Chapter 32 #2
By the time the game ended, I was drenched in sweat, my arms burning.
No matter how many times I did this, I never got over how much of a workout it was.
The kids skated circles around me, chirping me between bursts of laughter.
I didn’t mind. Seeing them build confidence, watching them joke and push themselves–it made every ache, every exhausted breath, worth it.
As practice wrapped up, we all piled into the dressing room, the post-game adrenaline still buzzing in the air.
Gear clattered to the floor as the kids stripped off their pads, their faces still flushed with excitement.
I could see it in every single one of them–how much this team meant, how much it gave them. It hit me hard, like it always did.
“Hell of a game,” Kyle said, rolling up beside me as I took my skates off. “You’re finally getting the hang of it.”
I smirked, shaking my head. “Yeah, maybe in ten more years I’ll keep up with them.”
Kyle laughed, clapping me on the shoulder. “We’ll stop by my place so we can shower and change before we hit the pub for dinner.”
I nodded, grabbing my bag. He headed to his vehicle while I climbed into my truck, muscle memory taking over as I drove the familiar route to his place.
My mind replayed the afternoon–the drills, the scrimmage, the way the kids lit up when they were on the ice. This program, this team–it was everything I hadn’t realized I needed.
When Kyle and I started it, I thought it was just a way to keep busy. A way to give back. But it had turned into something so much bigger. Watching these kids grow into themselves, watching them find confidence and community–it was more fulfilling than anything else I’d done in years.
And then there was the thought I hated acknowledging.
If that moment hadn't happened–the moment that had changed everything–this program might never have existed.
The thought lodged itself in my chest, heavy and unshakable.
Because it wasn’t just the program. If that moment hadn’t derailed my life, I never would have left the NHL. Never would have moved to Brookhaven. Never would have started coaching with Shane.
And I never would have met Harper and Connor.
I never would have had the chance to build something real, something good, with them.
Bittersweet didn’t even begin to cover it.
Kyle’s place came into view–a sprawling rancher just outside the city, nestled on a wide stretch of property.
The house was a perfect mix of modern and rustic, with dark wood accents, stonework, and massive windows that bathed the inside in natural light.
The wide porch wrapped around the front, practically begging you to sit down, kick back, and stay awhile.
I tightened my grip on the steering wheel, but it didn't stop the past from creeping in.
The game had been brutal. The kind where tempers ran high, where every check had a little more weight behind it. Kyle’s team was good–fast, skilled, relentless. They were making us look like fucking amateurs, and I couldn’t stand it. I needed to do something. I needed to feel something.
That was how it had been for years–ever since Mom died, ever since my dad stopped looking at me like I was his son and started looking through me like I was nothing. I was just…numb. Except when I was on the ice.
When pain was the only thing that cut through the numbness, I made sure to find it.
I played angry. Picked fights. Delivered hits that toed the line between hard and reckless. The media loved to call me dirty, but I didn’t give a shit. If I wasn’t throwing punches, if I wasn’t leaving bruises, I wasn’t feeling anything.
Kyle had the puck along the boards, cutting across the blue line. He didn’t see me coming.
I lined up the hit perfectly–shoulder to shoulder, clean as hell. A textbook check. But in an instant, everything went wrong.
His skate caught a rut in the ice.
It happened so fast, still somehow, in my mind, it was always in slow motion. The way his body twisted mid-air. The way his helmet whipped back before it cracked against the boards. The way he collapsed, completely limp.
A sickening kind of stillness settled over the ice. That was the worst part. Not the hit. Not even the sound of his skull bouncing off the boards. The silence afterward.
My breath trapped somewhere between my ribs, I dropped my stick. “Kyle–”
I barely got his name out before hands grabbed at me, yanking me back. A fist slammed into the back of my helmet before I could react, but I didn’t care. I tried to push forward, back toward Kyle. I barely made it another step before another hit landed, then another.
A brawl broke out–because of course it did. Gloves flying, bodies slamming into the ice. I wasn’t fighting back, though. I barely even felt the punches.
All I could see was Kyle, lying motionless on the ice.
Trainers swarmed him, voices sharp and urgent. The medic’s lips moved, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying. My ears were ringing. My vision tunnelled. The whole arena felt like it was tilting under me.
He wasn’t moving.
He wasn’t fucking moving.
I don’t know how I got off the ice. Maybe one of my teammates dragged me. Maybe I moved on autopilot. I don’t remember. But I do remember sitting in the dressing room afterward, everything still spinning.
My teammates tried to reassure me.
“It was a clean hit, Barzal.”
“He just fell wrong. You didn’t do anything dirty.”
“Shit like this happens sometimes.”
It didn’t fucking matter.
Coach pulled me aside before I left the rink. His expression was unreadable, his voice calm and firm.
“Ryan, listen to me. There was nothing you could’ve done differently.”
I didn’t answer. I just stared at him, waiting for the part where he told me something that would actually make me feel human again.
“Clean hit or not,” I said finally, my voice hoarse, “he’s still in the hospital isn’t he?”
Coach didn’t have an answer for that.
I didn’t go to the hospital that night.
I couldn’t.
Because I knew. I knew Kyle’s career was over. I knew he’d wake up in a hospital bed, and I’d be the first name that came to his mind.
I didn’t think I could face that.
Shane called me, though. Made me go.
“You’re coming with me, or I’m dragging your sorry ass there myself, Barzal.”
So I went.
I expected the worst. I expected Kyle to look at me with hate. To tell me I’d ruined his life. To rip me apart like I deserved.
But when I walked in, he just gave me a tired, lopsided grin.
“Took you long enough.”
And that was it.
No anger. No blame.
He was pissed, sure. He’d just had his entire life ripped away from him. But not once–not once–did he look at me like I was the reason.
Even when the doctor told him he’d never walk again.
I left the hospital feeling worse than when I’d walked in.
Because if Kyle didn’t hate me, then I had to do it for him.
And then the media had its story.
The headlines were everywhere the next day.
DIRTY HIT ENDS PROMISING CAREER. HOCKEY’S MOST DANGEROUS PLAYER STRIKES AGAIN. WHEN WILL THE NHL STOP RYAN BARZAL?
They tore me apart. Panel after panel dissected the hit, played the clip on a loop, analyzed my history. They called me reckless. A danger to the sport. Some even said I should be banned from the league entirely.
I could’ve fought back. Released a statement. Hired a PR team.
None of it mattered, though.
Because they weren’t wrong.
The hit might have been clean, but the result was the same. Kyle was in a wheelchair. His career was over. Because of me.
I couldn’t take it. The guilt. The cameras. The analysts picking my career apart like I was some kind of monster.
So I left.
I walked away from the NHL, from the only thing I’d ever know, because I didn’t deserve it anymore.
I blinked hard, shaking myself free of the memory as I pulled into Kyle’s driveway, killing the engine and grabbing my bag before heading inside.
I killed the engine, and grabbed my bag before heading inside. Kyle was already there, waiting with an easy grin.
“You know the drill. Your room’s all set,” he said, nodding toward the hallway.
“Thanks,” I said, meaning it.
The guest room had become my default landing spot whenever I was in town. It was simple–clean lines, neutral colours, none of the clutter of my own place–but there was something about it that made it feel like a second home. Maybe because Kyle had made sure it did.
Dropping my bag by the bed, I grabbed fresh clothes and headed for the shower.
The hot water worked out the tension in my shoulders, washing away the sweat and exhaustion from practice. My muscles ached in that satisfying way that only came from pushing yourself, and by the time I stepped out and dried off, I felt human again.
When I made my way to the kitchen, Kyle was already there, idly spinning a water bottle between his hands. He glanced up, his ever-present grin still in place.
“Ready?” he asked, already rolling toward the door.
“Let’s go.”
We headed out together, the night stretching ahead of us as we drove to the pub.