33. Timothy
Chapter thirty-three
Timothy
Istep onto the ice and the roar of the crowd hits me without sinking in. Eight thousand people making enough noise to shake the glass, and somehow it all feels distant.
The rink is everything I'm supposed to love. Loud. Bright. Familiar down to the squeak of the boards behind our bench. None of it feels right today.
Take the dog. Take the job offer. Take it all. And Leave.
My own voice keeps looping in my skull like a bad power play I can't break out of.
My skates find their groove without me, muscle memory handling everything my brain has abandoned. I tug my jersey straight. Tonight it feels like a costume for a guy who has all this figured out.
I do not have this figured out.
Jonah skates past and taps my shin pad. I catch maybe half of what he says because my brain is still louder than the crowd.
Cold air rakes down my throat, sharp and honest. At least one part of me is showing up.
I catch myself nodding here and giving a smirk there. Acting normal, or as normal as I can at the moment.
The puck drops, and for three whole seconds my head goes quiet.
I read the play before it exists, step into the lane, strip the puck clean off his stick. The bench comes up screaming, sticks hammering the boards, somebody shouting support at a volume that makes the actual words irrelevant.
I set up the chance, thread the pass through traffic, and Jonah buries it top shelf.
Jonah crashes into me at the bench, gassed and grinning.
“You saw that opening and took it!”
I say something back. Autopilot. The words show up before any feeling does, which is becoming a theme.
A few shifts later, I drop to block a shot with no hesitation.
I win the battle along the boards, clear it out in a mess of elbows and ice spray, and the bench erupts harder this time. I stumble once, recover, and finish the clear.
Some useless part of me wants Bethany to have seen it.
I glance toward the stands before remembering she was never supposed to be here tonight.
Final minutes tick down. Then I see another opening and take it.
It works.
We win.
The guys look at me as though I finally showed them the player they have been waiting for.
My legs are on fire, my lungs feel scraped raw, and I should be floating three feet off the ice.
Instead I'm wondering if Bethany gets the score alerts.
She used to check my games before we were even a real thing. Now I don't know if she's watching at all.
Helmets bump mine. Gloves slap my shoulder pads.
In the locker room, Coach singles me out. “That’s the kind of read that earns you more shifts. Keep doing it.”
It should feel like everything.
I arrange my face into the reaction the moment deserves.
Wesley is calling this a career-defining moment, milking it for the room. Jonah takes full credit for my entire game based on one comment he made during warmups.
It should be funny.
It is funny.
I laugh when everyone else does, winding discarded tape between my fingers until it pulls tight. Guys peel off in twos and threes, showers hissing, gear thudding into bags.
I linger at my stall.
Maxon doesn't leave with the others.
"You don't look like a guy who just won," he says. Arms crossed. Not smiling.
Loud is easy to dodge. Quiet is the problem, and the room just went quiet.
“I’m fine.” The lie barely makes it across the space between us.
He says nothing. Just waits.
“You played well,” he says. “That doesn’t mean everything else stopped hurting.”
I give him the practical version.
Grant’s offer. My uncertain minutes. Hockey House. Every reason Bethany’s future should not be built around mine.
The reasons sound better when I stack them close enough together that no feeling can get between them.
“Did Bethany ever say she wanted the job?”
I stare at him.
“That isn’t the point.”
“Feels like it might be.”
Maxon holds my gaze for another second, then lifts his bag.
“I’m not telling you what to do,” he says. “I’m asking whether any of those choices were actually hers.”
He leaves before I can answer. The locker room door closes behind Maxon. I sit alone with the question.
I was furious because she made the decision without me.
Then I did the same thing.
I decided I was holding her back. I decided she needed freedom. I decided we could never be together long term.
I called it support.
I called it protecting her future.
Anything except what it was.
Fear.
Bethany turned down the offer. She stayed.
And when she stood in the kitchen waiting for me to tell her that mattered, I told her to take everything and go.
I spent my whole life waiting for someone to choose me.
When Bethany did, I made sure she regretted it.
Now the praise I wanted all season echoes through an empty locker room, and there is no one left to blame but me.