11. Tyler #2
She's quiet for a moment. Then, "I figured if you wanted me to know, you'd tell me. And if you didn't, asking wouldn't make me a person you trusted. It would just make me a person who pushed before you were ready."
I don't have a reply for that. I don't think there is one. I just turn my head against the wall and look at her, and she looks back, and neither of us says anything for a long time.
"What about the coach?" she asks eventually. Pulling us back to safer ground. I'm grateful for it.
"Coach Wilson is weak. He sees what's happening and won't do anything about it. It’s easier to let Reaper run the team than risk causing problems in the locker room.
Team unity matters more than one player being miserable, right?
" The bitterness in my voice surprises even me.
"He pulled me aside once last November and asked if everything was okay.
I said yes because what else was I supposed to say?
He just nodded and walked away, relieved he didn't have to deal with it. "
"During practice, Reaper gets physical," I continue, because now that I've started talking, I can't stop.
"Checks that are harder than necessary. Cross-checks to the back when the coaches aren't looking.
Little things that add up day after day.
And I just take it because what else can I do?
If I fight back, I'm the problem. If I complain to Coach, I'm soft.
So I keep my head down and hope eventually he'll get bored and move on to torturing someone else. "
"Tyler." Nora's voice is soft but firm. "That's not okay. That's workplace harassment."
"That's hockey," I repeat. "This shit happens all the time in locker rooms. You deal with it, or you don't make it in this league."
"You shouldn't have to deal with it."
"Yeah, well." I look at her again, and she's watching me with an expression that isn't pity.
It's anger, I realize. Anger on my behalf.
"I dread going to practice. I dread going to games.
I dread every second I have to spend with this team, and training camp is two weeks of that.
Day after day, where I get to be reminded that my teammates think I'm worthless. "
My voice breaks on the last word, and I have to look away. Two weeks of walking back into that locker room. Some days will be longer than others, and some will be fine, but every single one of them will be spent somewhere I stopped wanting to be a long time ago. That's the part I can't get past.
"I'm sorry," Nora says quietly. "That sounds awful."
"It is awful. But I'm a professional hockey player. I should be able to handle some asshole teammates without falling apart." I laugh again, that same hollow sound. "I should be tougher than this. Instead, I'm sitting on my nursery floor having a breakdown with my daughter's nanny."
"You're allowed to struggle with this. You're allowed to admit it's hard."
"Am I?" I turn back to her. "Because it feels like weakness. It feels like I'm being a pussy about something I should just handle like every other guy in the league handles shitty team dynamics."
"You're not weak, Tyler. You're not weak for being hurt by people deliberately trying to hurt you. You're human. And what they're doing is cruel and calculated. It's designed to break you down."
Her words hit deeply in my chest, and suddenly, I'm fighting back tears.
"I'm so tired," I admit. "I'm tired of pretending it doesn't bother me. I'm tired of being alone all the time. I'm tired of dreading something I used to love more than anything."
Nora doesn't offer platitudes or false solutions. She sits there next to me, our knees touching, Harper sleeping against her chest. The silence between us feels understanding. Like, she gets that there's nothing to say that would fix this.
"Four days," I say finally. "Four days until I have to go back there."
"You'll survive it."
"Will I?"
"Yes." She says it with such certainty, I almost believe her. "You'll survive it because you're stronger than you think. And because you have a reason to come home now."
She glances down at Harper, and I follow her gaze to my daughter's sleeping face, peaceful now after all that screaming.
"Yeah," I mutter. "I do."
We sit here for another twenty minutes, neither of us moving, both of us existing in the quiet dark. My knee is still pressed against hers, and I'm aware of every point where we're touching. Eventually, Nora stands and transfers Harper to her crib.
I stand too, stretching muscles stiff from sitting on the floor. We're both in the doorway, the hallway beyond us.
"Thank you for listening to me bitch about my job."
"Anytime." She pauses. "I mean it. If you need to talk, if practice gets bad, whatever, I'm here."
Something loosens in my chest that I didn't know was wound that tight.
I've spent a year not saying any of this to anyone, carrying it around like something I didn't deserve to put down, and she just sat here on a nursery floor in the middle of the night and held the weight of it without flinching. "Even at three in the morning?"
"Especially at three in the morning. That's when the worst thoughts happen."
"Goodnight, Red."
"Goodnight, West."
I head back to my room, but sleep doesn't come. I lie in the dark, thinking about what I said, about admitting out loud how miserable I've been for a year, about Nora sitting next to me without judgment or pity.
The house only feels like home when she's in it.
The realization settles over me as the sun starts to lighten the sky outside my window. Not a sudden epiphany. A quiet truth I can't ignore anymore.
This house was just a rental before. A place to sleep, eat, and exist. But now, with Nora down the hall and Harper across from her, it feels like somewhere I want to be, instead of somewhere I have to be.
And that should terrify me. Should send me into a panic about crossing lines and all the reasons this is a bad idea.
But lying here in the pre-dawn quiet, all I can think about is the way she sat next to me on the nursery floor. The way she listened without trying to fix anything or tell me I was overreacting. The way her knee pressed against mine like an anchor.
The way she called me Tyler instead of West for the first time when she said I wasn't weak.
Four more days before I have to face Reaper, the team, and all the shit that comes with it.
But at least I'll have somewhere to come home to. Someone to come home to.
I lie here trying to figure out when that happened.
When she stopped being the nanny and started being the person I wanted to tell things to.
I think it was gradual, the way things that matter usually are.
The way she handled Harper from the first moment, like she already knew her.
The way she never made me feel stupid for not knowing things I had no reason to know.
The way she defended me to strangers at the park without hesitating and then looked away like she hadn't done anything.
She's been taking care of my daughter, and somewhere in the middle of that, I started to feel like she was taking care of me too, without either of us agreeing to it.
Without her even knowing she was doing it.
That's why I told her. Not because she pushed. Because she never did.
That's enough to get me through.