3. Timothy
Chapter three
Timothy
The final whistle slices through the cold air, but I keep gliding, already replaying the drill in my head.
My recovery was technically fine.
My angle was right. My stick stayed in the lane. I got back before the rush turned dangerous.
But technically fine does not earn more minutes.
I need to be faster.
My shoulder throbs, right at the seam where the old injury and the new one overlap. I flex it once, testing the range. Pain pulls tight beneath the joint.
I stop before anyone notices.
The fastest way to lose minutes is to give Coach a reason to wonder whether I can handle them.
Coach Nolan comes toward me while the rest of the team starts filing off the ice.
“Your head wasn’t in it, Brenton.”
His tone is quiet. “You want those minutes, you cannot drift.”
I nod once.
One bad stretch and I'm replaceable.
That is not self-pity. It is roster arithmetic.
There are always more players waiting for someone like me to slip.
The locker room is loud enough to swallow thought.
Tape tears somewhere to my left. Someone complains about the drill from across the room. Wet pads clatter against the rubber floor.
I lower myself onto the bench and start stripping off my gear, piece by piece.
Helmet. Gloves. Elbow pads.
If I keep my hands moving, maybe my mind will follow.
Jonah’s voice slides through the noise, easy and unbothered. He’s talking about Bethany’s latest maintenance list from the lodge.
He is reading from his phone, reporting Bethany’s latest maintenance notes from the lodge like they are breaking news.
“She says our gear is officially a health hazard,” he announces. “And that if the boot room develops its own ecosystem, she is billing the team for wildlife removal.”
The room breaks into laughter.
I laugh too. Or I try to.
The sound comes out a half beat behind everyone else’s. I am too busy picturing Bethany standing in the boot room, clipboard in hand, glaring at the pile of gear we promised to move.
I bend over my skate and focus on the knot in my laces.
Someone across the room says Bethany is scarier than Coach. "At least Coach never tells me to clean my room," the guy adds.
The room laughs again.
“Maybe show her some basic respect,” I say.
The words come out too quickly and twice as sharp as I intend.
The room goes quiet. Even the tearing tape stops. I want to reel the sentence back, but I can't.
"Whoa," someone says, delighted, scenting blood. "Didn't realize we needed a permit to joke about Bethany."
Someone mutters, “Well, now we know who his favorite housekeeper is,” and the room erupts.
I laugh along, hollow. I'm aware I've just handed them a year's worth of ammunition.
This isn't the first time I've stood up for Bethany.
The idea hooks into something older, back before Bethany worked at the lodge, back before wanting her became a problem I had to manage.
I'm sixteen, holding the house phone to my ear.
Jenna's on the other line, voice pinched in panic. "The bakery forgot the cake, Tim. And no one showed up."
She's furious enough to commit arson with a fistful of streamers.
Twenty minutes later, teenage me arrives with four hockey teammates, two grocery-store cakes, and absolutely no plan beyond filling the room with bodies.
We make enough noise for twice our number.
Jenna turns up the music. Someone starts a game in the living room. One of the guys puts a party hat on backward and declares it fashionable.
But Bethany is not there.
I scan the room twice before asking Jenna where she went.
I find her in the pantry, sitting on an overturned bucket between a stack of canned tomatoes and a bag of flour.
A paper birthday crown rests crooked in her lap.
She swipes beneath one eye the moment I step inside.
"I'm fine," she says, in the universal teenage dialect for absolutely not fine.
I remember standing there without the faintest idea what to do with my hands.
Should I sit beside her? Leave? Find Jenna? Offer her cake?
At sixteen, comforting a crying girl feels more complicated than any play Coach has ever drawn on a whiteboard.
So I lean against the pantry shelf and stay.
“No one wanted to come to my party,” she says.
Her fingers tighten around the paper crown.
“I’m never going to be popular. Or get a boyfriend. I’m going to be alone forever.”
She says it without drama, like she is stating a fact she has already accepted.
That is the part that still stings.
“You’re a cool girl,” I tell her.
It is not exactly eloquent, but it is true.
“You’ll make friends. You’ll get a boyfriend. None of this means anything.”
She looks at me like I have just claimed the pantry can fly.
“I promise you won’t end up alone. If you get all the way to twenty-four and boys are still too stupid to figure it out, I’ll marry you myself.”
The promise slips out half-joking and half-desperate to make her stop looking so defeated.
Bethany stares at me.
Then she laughs, wet and startled, the paper crown trembling in her hands.
I blink back into the locker room with one skate still half-laced.
I shake my head, trying to dislodge the memory.
There can not be anything happening between me and Bethany. Period.