measurement exact, every cut clean. Leo performs what I can only describe as electrical surgery on some lights, and when he's done, the steady light makes everyone squint like we've discovered fire.
And while they—and the others—are doing a million and one jobs?
Me?
With the primer on each wall drying, I'm on my knees in front of the bench, confronting tape residue that's fossilized. It makes me realize that the women have been literally holding this dump together with tape and spite while we complain if the ice is half a degree too warm.
I attack it with my scraper, each stroke removing maybe three molecules of adhesive. As I work, my knees file immediate complaints through the concrete and my back starts composing its resignation letter, but I press on, because this is the work I need to do.
It's perfect.
Scrape.
The rhythm becomes almost meditative.
Scrape.
Each pass strips away another layer.
Scrape.
A chunk of prehistoric tape finally surrenders with a satisfying rip that sends endorphins straight to my brain's reward center.
While I work, Martinez gets started on the now-primed walls, painting with the steady precision of someone whose dad would make him redo the whole wall for one drip.
Kellerman reorganizes the equipment closet while having what sounds like an existential crisis about alphabetical versus categorical systems.
Three hours evaporate.
By the time I stand up, my knees have transcended pain into a new state of being.
But the floor's actually clean, revealing concrete that hasn't breathed since the Cold War.
The walls glow hospital-white. Schmidt's racks stand at attention.
Leo's lights provide actual illumination instead of disco death strobes.
The others are looking at me for further guidance, nobody still having spoken a word. The old Rook whispers sweet stupidity in my ear: Paint your names on the wall or put a photo on Instagram, because then she'll know who was here and what you did. She'll forgive you. She'll—
No.
I squash the thought before it metastasizes. We file out like pallbearers at our own funeral. I kill the lights and pull the door closed with all the ceremony of taking out trash. Outside, we dissolve into darkness without ceremony.
No group hug.
No speeches.
No jokes.
We just scatter like we were never here, leaving behind our only testimony.
A room that sucks slightly less than it did before.
The cold air flash-freezes my sweat-soaked shirt, but walking across campus, I feel something fundamental shift. That desperate need to fill every silence, to make every moment a show, is quieter now. Because, for once, I did something nobody will see.
Something that was just… necessary and kind.
And right.