14. KAI #2
"I want you to prove what your doctor's form can't. That form might clear you, but it doesn't say your game is NHL-ready."
"There is no test for ready except playing. You know that. You've coached long enough to know that a player staring at game film and running private drills is not the same as a player reading live action with the puck on his stick."
"Which is exactly why I need to see you in controlled situations first."
I'm running out of angles. Every argument I make is logical, sound, and completely useless against a man who's already made his decision.
"This is wrong," I say.
"It might be. But it's my call and I'm making it."
Behind me, the ice is still. Practice has stopped entirely. I don't turn around because I know I'll see my teammates standing in a loose cluster, sticks down, watching their captain get told he can't play.
"Is there anything else?" I ask.
"Start with private ice time. Early mornings, before the team's session. I'll have my assistant set the schedule. When you're ready, I'll know it. And so will you."
I pull my gloves off and set them on the boards.
"You'll hear from me tomorrow about the schedule."
I walk toward the tunnel. The rubber matting grips under my blades with each step.
Wyatt intercepts me at the tunnel entrance. For once, his face isn't bright.
"Cap."
"Not now, Wyatt."
"That was bullshit."
"It was Coach's call."
"It was still bullshit."
Theo is behind him. The big man stands with his hands at his sides, blue eyes filed with sympathy and restrained anger.
"Whatever you need," Theo says. "Early mornings, extra sessions. I'm there."
Easton walks toward us, arms crossed. "He's not wrong about the game speed, but he's wrong about how he did it."
"I know."
"Take the private ice. Use it. When you come back, make sure nobody can question it."
I nod once and walk through the tunnel.
The locker room is empty. I strip the gear piece by piece, folding each item with the care of a man who isn't sure when he'll put it on again. The jersey goes last. My fingers trace the C stitched onto the chest.
Captain of a team that just watched me get benched.
The shower runs hot enough to scald. I stand under it until the water turns cold.
I dress slowly. The facility is quiet now, practice moved to a different sheet while the Zamboni resurfaces the main rink. Through the concrete walls, I can hear the muffled scrape of blades and Brennan's whistle, sharp and distant.
My stall has a nameplate above it. DONOVAN. Someone polished it recently. The brass is bright, no fingerprints.
Below the nameplate, taped to the inside panel, there's a photo I don't remember putting there. Me and the team after the championship.
It’s the same photo Ava placed on my mantle. I'm holding the cup with both hands and my face is filled with joy.
The man in that photo walked into this locker room and every player in it oriented toward him the way a defensive unit orients toward its anchor.
He earned it through his decisions, the extra film sessions, the hard conversations after losses. The willingness to take blame publicly for mistakes that weren't his.
I did all of that. I just can't remember it yet.
I pull on my shoes, tie them. The laces take two attempts because my hands aren't cooperating the way they did when I was lacing skates an hour ago.
I lean back in the stall and stare at the ceiling.
Brennan coached me before the memory gap. The man knows my game better than anyone alive, and he looked at me today and decided what he saw wasn't enough.
That sits like a stone in my chest.
Not the LTIR designation, which is administrative.
Not the private sessions, which are extra work I'd do anyway.
It's that the man who watched me build this program from the inside doesn't believe I can run it right now. And I can't be certain he's wrong.
Four years of defensive reads I made without thinking, gone. The shorthand with linemates built through hundreds of shifts together, gone.
Dr. Harold's form confirms my brain healed. It can't confirm that the hockey player who lived inside that brain survived with it.
I close the stall. My fingers press against the nameplate once, the brass cool and smooth.
The hallway to the parking garage is empty. My footsteps echo off the concrete. Each one sounds like a countdown to disaster.
I sit in my car for hours.
The clearance form wasn't enough.
I did everything right. Every exercise, every protocol, every milestone they set in front of me. I hit them all and asked for more. And the result is a designation on a roster sheet that says I'm not ready, decided by people who never asked me.
The parking lot empties around me. Players leave in ones and twos. Nobody knocks on my window. They know better.
I pull out my phone. My thumb finds Ava's name.
I don't want her walking into this facility and hearing secondhand that her fake boyfriend just got benched from the team he captains.
I pick up the phone and call her.
Three rings. "Hey. I'm between sites. Still coming to the rink once I get the chance."
"Don't."
A pause. "What happened?"
"Can I come to you?" I ask.
Because some things you don't say through a phone. You say them sitting across from the person who makes you believe the worst day isn't the last day.
She's quiet long enough that I hear traffic and a car horn on her end of the line.
"You can come over to my place,” she says finally. "But I won’t be home for at least another hour. There's a spare key under the ceramic pot by my front door. Third from the left. The dead succulent."
"You hide a key under a dead plant?"
"Don't judge my security system. I'll text you the address." Her voice softens. "Let yourself in, Kai."