Chapter 2 Harlan
TWO
HARLAN
JANUARY
“Chef just saved my life.”
I felt like Scrooge on Christmas morning, except rather than being on bustling Victorian London streets, I was walking into the Rusties’ locker room. Everything had changed for me in a matter of seconds.
My life could now be seen as two distinct worlds: before the bus and after the bus. That split second where everything that was happening registered: someone calling my name, a bus headed toward me, being shoved to the curb and out of harm’s way.
That stuff about your life flashing before your eyes wasn’t just some lame cliché.
A confusing mixture of life’s best moments and my greatest regrets passed before me, but maybe the greatest regret of all was just floating along in life.
Not much of what I did was intentional, just a consequence of dominos falling.
Sometimes it made pretty shapes, and other times, it fell off a table.
But no more floating for me. I would never be the same after what just happened. And Chef was the one to change my life. Chef Emma.
Emma.
The way Emma looked at me after she saved me was new and different. She almost seemed like she wanted me. And for a minute there, I wanted her too. Thinking about that look made me lose the urge to breathe, air suspended in my lungs in the way it had in the moment before we hit the ground.
It was absurd. Chef didn’t want me. No way. She stopped whatever had been about to happen. And I didn’t want Chef. Did I?
My hands shook as I did my daily exercise to mentally settle in: origami.
I’d been working on a project to make a thousand cranes, because it’s supposed to make all your wishes come true.
Thankfully, cranes were easy to fold with how shaky my fingers were.
But I’d probably just burned whatever luck I’d saved up, because how lucky was I? I was still alive.
“How did Chef save your life?” Jack Leroy grumbled to my declaration, only seeming half-interested.
“I . . . I was on the phone and I wasn’t looking, and I almost got hit by a bus. But then I was tackled from behind and was on the ground.”
Our alternate captain, Dylan Sorrento, snapped his head up. “Seriously?”
“Are you okay?” Our captain, Colton Jones, stepped forward and looked me over.
My words came slowly as I processed it out loud.
“Yes. Yeah. I’m fine. But Chef. She saved me.
I think she’s hurt but she wouldn’t let me do anything.
She came at me with all her might and tackled me.
I fell on her. She saved my life. And she dropped her coffee.
” I examined the trail of brown liquid on my pants leg, a reminder that I hadn’t hallucinated this whole thing.
“My phone got crushed under the bus. That could have been me. It could have been her. What if she hadn’t been there? ”
I held up my phone and a piece of shattered glass fell from it for dramatic effect.
“Holy shit,” Cap said. “Has anybody seen her this morning? We should go check on her.”
Wait, she had been in pain and I just let her leave. What kind of an asshole was I? I should have taken her to the hospital. Insisted on taking her to work. Figured out some way to thank her.
Cap walked my way and put his arms out. “Glad you’re okay, buddy.” He squeezed me in a quick hug and slapped my back. “Why don’t you go have medical check you over? I’ll go check on Chef and see if we can get somebody to help with your phone.”
My thoughts swirled while my legs carried me to the PT room.
This was a wakeup call. My past on-again-off-again relationship had been officially over for going on two months, and it still almost killed me. I needed to block her number once and for all.
She didn’t accept me for who I was, and when I refused to change for her, she took it as a rejection. But I was the one being manipulated. It was madness. And I couldn’t keep nursing her through the heartache I allegedly caused. She was the one who rejected me.
She was the one who, when I figured out my sexuality and came out to her, immediately started asking which of my teammates I’d slept with.
Instead of me only being a potential cheater with women, now everyone was someone I could cheat with.
Goalie hugs? That was just my way to get affection from people who weren’t her.
This was the end of me worrying about what happened to her. This was the beginning of living for myself.
The bus may not have hit me, but a critical realization did: I needed to be more intentional in my life. Who I included. What I did for others. How I spent my time. Everything needed to be reevaluated.
I would emerge as Harlan 2.0.
Other people must have felt this way. Your whole world changed in an instant, shifted irrevocably. The grasp you’d had on the world crumbles. But the universe was unfeeling. Uncaring.
What if I had died? What had I not done in my life that I wanted to do? Win a Cup? Become a chef?
Find somebody who loved me for who I was? Was that even possible?
And what about Chef? Was she going through the same shake-up? I shouldn’t have let her go into work alone. I felt responsible and here was Cap, going off to do my dirty work.
I was responsible. I was the dumbass who walked out in front of a bus.
I had to find her. I had to find some way to thank her.
I needed to be better. Right here, this pivotal moment, this was the time I could reshape myself.
Gone was the Harlan who let life happen to him.
Gone was the Harlan who bent over backward to make someone else comfortable.
Gone was the Harlan who was too afraid to strive for more because he was afraid of failing.
I was going to be who I wanted to be. Starting right now.
Rusties’ goalie coach Lars Olson poked his head into the PT room as I was hopping off the table. “You all good? Jones told me you took a hit. From a bus?”
“Yeah. All good, though,” I said, even though I still wasn’t free of my post-bus daze.
“Coach wants to see you.”
My throat dried, but I went along like nothing was wrong. Was I getting let go? “Great. Yeah. I’ll go now.”
Olson fell in step beside me. You usually couldn’t get the guy to shut up, but now he was tight-lipped.
“Am I in trouble?” I asked, again trying to sound casual and likely failing. Maybe I really had sustained a brain injury and PT just didn’t catch it. My thoughts drifted to Chef again. Why wasn’t she getting checked over by medical?
“Nah,” Olson said. “Should be good news.”
We rounded the corner into Coach’s office and Olson closed the door behind us. I took my usual spot leaning my shoulder against his whiteboard and crossing my arms. I sometimes came away with little marker lines on my arms or shirtsleeves, depending on whether I had a shirt on.
Harlan 2.0 was going to wear shirts though. Or maybe not wear shirts? Muscles were scary. Did Harlan 2.0 want to be respected or feared? That was something to worry about later.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Would you like to sit?” Coach asked, putting aside his usual clipped tone.
My instinct was to decline, but I was reinventing myself. Harlan 2.0 wouldn’t feel threatened by sitting. Someone who took themselves seriously commanded respect, but didn’t demand it.
Damn, I was on my way to being a motivational speaker. Put that on a corporate poster. I sat, and Olson sat beside me with his elbows on his knees.
“What are you doing walking out in front of buses, Royce?” he asked.
I shook my head and snorted. “Freak accident. My head wasn’t on.”
He looked me over, considering me. “And it’s on now?”
“Yeah, yeah. All good. I’m awake now.” I added a little chuckle to show just how with it I was.
“Good. So, we’re sending Frederick down to the Nails.”
I lifted a shoulder. “Makes sense.” Frederick was our back-up goalie who had become permanent since Nielsen was out for the season with an injury. I didn’t have the best save percentage in the world, but I wasn’t first in line to get demoted. “Who’s replacing him?”
Olson sat back, stretching his arms and locking his hands behind his head. “You’ll never guess.”
“Well, it’s not Doyle, because he’s in jail.” Cap famously dealt out the injury that led to Doyle’s downfall last season.
Coach shook his head. “It’s Cordero.”
“Oh, wow.” I had looked up to Eric Cordero my whole career. The shock made me say something stupid. “He’s way better than me.”
Olson wouldn’t meet my eyes and Coach tipped his head from side to side. “He is toward the end of his career.”
“Toward it? I thought he was retiring? Doesn’t Toronto want to keep him until the end?”
Coach’s tongue traced his upper teeth. “That’s why we wanted to talk to you first. As you know, Toronto also has—”
“Stevenson, right.” Stevenson was maybe the hottest up and coming goalie in the league.
“Yes, and Cordero’s wife is from Ohio. They want to test out a life here.”
Something about that didn’t sit right. There had to be more to it. I waited, knowing Coach would eventually cave. The man loved a beat of drama.
“And Stevenson’s record is cutting into Cordero’s playing time.”
Blood rushed in my ears. “So he wants more starts.”
That meant I would no longer be the preferred goalie.
Olson nodded. “Yes, but we thought it would be good for you for a lot of reasons. Take the pressure off. You’d have his mentorship.”
“Our record has been fucking impeccable since November. I’ve only lost two!”
Coach put his hands out. “We know that. You’re not being replaced.” He sighed and scrubbed a hand over his hair, giving it a pat on either side to retain his almost helmet-like style. “We thought you’d be excited for the opportunity to play with him.”
I let out a breath and closed my eyes. Cordero had been my idol for as long as I could remember. Embarrassing posters of him in my room and everything. Ten-year-old Harlan would be doing cartwheels right now.
“I am. I’m excited. But I . . .” I mustered up the strength to say something big, to actually push myself.
If I wanted to be taken seriously, I had to start with taking myself seriously.
“I want to prove to you that I’m good enough to be first. I almost just got hit by a bus, and I don’t know.
It did something to me. I don’t want to be second best. Not as a player and not as a team.
” I stood and paced in the narrow space in front of Coach’s desk.
“We are better than we’ve ever been. We could take the whole thing if we just focus. ”
“I agree,” Coach said. “So I want you to take this fire under your ass and prove it. To me. To the guys out there. To the fans.”
I fought the urge to pump a fist in the air. Instead, I planted my fists on Coach’s desk. “And when I do, you’re either getting me $10 million next year, or you’re getting me out of here.”
Olson coughed, but Coach met my eyes. “When you do,” he emphasized, “I will do everything I can to get you your bag.”