Chapter Six
FINN
Dr. Asha Patel’s office contains no motivational posters.
This is the first thing I notice.
The second is that the chair closest to the door has been left empty.
“You can sit wherever you want,” she says.
I choose the chair closest to the door.
She does not comment.
Dr. Patel is in her forties, with dark hair braided over one shoulder and a notebook closed on the table beside her. No clipboard. No computer between us. A small model of a hockey net sits on the bookshelf next to books about sleep, grief, performance, and the nervous system.
“You are Finn?”
“You know I am.”
“I do. I prefer to let people introduce themselves.”
I almost leave.
Instead, I say, “Finn Callahan.”
“What brought you here?”
“Owen Hayes.”
She smiles. “He is persuasive.”
“He is controlling.”
“Those can overlap.”
The phrase sounds like Lena.
I fold my arms.
Dr. Patel waits.
Silence expands. Normally, I am good at silence. Goalies live inside it. Even in a loud arena, there is a private space before a shot where the body chooses.
This silence is different. It does not ask me to react. It asks me to exist.
“I have panic attacks,” I say.
“How often?”
“I do not know.”
“How many in the last month?”
“Two.”
“Last six months?”
“Five. Maybe six.”
“Any medical evaluation?”
“Maeve checked my heart. I had blood work last year.”
“Any substance use, stimulants, supplements?”
“Caffeine. Team-approved supplements.”
“Sleep?”
“Five hours.”
“On a good night?”
I look at her.
She writes nothing.
“Four,” I say.
We spend the next forty minutes mapping what happens before, during, and after an attack. Noise. Enclosed spaces. Loss of control. Sometimes nothing obvious. I tell her about North Ridge and the maintenance cart. I do not tell her about Mara’s boots.
Dr. Patel explains that panic is an alarm system firing without useful danger. The body is not weak or dramatic. It is trying to protect me with the wrong information.
“I know there is no danger,” I say.
“Your thinking brain knows. The alarm system is faster.”
“How do I stop it?”
“First, we stop treating it like an opponent you can defeat by force.”
I dislike this answer.
“I play a position built on control.”
“You play a position built on response.”
I look toward the small net on her shelf.
She continues. “You cannot control every shot. You train your response. We can do the same here.”
That answer I understand.
We practice breathing that does not involve taking enormous, desperate inhales. She gives me a grounding exercise based on pressure through my feet and naming three things I can hear. We discuss sleep. She asks whether I have someone I can call.
“Owen,” I say.
“Local?”
“Theo. Maeve.”
“Anyone outside hockey?”
Mara’s voice enters my head.
I say nothing.
Dr. Patel notices but does not press.
At the end, she asks whether I want another appointment.
I hear myself say, “Next Thursday.”
Outside, snow has started.
My father calls as I reach the truck.
I almost ignore him. Then I remember he has called three times this week.
“Hey,” I say.
“Finally.” Daniel Callahan’s voice carries the echo of a large workshop. “Your mother thinks you have been kidnapped.”
“My mother texted me a photo of the game. She knows I am not kidnapped.”
“She thinks kidnappers can access sports broadcasts.”
“That is not how kidnapping works.”
“I told her.”
My parents live six hours north in a town with one rink, two traffic lights, and a hardware store my father has owned since before I was born. He never played beyond high school. He still knows more about sharpening skates than most equipment managers.
“How are you?” he asks.
The automatic sentence rises.
I am fine.
I look at Dr. Patel’s office through the falling snow.
“Tired.”
“Season?”
“Some.”
He waits.
My father is not good at feelings. Neither am I. We have built an entire relationship from useful objects, weather reports, and game scores.
“Having panic attacks,” I say.
The silence on the line is so complete I check the screen.
“Dad?”
“I am here.”
I grip the truck door handle.
He clears his throat. “Are you safe?”
“Yes.”
“Doctor?”
“Counselor. Sports psychologist.”
“Good.”
No disbelief. No shame.
I had prepared for both.
“Your mother gets them,” he says.
“What?”
“Since you were little. Not often now. Crowded stores. Sometimes driving in snow.”
My mind rearranges childhood memories: my mother leaving school concerts before the final song, sending Dad into supermarkets in December, pulling the car onto the shoulder and saying she needed air.
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“She did not want you to worry.”
Anger flashes. “So you let me think I was losing my mind?”
“We did not know you were having them.”
“Because I did not tell you.”
The symmetry is cruel.
Dad exhales. “Your mother will want to talk.”
“Not yet.”
“Okay.”
Another surprise.
“Was she ashamed?” I ask.
“She was scared.”
“Of what?”
“Being unable to protect you.”
I close my eyes.
Mara in the equipment room, six feet away, talking about cereal so I would not be alone.
Sophie’s voice from a story Mara once told Lena: He can be angry and alive.
Maybe everyone who cares mistakes protection for control eventually.
The difference is whether they listen when asked to stop.
“I have to go,” I say.
“Finn.”
“Yes?”
“Your mother is not weak.”
“I know.”
“Neither are you.”
The words settle heavily.
“I know,” I say again.
This time, I am not sure it is a lie.
At practice, I allow six goals in the first fifteen minutes.
Coach Mercer blows the whistle.
“Callahan, reset.”
Normally, reset means skate to the corner, drink water, restore the mask.
Today, I put both skates into the ice. Feel pressure through my feet. Hear blades cutting, pucks striking boards, Jace humming badly near the blue line.
Three sounds.
My breath lowers.
I return to the crease.
Jace skates past. “You good?”
“Different sentence.”
He circles back, confused.
Then understanding reaches his face.
“Do you need anything?”
“No.”
“Great. I also have nothing.”
He shoots high blocker.
I catch it cleanly.
After practice, a coffee waits on the bench outside the locker room.
Black. No sugar.
A pink sticky note covers the lid.
For after. Not on the ice. I learn. —M
I look down the hallway.
No one.
I drink the coffee before it gets cold.