Chapter 23
Sebastian
Every instinct was screaming at me to pick up the phone and call Grace.
It felt like the longer we went without speaking, the less likely she was to forgive me.
But her dad was in the hospital, and Bryce was right.
She needed time at home to heal with her family.
That was what was most important. Not my own anguish or the sense of growing panic I felt at the thought of losing her.
I couldn’t sit still or wait around, so after my parents left, I took a long shower to wash off the remnants of my hangover and immediately set off for DuLane.
Once a place of refuge for me, the training center now carried with it the shame of my greatest mistakes.
I walked the deserted corridors, drowning in sorrow at the lost sense of comfort I’d come to expect within these towering walls.
When Coach Dawson’s office finally came into view, my misery doubled.
The surly man was hunched over a mound of paperwork, his glasses perched at the very tip of his nose.
They looked one sneeze away from sliding right off his face.
The room was in its usual state—cluttered with half-open boxes of equipment and empty bottles of Diet Coke, the whiteboard behind his desk hidden beneath a drawing of a three-on-two jailbreak drill.
I hovered in the doorway hesitantly, working up the courage to step forward.
“Are you waiting for me to invite you in?”
Straightening my shoulders, I took a deep breath and stepped inside.
Coach motioned for me to take the chair in front of his desk.
For a long time, he said nothing, so I sat across from him and watched him work.
The first few minutes of silence were the most awkward.
Several times my mouth dropped open, an apology poised at the tip of my tongue, but the words never came.
Something told me that this discussion needed to be on his time, and I was right.
Eventually, he set down his pencil and leaned back into his chair.
When I saw the look in his eyes, my stomach sank.
“I’ve coached for over twenty years now, and in all that time, I’ve never had a more talented player on my ice.
You’ve got something special, Sebastian, no one can deny that,” he said, and I knew what three-letter word came next.
“But if you can’t see past your own two skates, you’ll never make it in the pros.
It’s more than proving yourself on that ice.
You’ve already done that. Now you have to prove that you’re worthy of this team. ”
“Understood, sir,” I said, my voice thick. “I’m sorry for letting everyone down.”
“I hope so. Just to make sure, I’m going to give you the week off so you can think about how you might serve this team better when you return.”
That was a nice way of saying he was suspending me for seven days, not just one game. “You should make Bryce the captain for the remainder of the year. He’s earned it,” I said.
Coach nodded in agreement. “That would be easy, wouldn’t it? But that’s not how life works. I want to see you earn the title you were given. This team depends on your leadership, and I won’t let you back down now that things have gotten tough.”
“I’m not the same guy I was when you made me captain, and I don’t think I ever will be,” I admitted.
“You don’t need to be that guy; you just need to be better than the guy you were last night.”
>> <<
If my weeklong suspension taught me anything, other than the obvious lesson of humility, it was that I needed more hobbies.
It became painfully clear within the first twenty-four hours that I was aimless without hockey, and even more so without Grace.
Every time I felt tempted to reach out to her, I remembered what Bryce had said when I’d told him I was going to make things right.
It’s not going to be easy, not after what you said to her.
I’d thrown salt in her deepest wounds, and only moments after she’d learned that her father was in the hospital.
If I wanted Grace to forgive me, I needed something big.
Something that showed how enormously sorry I was and proved without a shadow of a doubt that I’d do anything to make it up to her.
It would take time, and help, which meant in the meantime, I needed to find some way to keep myself distracted.
Given my need for self-reflection, the most obvious choice was to pick up a book.
This turned out to be an immediate failure when, upon walking into Nelson Library, all it took was the familiar scent of musty books to remind me of how much time Grace and I had spent hiding between the dusty shelves, exchanging heated looks when we were supposed to be studying.
My next attempt was even feebler, given how doubtful I was from the very beginning, but the opportunity fell into my lap when I overhead a girl in my econ class talking about an upcoming poetry slam at the student union.
I barely made it through the first set without losing it.
When the student organizer standing in the corner of the café noticed my muffled laughter, she gave me the stink eye and I took it as my cue to leave.
It wasn’t until the fifth day of my suspension that I succeeded in finding something that stuck.
In addition to the fact that it didn’t require an innate set of skills, cooking could be done in solitude, within the comfort of my own home.
I was terrible at first, often resorting to calling my mother in a panic when something didn’t turn out or YouTube couldn’t help me.
It was hard to keep up with once I returned to the rink, but I dedicated my free evenings to trying new recipes.
With each passing day, I grew more confident, and things felt a little less tense with Bryce and my other roommates once I started feeding them on a regular basis.
One night, after scouring a baking website that my mother had recommended, I came across a recipe that hurtled me into a memory from sophomore year.
Kate and I were at the beginning stage of our relationship, tucked into a corner booth in the back of Coaler Café.
It was late, we were up cramming for Monday exams, and the dim lighting was making it hard to keep our eyes open when Kate’s stomach let out a low grumble loud enough to startle me out of a doze.
“Eat something,” I said, “or the owner is going to kick us out for a noise complaint.” Eventually, Kate agreed, and after scouring the menu she decided to order a sweet from the bakery display at the bar.
I’d never forget the look on her face at that first bite of pastry, like she was tasting a little bit of lemon bar heaven.
I got to work on the recipe immediately, realizing the sign for what it was: a push to find closure in my past relationship.
How could I ever move forward with Grace when I hadn’t owned up to the mistakes I’d made with Kate?
At the very least, she deserved an apology for how I’d treated her.
That afternoon, I made several batches of lemon bars until one came out looking exactly the recipe online.
The kitchen smelled amazing, and I was tempted to steal one for myself.
The sun was playing hide-and-seek when I set off to find Kate.
Beams of yellow light flashed in and out of existence as the scattering of clouds overhead shifted with the wind.
March in Wisconsin was like a girl in a shoe store—it didn’t know how to make up its mind.
Today, the air was brisk, but the warmth of the sun was enough to chase off some of the cold.
We’d finally reached that awkward transition between winter and spring.
The grounds were covered in half-melted snowbanks and patches of soggy brown grass with puddles the size of small ponds cropping up along the sidewalks where the cement dipped.
Kate wasn’t difficult to locate. We still shared each other’s locations.
I wasn’t sure why—maybe she wanted to know where I was so she could avoid running into me—but I hadn’t even thought to change my settings after we broke up.
I took up a post outside of Kenworth Hall and waited.
Twenty minutes later, students began pouring out of the building.
When Kate emerged, my grip tightened around the container of lemon bars.
Seeing her for the first time in several months stirred up a lot of emotions within me, though none were as visceral as the guilt gnawing at my insides.
She looked every bit the Kate I remembered, but there was something different in the way she held herself.
Our eyes met, and without hesitation, she crossed the courtyard in my direction.
As she grew closer, I felt myself tense in anticipation, my mind wandering back to the last time we spoke.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized how wrong I’d been for letting things end that way.
She might have pulled the plug, but it had been my own careless actions that had doomed our relationship.
“Hello, Kate.”
“Such a formal greeting,” she said tersely, coming to a stop in front of me and crossing her arms over her chest. “To what do I owe the immeasurable pleasure of seeing my ex?”
“I came to give you lemon bars.” I held out the container of carefully baked pastries, watching as confusion swirled in her eyes. “And I came to say that you were right.”
One eyebrow arched. “Feel free to elaborate.”
“After the accident, I changed, and I blamed you for the injury, even though I knew it was wrong. I was so focused on myself that I couldn’t see how much I was hurting you. I’m sorry.”
“I was in love with you, and stupidly hopeful that things would get better. That’s why I held on for so long. Why did you?” I couldn’t help but notice the crack in her voice as she spoke, the way her expression softened at the mention of loving me.