Something closed in me that night. Something that went all the way down, past the place where it was a choice, past the place where I was doing it on purpose. Something that had closed at that kitchen window the second I understood what my father saw through it.
Not a fight. Not a bad grade. Not a rule I broke or a chore I forgot or anything I could have fixed if I tried harder.
Just me. Being myself.
Standing too close to someone. Laughing too loud. Forgetting to check who was watching.
Just me, being something my father saw through a window and immediately recognized and knew what to do about it.
I didn't have a word for it yet.
But the message landed anyway. The thing he saw and the thing he decided about it and the specific methodical way he spent an entire afternoon making sure I understood.
I understood.
I twirled my fork and I didn't look up.
I learned the rule so completely that eventually it stopped feeling like a rule. It just felt like who I was.
I was eleven years old and I was learning the most important thing anyone would ever teach me.
Want nothing.
Show nothing.
Be nothing anyone can see.
Be still.
Be still.
Be still.
Chapter 13
Rhys
Morning practice has a different energy.
Not bad different.
Worse.
The kind that lives under the skin. That makes the air feel like it's been charged overnight and left that way. Like both of you showed up covered in gasoline and are standing around pretending you don't smell it on each other—like you’re both not about to light the match and ignite.
Jamie is already on the ice when I get there. Obviously. He’s always already there. I’m starting to think he sleeps in the rafters like some kind of emotionally repressed homeless guy.
But this morning, he looks up when I come through the tunnel. That’s new. He usually makes a point not to. Pretends he doesn’t hear me until I’m already stepping onto the ice, like acknowledging my existence before absolutely necessary will somehow weaken him.
Today his eyes find me immediately and stay.
I slow down without meaning to. Stare at him without meaning to. He’s at center ice, helmet tucked under one arm, stick in his other hand, wearing that grey practice hoodie under his pads. It pulls across his shoulders in a way that makes them look broader, makes his eyes look greener, makes me want to say something to bother him just to break whatever this is.
“Nash,” I call when I get close enough.
“Callahan.”
Same words. Different air around them. Something has changed in our dynamic, something we’re both helpless to, but don’t know how to navigate.
