32. Iveline
Iveline
The rink is quiet now.
There are no skates carving jagged lines into the surface, no sticks knocking against the boards like rhythmic gunfire. There is just the deep, steady breath of the building itself, a vast cavern of chilled air waiting for the storm of the Eastern Conference Finals to resume.
Sometimes, when the rink is this quiet, I remember my mother the way she really was—sunlight in motion, always warm, always laughing.
She had this way of softening my father without even trying. I used to watch her loop a scarf around his neck before he left for work, teasing him about his terrible knot, and he’d let her fuss over him with that small, private smile he never showed anyone else.
They were a matched set, the kind of quiet, steady love that made the whole house feel warmer.
I don’t see her vividly in my memory; I see her in fragments—the sound of her laugh or a silk scarf left on the back of a velvet chair.
I remember how my mother used to sit on the edge of my bed and tell me stories—not fairy tales, but little pieces of her life with my father.
She’d talk about how he was shy when they met, how he brought her flowers every Friday, how he’d look at her like she was the only fixed point in a chaotic world.
I remember thinking they were unbreakable.
After she died, the house didn’t just get quieter—it got colder.
My father tried so hard to keep everything together, but grief rearranges a person.
I think I learned then that loving someone can be the most beautiful and the most terrifying thing you ever do. I learned then what love costs.
I watched it hollow my father out until there was nothing left but the architecture of a man. I watched his grief calcify into discipline, a rigid control that he applied to every corner of our lives like a tourniquet.
So I adapted.
Distance became my primary instinct.
Precision became my armor.
I told myself that if I never let myself want too much or need too deeply, then nothing could ever truly be taken from me.
But now, the armor is a ruin of jagged shards.
The world is trapped in an endless loop of game four. It is slowed down, zoomed in, and dissected from every possible angle by every sports network in the country. The media didn’t hesitate to sharpen their knives.
“Ice Queen Melts Down.”
“Assistant Coach Abandons Bench Mid-Game.”
The headlines bleed into tweets, and the tweets turn into reels where the footage of me screaming at the referees is analyzed frame by frame. They pause on my face, looking for a secret, for a scandal, for anything they can use to rewrite my intentions.
They don’t see a coach worried about a player.
They see a woman losing control and being emotional.
For years, my father’s voice was my north star.
Stoicism as survival; control as currency.
It worked—until it didn’t.
It worked until Callahan Moore forced his way into my periphery.
Now, I realize that what I’ve been calling discipline might just be avoidance dressed up as strength. I wasn’t protecting myself from pain; I was protecting myself from connection. I was hiding from the kind of bond that changes you, the kind that leaves a mark even if it ends.
Especially if it ends.
Standing here now, outside the locker room door before our first practice without our captain, that old compass is useless.
When I look at this team, I don’t see assets or jersey numbers.
I see people. And if being “emotional” is the cost of protecting one of them, I find that I’m willing to pay it.
I push the door open.
A few players straighten their backs instinctively. One of the rookies quickly sets his phone face down on the bench. Brick lifts his head first, his expression unreadable. Leo turns fully toward me. Cash’s usual grin is gone, replaced with a focused intensity.
Callahan’s stall is empty. The absence of him is a physical weight in the room. Every eye finds me, waiting for the apology, the explanation, or the breakdown.
“I know what’s being said in the news,” I begin, my voice carrying cleanly to every corner. “And I know some of you are wondering if the rumors are true.”
No one looks away.
“I lost my composure,” I continue. “You all saw it. The league saw it. It was a breach of protocol and a lapse in professional distance to leave that bench before the game was done.”
I pause, meeting Brick’s eyes, then Leo’s. “But here is what matters: I show up. I work. I earn my place every single day. I am here to win a Cup. And if anyone in this room thinks my personal feelings interfere with my ability to lead this team to a victory—say it now.”
The silence that follows isn’t empty.
It is absolute.
Brick nods once, a solid gesture of alignment. Leo’s shoulders square, his chin lifting in a show of defiance against the outside noise. Cash crosses his arms, his stance widening like he’s anchoring himself to the floor.
No one speaks.
“Alright,” I say, regaining my edge. “Gear up. Ice in ten. We have a series to finish.”
The room exhales as one. Movement resumes, smoother than before. Normalcy is restored, but it’s a new kind of normal—one where the walls have shifted.
I step back, my clipboard tucked under my arm, watching them prepare. My mind begins to click into place—lines, power-play adjustments, and defensive drills.
“Talvi.”
I look up.
Carter Hale stands by the equipment racks.
“Hale.” I keep my tone neutral, braced for a jab.
“Not here,” he says, his voice low. “Too many ears.”
He turns and walks toward the hallway. I hesitate for only a breath, then follow him.
We stop near the trainers’ office, where the lights are dimmer and the air is colder. He exhales once, a slow, measured breath. For a long moment, we just stand there, suspended in a silence that feels heavier than any argument we’ve had this season.
“You’re hard on us,” he says at last.
“But,” he adds, rubbing the back of his neck and keeping his gaze fixed on the floor, “you’re fair. Probably the fairest coach I’ve ever had.”
The words hit me harder than any jab he’s thrown at me.
“I misjudged you,” he continues. “I thought you weren’t real. I thought you were just a name and a legacy. I thought you’d crack when it got loud. When it got ugly.”
His eyes lift to mine, steady and unflinching.
“I was wrong.”
The apology is there—unpolished and unadorned—but it is unmistakable.
“I tested you,” he says, his jaw flexing. “I took shots I didn’t need to take just to see if you’d blink.” His mouth tightens into a thin line. “That’s on me.”
“I’m sorry,” he finishes. “For all of it.”
I realize in this moment that he wasn’t trying to break me because he thought I was weak. He was testing the strength of the ship before we sailed into the storm.
“You stood your ground,” he says quietly. “When it mattered. When everyone was watching and waiting for you to fail.”
He pauses. “Don’t change. We need you the way you are. Not the way the papers want you to be.”
He nods once, a stiff gesture, like vulnerability is a language he’s only just learning and doesn’t want to speak for too long.
I watch him go, his silhouette disappearing into the bright light of the arena. The hallway feels different now—lighter, as if a weight has finally been set down.
I’ve always told myself I keep my distance because it’s smart. But standing here, accepted by the hardest man on this roster, I understand the truth.
I don’t avoid love because I don’t believe in it.
I avoid it because I do.
I know exactly how powerful it is. I know how devastating and irreversible it can be. And for the first time in my life, I’m not interested in outrunning that fear anymore.
I push off the wall and step toward the rink door. The cold air spills out to meet me like a greeting. I put on my skates and step onto the ice.
The ice feels different beneath my feet.
It’s not hostile.
It is mine.
I walk along the boards, and the players naturally part around me. I stop at center ice. Twenty pairs of eyes settle on me, waiting. My breath fogs in the cold air, steady and sure.
I don’t need to be untouched to be strong. I don’t need to be alone to be safe.
And I certainly don’t need to become my father to honor what he lost.
If loving someone means risking the kind of pain that leaves scars—then maybe those scars are proof that I lived fully instead of carefully.
“Alright,” I say, and my voice carries to every corner of the rink. “Let’s work. We have a series to win.”
***
Two days later, we take Game Five without Callahan. And somehow, impossibly, the momentum holds and two nights later, we take Game Six too.
It’s not pretty—nothing in May ever is—but when the final horn blares and the boys erupt off the bench, it hits me like a punch to the ribs.
We did it.
We’re going to the Stanley Cup Final.
The locker room becomes a storm of noise and sweat and disbelief, and for the first time all season, I let myself smile without restraint. Not the polite, professional kind—the real one. The one that feels like oxygen after months underwater.
My phone vibrates.
Callahan: You were unreal out there. I don’t think you realize how good you are.
I close my eyes, letting the words settle into the hollows of my chest.
The phone buzzes again.
Callahan: Proud of you. More than you know.
The air in my lungs hitches, a sudden, sharp catch. Before I can even begin to process the weight of that, another notification slides across the glass.
Claire: I know tonight meant a lot. Your dad… he’s proud too. Even if he’s terrible at saying it. I’m proud of you as well. You coach with so much heart.
The words hit with a different kind of gravity—steady and careful, the way she always is when he isn’t.
Seeing her name on the screen is like finding a familiar landmark in a storm. In the two years since she married my father, Claire has become the only person who knows how to navigate the frozen terrain he leaves behind.
She is the bridge he refuses to build, the stepmother acting as the quiet translator for a language he only speaks in shadows.
I let out a long, shuddering exhale, watching the frantic celebration of my teammates blur into a haze of motion. The noise of the room fades into a dull hum, and for the first time all year, the iron bands around my ribs don’t just loosen; they simply fall away.
I don’t look for my father’s name in the call log. I don’t need the ghost of a man who isn’t here when I have the reality of the people who are.
I tuck the phone into my pocket and let the storm of the room swallow me whole, finally moving toward the light instead of the shadows.