2. Ryder
Ryder
The pain is a constant companion now.
It starts in my shoulder, radiates down my arm, settles into my chest like a fist that won’t unclench. Some days it’s a dull ache. Other days, like today, it’s sharp enough to make me catch my breath between drills.
I don’t let it show. Can’t let it show. Not with Coach watching every practice like he’s looking for cracks in the armor. Not with scouts in the stands three games out of five. Not with the NHL draft six months away and my entire future hinging on whether I can keep pretending everything is fine.
“Beaumont! You sleeping up there?” Coach Mitchell’s voice cuts across the ice.
I snap back to attention. The drill is simple, breakaway practice, one-on-one against our backup goalie. I’ve done this a thousand times. In my sleep. In worse pain than this.
I take the puck, accelerate, feel the familiar rush of speed that used to be pure joy. Now it’s complicated. Now it’s joy mixed with fear mixed with the grinding knowledge that every impact, every check, every fall might be the one that ends this.
I fake left, go right, shoot high.
The puck hits the crossbar with a satisfying ping and drops in.
“Better,” Coach grunts. Which from Mitchell is basically a standing ovation.
Practice ends at seven PM. We’ve been on the ice since five AM, with classes crammed in between and a brief team lunch that I mostly picked at. My body is screaming. My shoulder feels like someone took a blowtorch to it.
The team trainer, Davis, offered ice and anti-inflammatories after practice. I took both. They barely touch it anymore.
In the locker room, the team is loud, energized despite the brutal practice. Carter Lynch—our captain, my center, my best friend is holding court near his locker, telling some story that has half the team laughing.
I should join them. Should participate in the bonding, the camaraderie, all the things that make us a team instead of just individuals sharing ice time.
Instead, I sit in front of my locker and try to figure out how to unlace my skates with my right arm barely functioning.
“You good, Beaumont?” Carter appears beside me, concern creasing his face.
“Fine.”
“Your shoulder’s bothering you again.”
It’s not a question. Carter knows. Has known for months. But he’s been keeping my secret, covering for me when I can’t quite make a play, adjusting his passes to compensate for my limited mobility.
“It’s manageable,” I say, which is technically true if you define manageable as “not actually screaming in agony.”
“You need to see someone. A real doctor, not just Davis.”
“Can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because the moment I see a doctor, it goes on record. The moment it’s on record, the scouts know. The moment the scouts know, I drop from first round to maybe not drafted at all.”
Carter sits down on the bench across from me. “And if you keep playing on it and it gets worse? If you tear something that can’t be fixed?”
“Then at least I went down fighting instead of benching myself over an injury that might be fine.”
“Might be fine? Ryder, I’ve watched you. You can barely lift your arm above your shoulder. You’re compensating in ways that are going to hurt other parts of your body. This is not fine.”
“I have six months. Six months to show the scouts I’m worth a first-round pick. Six months to prove I’m Beaumont legacy material. I can make it six months.”
“And then what? You get drafted, go to training camp, and your shoulder gives out in the first week?”
“I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.”
Carter shakes his head. “You’re being stupid.”
“I’m being strategic. There’s a difference.”
“No, there’s not. Strategic would be getting treatment now, healing properly, and coming back stronger. This is just… this is self-destruction with a plan.”
He’s not wrong. But he understands the pressure. Carter’s good, legacy good. He dropped everything for his girl, but my father the family it’s different.
My dad who played twelve years in the NHL, a brother currently in his fourth season with the Bruins, an entire family history of excellence breathing down his neck.
If I fail, I’m not just failing myself. I’m failing the Beaumont name.
“I’ve got this,” I say with more confidence than I feel. “Trust me.”
Carter looks at me for a long moment, then stands. “Your funeral. But when this blows up in your face, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
He walks away, and I’m left alone with my shoulder, my secrets, and the growing certainty that he’s absolutely right.
I skip the team dinner at Morrison’s. Make some excuse about a paper due, which isn’t even a lie, I do have a paper due, I’m just not going to write it. My Sports Psychology class can wait. Everything can wait.
Instead, I go back to my apartment, a small one-bedroom off campus that I share with no one. Most of the team lives in the hockey house or in campus apartments with roommates. But I need space. Need privacy. Need somewhere I can collapse without an audience.
I ice my shoulder for twenty minutes, take three ibuprofen even though I’m not supposed to take more than two, and stare at the ceiling while waiting for the pain to dull to manageable levels.
My phone buzzes. Text from my father.
Dad
Watched game tape from last week. Your backchecking is sloppy. Your shot selection is questionable. Call me tonight. We need to discuss your performance.
I don’t respond. Haven’t called him in three weeks. Every conversation is the same, criticism dressed up as coaching, disappointment wrapped in expectations I can never quite meet.
Jackson
Dad’s pissed you’re not calling him back. What’s going on?
I stare at the message. Jackson Beaumont, four years in the NHL, living the dream that’s supposed to be mine. He doesn’t understand what it’s like to be the younger brother, always chasing, never quite catching up.
Ryder.
Nothing’s going on. Just busy with school and hockey.
Jackson
Bullshit. I know you. You’re avoiding him which means something’s wrong. Is it the shoulder?
My breath catches. How does he know?
Ryder
What shoulder?
Jackson
The one you keep favoring in game tape. The one that’s affecting your shot. The one you’re too stubborn to get checked out. Sound familiar?
Fuck.
Ryder
It’s fine.
Jackson
That’s what I said. Then I tore my rotator cuff in my second NHL season and missed half a year. Get it checked, Ryder. Before it’s too late.
I don’t respond. Can’t respond. Because acknowledging that Jackson’s right means acknowledging that I’m not fine, that I can’t do this alone, that I might actually need help.
And needing help feels like failing.
Instead, I grab my skates and my stick and head back to the arena. It’s almost ten PM. The rink will be empty. Perfect time for solo practice without coaches or teammates or expectations.
Just me and the ice.
The way it’s supposed to be.
The arena is dark when I arrive, only emergency lighting illuminating the corridors. I use my team key card to get in, make my way to the locker room, lace up my skates.
My shoulder is screaming. The ibuprofen has barely touched the pain.
I should go home. Should ice it more. Should stop being an idiot and admit that Carter’s right, Jackson’s right, everyone’s right.
Instead, I step onto the ice.
The fresh Zamboni surface gleams under the overhead lights. Perfect. Untouched. Waiting.
I start skating, slow at first, letting my body warm up. The shoulder protests but I push through it, building speed, taking the corners with the kind of reckless abandon I never allow myself during practice.
This is what I’m chasing, he feeling of flying, of being untouchable, of existing in a space where nothing else matters. Not the pain, not the pressure, not the future that’s simultaneously too close and too far away.
I pick up speed, pushing harder, faster. My shoulder is on fire. I don’t care.
I attempt a tight turn into a backward sprint; a move I’d never risk in practice and my skate catches wrong on the ice.
The fall happens in slow motion.
Ice rushing up to meet me. My shoulder taking the full impact. A crack that’s definitely something inside me breaking, not the ice.
Pain. Immediate. Total. Consuming.
I lie there, staring up at the arena lights, trying to breathe through the agony radiating from my shoulder down my entire right side, across my chest, into my ribs.
This is it, I think distantly. This is how it ends. Not in glory. Not in a championship game with scouts watching. On an empty rink at ten PM because I was too stubborn to stop, too proud to ask for help, too terrified of failing to admit I was already failing.
I taste copper. Blood. I must have bit my lip when I fell.
I hear footsteps. Running. Someone’s here.
“Oh my god. Oh my god, don’t move. I’m calling?—”
The voice cuts off abruptly.
I turn my head carefully, which sends new waves of pain through my shoulder, and see her.
A girl. Dark blonde hair, wide eyes, wearing an oversized hoodie and an expression that’s shifting from concern to something else. Something like horror.
“You’re bleeding,” she says, her voice strange. Tight.
I look down. There’s blood on the ice beneath me. Not a lot, but enough. I must have hit my head when I fell. Or maybe it’s from my lip.
“I’m fine,” I manage to say, which is obviously the most ridiculous lie I’ve ever told considering I’m currently sprawled on the ice in a pool of my own blood.
“You’re not fine. I need to call?—”
She stops again, and I watch something happen to her face. The color drains completely. Her breathing quickens, becomes shallow. Her hands start to shake violently.
She’s staring at the blood on the ice with an expression I recognize because I’ve felt it myself, pure, undiluted panic.
“Hey,” I say, trying to sit up and immediately regretting it. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m okay.”
But she’s not looking at me anymore. She’s backing up, one step, then another, her eyes fixed on the blood like it’s the most terrifying thing she’s ever seen.
Like blood on ice means something to her that it doesn’t mean to normal people.
“Wait,” I call out, and I don’t know why. Don’t know why I care if this stranger who found me bleeding decides to bolt.
But something about the terror on her face, the way her hands won’t stop shaking, the way she’s looking at the blood like it represents something much worse than a hockey player’s stupidity?—
I know that look.
I wear a version of that look.
She stops. Doesn’t turn around, but stops.
“I’m Ryder,” I say, still sitting on the ice like an idiot, my shoulder screaming and my head bleeding and everything falling apart in ways I can’t control. “I’m… I could use some help. Please.”
The silence stretches. I think she’s going to leave anyway. Think I’m going to have to somehow get myself off this ice and to a hospital and explain to everyone how I was stupid enough to practice alone while injured and make everything so much worse.
Then she turns around slowly, and I get my first real look at her face.
She’s pretty in that way that suggests she’s actively trying not to be, no makeup, hair in a messy ponytail, wearing clothes designed to hide rather than highlight. But it’s her eyes that catch me. Dark. Haunted. Carrying the same weight I see in my own reflection every morning.
“Maya,” she says finally. Her voice is still shaky, but she’s forcing it steady. Taking control. “My name is Maya.”
“Nice to meet you, Maya. Sorry about the dramatic introduction.”
She doesn’t smile. “We need to get you to health services.”
“No.”
“You’re bleeding on the ice.”
“It’s just a scratch. I’m fine.”
“Stop saying you’re fine when you’re clearly not.”
“You stop shaking and I’ll stop lying.”
The words come out harsher than I meant, but they’re true. We’re both standing here, well, I’m sitting, bleeding, performing being okay when we’re obviously not.
Maya stares at me for a long moment. Then, impossibly, she takes a step closer. Then another. Until she’s kneeling beside me on the ice, next to the blood, even though her hands are still shaking and her breathing is still too fast and every instinct is clearly screaming at her to run.
“Can you stand?” she asks.
“Probably.”
“That’s not encouraging.”
“Best I can offer.”
She holds out her hand.
I take it.