Chapter 11
LEONORA
Saturday morning arrives too quickly.
My body is sore. My ribs ache when I breathe too deeply and the bruise along my shoulder has deepened into a spectacular shade of purple. Even rolling over in bed requires a moment of careful negotiation with my muscles.
But it’s the kind of pain that feels satisfying if you’ve chosen it.
I lie there staring at the ceiling, replaying the game again in my mind the way hockey players always do after a loss, searching for the invisible turning points where the outcome might have been different.
Then I push the blanket aside and swing my legs out of bed, wincing slightly as my ribs protest the movement.
Welcome to college hockey.
My phone starts ringing just as I’m pulling a sweatshirt over my head.
I glance at the screen.
Mom.
“Morning.”
“Leonora.”
Her voice carries that particular mix of warmth and mild anxiety I’ve known my entire life.
“I hope I didn’t wake you.”
“You didn’t.”
There’s a small pause on the line.
“I’ve been reading,” she says.
That sentence immediately sets off alarms in my brain.
“Reading?”
“Yes.”
Another pause.
“About underwater hockey.”
I close my eyes.
Oh no. It seems my lie isn’t going to be allowed to die quietly. Or drown.
My mother has never encountered a topic she couldn’t research thoroughly within twenty-four hours if one of her children happened to mention it.
“And?” I ask cautiously.
“Well,” she says slowly, “apparently people pass out quite often.”
“Pass out.”
“Yes. From holding their breath too long.”
“That sounds… dramatic.”
“And there are injuries,” she continues. “Broken fingers. Someone lost a tooth in a tournament in Australia.”
I rub my forehead.
“Mom-”
“And there was an article about a man who-”
“Mom.”
She stops.
“It’s not quite that extreme. It’s hardly worse than ice hockey.”
“Well, the internet seems to think it is. It’s underwater, Leonora!”
“That’s because the internet thinks everything is dangerous.”
She sighs softly. “I just worry.”
“I know.”
“You’ve always thrown yourself into things. When you were little, you used to climb the tallest trees in the neighborhood just to prove you could.”
“That sounds like a positive personality trait.”
“It sounds like something that might eventually land you in a hospital.”
Despite myself, I smile.
“I’m fine,” I tell her. “It’s tough, sure. But that’s kind of the point.”
“Tough?”
“Competitive.”
“Ah.” There’s a faint understanding in her voice now.
“You do like competition.”
“That’s not exactly a secret.”
“No. Your father noticed that about you very early. And I can’t convince you to pick something safer?”
“No.” The answer comes out more firmly than I expected.
“Even if it’s hard?”
“Especially if it’s hard.”
Silence lingers on the line.
Then my mother laughs quietly.
“Well,” she says, “that does sound like our family.”
I picture her sitting at the kitchen table back home, coffee mug in hand, reading some wildly alarming article about underwater athletes passing out and drowning at the bottom of swimming pools.
“Besides,” I add, “I’ve got a bit of extra help.”
“Oh?”
“Someone from the team to help as I’m getting started. Kind of… a safety coach.”
That part, at least, is true.
“Well, I’m glad to hear that. That sounds sensible.”
We talk a few minutes longer - about campus and my classes and, of course, about Markus’ blossoming career - until eventually the conversation winds down the way it always does.
“Call me if anything changes,” she says.
“I will.”
“And be careful.”
“I promise.”
The irony of the conversation and my lie isn’t lost on me.
My mother is worried about underwater hockey injuries.
Meanwhile, I’m secretly playing left wing on a men’s college team and getting body-checked into the boards every two minutes.
I grab my gear bag from the chair and sling it over my shoulder.
Underwater hockey might be dangerous.
But it has nothing on what I’m actually doing. And if Chen is serious about helping me survive out there - I’m going to need every scrap of that help.
Saturday games start later in the evening, which means the building still feels half asleep when I make my way through the side corridor that afternoon.
By the time I arrive on the ice, Chen is already there.
“You made it,” he calls.
I skate toward him, still a little stiff from yesterday’s game. My shoulder protests when I push too hard on the first stride, but I ignore it.
Chen studies me for a moment.
“You look sore.”
“I am sore.”
“It means you’re actually playing the game.”
I glide to a stop near the crease.
“Yesterday didn’t exactly go how I hoped.”
“No,” he agrees mildly. “It didn’t.”
We stand there on the ice together, the empty arena stretching around us in silent rows of seats.
Then Chen taps his stick against the ice.
“Alright,” he says. “All you need to know is how to take or evade a body check - preferably the second option. The thing is, you’re letting them hit you.”
“That’s… sort of unavoidable.”
“Not like that.”
He skates toward me and gestures for me to start near the boards.
“Act like you have the puck.”
I start skating forward with the imaginary play in mind, and Chen steps forward, pressing his shoulder lightly into mine.
“Stop.”
I freeze.
“You’re skating straight into contact,” he says. “Which means the defender gets all the leverage.”
“So, what am I supposed to do?”
Chen demonstrates. He takes my position along the boards, pretending to carry the puck.
Just before the imaginary hit, he shifts his weight slightly and pivots his hips.
The motion is small.
Almost invisible.
But suddenly his body is angled differently - less square to the boards, more balanced.
“Now hit me,” he says.
“You’re the goalie.”
“Hit me.”
I push against him. It barely moves him.
“See?” he says. “You’re not absorbing the check anymore. You’re redirecting it.”
I try again. This time I angle my hips the way he showed me.
When Chen leans into me, the impact feels completely different - less like being crushed, more like bracing against a wave.
“Oh.”
Chen smiles faintly. “Exactly.”
We run the drill again.
And again.
Each time he increases the pressure slightly, forcing me to adjust my balance until the movement starts to feel natural.
“You’re smaller than most players,” he says after a while.
“I’ve noticed.”
“But smaller doesn’t mean weaker. You just can’t play their game.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you don’t fight strength with strength. You use timing.”
We skate a few more drills.
Board battles.
Quick pivots.
Slowly, my body starts to understand what he means. The hits don’t disappear, but they feel different - less like something happening to me and more like something I can manage.
Eventually Chen glides back toward the crease, thinking.
“One more thing.”
“What?”
“I can show you how to body check someone a lot bigger than you.”
“That seems unlikely.”
He ignores the comment and skates toward the boards.
“Come here.”
I follow him, gliding to a stop beside the glass.
“Alright,” he says, positioning himself in front of me. “Pretend I’m the guy with the puck. When you try to hit someone bigger, the mistake most players make is going straight through them. You won’t win that battle.”
“So, what do I do?”
“You don’t hit the player,” he says. “You remove the ice under them.”
I frown. “That sounds… philosophical.”
He demonstrates instead. Just before contact, he shifts his weight suddenly, drops low, and drives his shoulder into my chest while his stick clips the outside of my skate, sweeping my feet out from under me.
I lose my balance instantly and have to grab the boards.
“What-”
“That,” he says calmly.
“You cheated.”
“I redirected your center of gravity.”
“Which sounds suspiciously like cheating.”
He gestures for me to reset.
“Your turn.”
I push off the boards and skate toward him. At the last second I copy the movement - dropping my hips as I drive my shoulder into his chest, stick sweeping low to clip his skate.
Chen stumbles enough that he has to widen his stance to catch himself.
“That worked!”
He straightens, brushing imaginary snow from his gloves.
“Physics,” he says.
I try it again.
This time he slides sideways half a step before recovering.
I grin inside my helmet.
“Oh,” I say quietly. “That’s dangerous.”
Chen nods.
“Exactly.”
“OK,” he says finally. “We’ve got a game in a few hours.”
Right.
Another game.
Another chance to prove I belong out here.
“You set up two goals yesterday.”
“We still lost.”
“Yeah,” he says. “But that wasn’t all your fault.”
“The Eagles figured me out.”
“They figured out that you’re good,” Chen corrects calmly. “So, they tried to remove you from the play.”
“Which worked.”
“Only because you let them.” He nods toward the boards where we were practicing. “That won’t work the same way tonight.”
I hope he’s right.
For a moment we stand there quietly.
Then Chen adds, almost casually,
“And for what it’s worth… Blake stepping in like that yesterday?”
“What about it?”
“I’ve never seen him do that before.”
I glance at him.
Chen shrugs. “He doesn’t usually babysit.”
“I didn’t ask him to.”
“I know. But he did it anyway. We need you here, Lee. I think the team is starting to see that.”
I thank him for the help and turn toward the tunnel, pushing off into a slow glide.
In a couple of hours, I’ll be back on this ice again. And this time, if someone tries to drive me into the boards, I’ll be ready.