27. Kieran #2
But for some reason, those four words wouldn't let me go.
Maybe because the articles had spent all morning insisting that one thing could change everything. That all it took was one distraction, one mistake, one wrong decision for everything to start unraveling.
Maybe because part of me had always believed that. That one change could cost you something important. That one change could turn something permanent into something temporary. The thoughts had been sitting at the back of my mind all day. Finally, I gave voice to them.
"You should be focusing on hockey."
“What?”
I forced myself to keep going. "Maybe this..." I gestured vaguely between us. "Maybe this isn't a good idea right now."
"What are you talking about?"
I looked away. "The season. The team. Everything you've got going on."
"Kieran."
"You just lost two games."
His stare sharpened. "And?"
"And people are already talking." The words came faster now. "They're already looking for reasons. Looking for somebody to blame."
Realization flickered across his face. "Kier..."
I hated how gentle he sounded. I hated how badly I wanted him to tell me I was being ridiculous.
"Maybe they're right."
The silence that followed felt heavier than anything that had come before.
"What happened while I was gone?" He sat forward. “Kier, where is this coming from? Did something happen?"
"No."
"Kieran." The way he said my name almost broke me.
I hated how badly I wanted him to tell me I was overreacting. Hated how badly I wanted this awful feeling to disappear. Instead, I reached for my phone. A few taps later, I handed it to him.
He frowned as he scanned the screen. Then his expression flattened. "Oh, for God's sake." He kept reading for another few seconds before dropping the phone onto the cushion between us. "You're upset because of this?"
"I'm not upset." The lie sounded weak even to me.
His look suggested he wasn't buying that for a second. "Kier, this is garbage."
"Maybe."
"It is garbage." His voice sharpened slightly. "People say stupid things after losses. They need somebody to blame. Tomorrow, they'll blame coaching. The day after that, they'll blame the power play. Next week it'll be something else."
I stared at the floor. "They have a point."
"No, they don't."
"Thane—"
"No." The force behind the word startled me enough that I finally looked at him. "They don't." He sat back against the couch and dragged a hand through his hair.
"They're not saying anything that isn't true."
Thane stared at me. "Nothing in that article is true."
"They lost two games."
"We lost two games." The correction came immediately. Firm. Certain. "They're looking for somebody to blame," he continued. "That's all this is."
I laughed. The sound came out wrong. Too sharp. Too close to breaking. "That's easy for you to say."
His forehead creased. "Kier, what does that mean?"
I stood up. Suddenly, sitting still felt impossible. "You have hockey."
"What?"
"You have hockey. Your team. Your family. Your career. Your sponsors. Your whole life is already full."
The confusion in his expression deepened. I knew I wasn't making sense. I knew I was skipping steps. The problem was that I couldn't seem to stop. "You're acting like this is about two hockey games."
"Because it is."
"No." The word came out harder than I intended. I hated how gentle he sounded. I hated how much I wanted to believe him. "You don't understand."
"Then explain it to me."
Where do I even start?
"Kier?"
My eyes burned. I swallowed hard. "It happened before." The words barely sounded like mine.
Thane's expression shifted immediately. "What happened before?"
I shook my head. The pressure in my chest kept building. "Somebody cared."
"Kieran—"
"She did."
The room blurred slightly. I blinked hard.
"Who?"
For a second, I couldn't answer. Because saying her name somehow made it present. Made me twelve years old again.
"Janelle."
Thane stared at me. Waiting. Completely lost. Which made sense. I'd never told him about her. Never told anybody. Not really.
For years, I'd kept that part of my life locked away. It wasn’t because I'd forgotten it. If anything, the opposite was true. I remembered too much. The problem was that once I started thinking about those years, it was hard to stop.
Thane didn't say anything, but stared at me with a mixture of concern and confusion. Of course, he was confused. As far as he knew, we'd been arguing about hockey and reporters and stupid comments on the internet.
I wasn't sure when the conversation had stopped being about any of those things. Maybe it never had been.
"Janelle was one of my foster parents."
The words settled heavily between us. Even now, I hated saying foster parent. The phrase felt clinical. Temporary. Like a label somebody had stuck onto a relationship that had once meant everything to me.
I stared at a spot on the floor for a moment before continuing. "I met her and her husband, Sam, when I was nine. I'd already been in the system for about a year by then."
My voice sounded distant to my own ears.
"They couldn't have biological children, so it was just the two of them." Memories surfaced unexpectedly. Janelle standing in the kitchen making pancakes on a Saturday morning. Sam pretending not to notice when I stole bacon off his plate. The three of us sitting at the table. It wasn’t anything special, but I’d wanted that for as long as I could remember.
Just ordinary things. The kind of ordinary I'd wanted for as long as I could remember.
I laughed softly, though there wasn't much humor in it. "They were good people."
For years, I told myself that that would have been easier.
The statement felt important. Because they were. This wasn't a story about cruel foster parents or a terrible home or somebody treating me badly.
I rubbed my palms against my jeans. "I lived with them for three years."
Long enough to stop feeling like a guest. Long enough to stop keeping my belongings packed in boxes. Long enough to believe I wasn't leaving.
Thane remained silent. So I kept going.
"They wanted to adopt me."
Saying it out loud made my chest ache. Not because I'd forgotten but because I remembered every detail.
The meetings. The paperwork. The conversations about schools.
The way Janelle would point out things she thought I'd like and say, "We'll have to remember to get that.
" The way Sam talked about teaching me to drive someday.
At twelve years old, I didn't think those things might happen.
I thought they were going to happen. Everybody did.
Nobody treated it like a possibility. They treated it like the future.
For years afterward, I would catch myself remembering stupid little details. The color we'd talked about painting my bedroom. The desk Janelle wanted to buy before school started. A family vacation they thought we might take the following summer.
The plans were so ordinary. Maybe that's why they stayed with me. I wasn't dreaming about some perfect life. I was dreaming about a life that was mine.
A life where I belonged somewhere.
A life where nobody was going to send me away. I swallowed and looked down at my hands.
"Then Janelle got pregnant."
The words fell into the silence. I didn't say anything else immediately. I couldn't.
Because even now, nine years later, I could still remember the excitement.
The phone calls.
The smiles.
Everybody was so happy.
"I was excited."
The admission sounded strange even to my own ears. I'd spent so much time remembering how everything ended that I'd almost forgotten the beginning.
"I really was."
I looked down at my hands.
"Janelle wanted that baby so badly. Both of them did." The words came easier now, not because they hurt less, but because I wasn't at the worst part yet. "I remember Sam walking around with this ridiculous grin for weeks. I don't think it ever came off his face."
A weak smile tugged at my mouth before disappearing again. "They kept showing me ultrasound pictures like I had any idea what I was looking at."
That earned the smallest reaction from Thane. Not quite a smile. Not quite anything else. Just enough to let me know he was still there. Still listening.
"I started thinking about what it would be like.
" My throat tightened. Not enough to stop me.
Just enough to make every word feel heavier.
"The baby, I mean." I stared at the coffee table.
"I thought about teaching them to ride a bike.
" The laugh that escaped me sounded broken. "I don't even know how to ride a bike."
For a second, the memory was so clear I could almost see it.
Twelve years old. Sitting at the kitchen table. Planning a future I thought I was promised.
"I used to lie in bed at night thinking about being a big brother. I thought I had time."
Because somewhere in the middle of telling the story, I could feel myself getting closer to the part I'd spent years avoiding. The part that still hurts. The part that had never stopped hurting.
I swallowed. "When things started changing, I didn't understand what was happening." Now I looked at Thane. "I thought everybody was just busy getting ready for the baby. So when meetings got postponed, I didn't think anything about it."
The words slowed. Each one harder than the last.
"When conversations got pushed back, I didn't think anything about it." I looked away again. "Even when things started feeling different, I kept telling myself everything was fine."
I could still remember believing in the promise. Still remember waiting for somebody to tell me I was worrying over nothing. "I thought if I was patient enough, eventually things would go back to normal."
For a few seconds, neither of us spoke. I looked away for a moment but I could feel Thane watching me, but I couldn't bring myself to look at him. Not yet. Because once I said the next part out loud, there was no taking it back.
I drew a shaky breath. "One night, Janelle told me she wanted to talk after dinner."