Epilogue 1 #2
I start talking about the team, letting familiar logistics steady my nerves. Karen’s face shifts from surprise to something that might be interest. Sean looks like he’s choking on his tongue, because his son just set a boundary and his girlfriend apparently has opinions.
“That level of organization,” Karen says, and there’s something in her voice that might actually be respect. “The politics alone…”
“Morgan’s last program went from club to D1 in eighteen months,” James adds, pride warming his voice. “This year, they lead the conference in their first year.”
“But James is heading to the show,” Sean says, like this is an obvious problem requiring an immediate solution. “You planning to, what, follow him around? Or maintain some long-distance thing while he’s traveling with whatever team drafts him?”
The question is designed to create conflict, to undermine my own pro prospects, and to highlight an incompatibility neither of us has figured out yet. The old Morgan would have gone cold, built walls. The old James would have made a joke. Instead, we look at each other, and smile.
“Morgan will get drafted as well,” James says simply. “We'll figure it out.”
“Together,” I add, squeezing his hand, meaning it more than I expected to.
Sean opens his mouth—probably to cite divorce stats—but Karen cuts him off.
“The burgers are burning," she says, voice deadpan.
They’re not, but it breaks the moment. Sean turns back to the grill, cursing, and the party resumes its chaotic rhythm. Kids cannonball into the pool. James's sister arrives with more food and more children. The noise level returns to its previous roar.
But something fundamental has shifted. James doesn’t perform for the rest of the afternoon. When his father tries to bait him into old patterns—like with an embarrassing story about James's first hockey game or jabs about his grades—James just lets them land and dissipate.
He’s not participating in the show anymore.
Later, when the sun paints everything golden and the kids are sugar-crashing across various adult laps, I find myself at the picnic table with Karen. She’s sorting leftovers, and I’m helping because the organization is soothing. We could be friends if she weren’t so terrifying.
“He’s different,” she says suddenly, sealing a container with unnecessary force. “Quieter.”
“Not quieter,” I correct, understanding exactly what she means. “Just more intentional about when he’s loud.”
She considers this, holding a Tupperware lid like it contains classified information. “You did that?”
“No. He did that. I just…” I search for words that won’t sound like therapy-speak. “I just helped him along, and he helped me, too.”
Karen looks at me then, really looks, and for a second I see past her armor to something vulnerable underneath, maybe the woman who fell in love with Sean and hoped she could change him but never could.
Or maybe the mother who got so used to relying on her son to put out fires she forgot how to herself.
“I always thought he needed to make noise,” she says quietly. “That it was just who he was.”
“It is who he is,” I say, understanding her fear that she’s lost her son to change. “The difference is now it’s a choice, not a crutch for others.”
She nods, and that's that, and soon after we navigate goodbye hugs and promises to visit again soon, Sean corners James by our car. Every muscle in my body tenses, ready to intervene, but James catches my eye and shakes his head slightly.
“Your agent sure about you getting drafted?”
“Yeah, he is, Dad.”
Sean shifts, visibly uncomfortable with this new son who doesn’t need his approval or his criticism to know his worth. “The award. That’s… something.”
“Yeah, it is.”
They stand there, two men who don’t know how to talk without their familiar script of performance and reaction.
But the difference is James doesn't need the sparks to power him, whereas it's clear Sean is struggling without the friction.
Finally, Sean claps James on the shoulder—gentler this time, less possessive.
“Drive safe," he says.
“Will do.”
In the car, pulling away from the chaos into blessed quiet, James reaches over and takes my hand. We drive in silence for miles, the quiet feeling sacred after all that noise. His thumb traces patterns on my palm that might be words, might be promises, or might just be him needing to touch me.
“Thank you,” he finally says. “For coming. For standing with me. For… seeing it.”
“Seeing what?”
“The moment I didn’t perform.” His voice carries wonder. “I almost did. God, I almost did. The joke was right there, locked and loaded. Something about Dad’s grilling being worse than his golf game, to get everyone laughing and get everything back on safe ground.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.” He glances at me. “I remembered I had a choice. That the silence isn’t my responsibility to fill. You showed me that quiet can be safe.”
The words hit somewhere deep. “And you showed me that trusting and being close to someone doesn't always mean surrendering control or being hurt.”
He smiles at me.
“Speaking of which,” I say, needing to lighten things before I do something embarrassing, “Goalie of the Semester? Were you ever planning to mention that?”
He shrugs, eyes on the road. And that, maybe more than anything else today, shows me how far we’ve both come. His achievement exists without needing an audience, my presence doesn’t require walls, and our connection is strong enough to hold up two people who until recently were very broken.
“I love you,” I tell him, the words still new enough to feel dangerous.
“I love you too,” he says, bringing my hand to his lips. "You're stuck with me…"
“Yeah,” I say. “I guess I am.”
But it doesn't feel like being stuck.
It feels like choosing to stay, choosing to trust, and choosing him, chaos and all.
It feels like coming home.
The ping of my phone interrupts the moment, and I look at it. "Oh shit…"
"What?" he says.
"It's Walsh," I say, breathlessly, as I read the words on the screen. "Our budget just got doubled, and the program just got extended to next year…"
"It'll survive after you're gone," he smiles. "Proud of you, captain, because you fought for those girls and you've built something that will endure."
I nod, closing my eyes to savor the moment for just a second, then turning to him with an impish grin. "Any secluded beaches around here?"
He turns to me with a confused frown. "Why?"
"Because I want to celebrate," I say. "I want to get loud with you."