Page 59 of Uncoachable

I look at the picture on the mantel: her at my high school graduation, looking so healthy it feels like a lie. I touch the frame, the glass cool against my fingertips, and for a second, I’m seventeen again, and the world is still whole.

I call my aunt. Like I always do.

She picks up on the second ring. She doesn’t ask how I’m doing or try to brighten her voice to cheer me up. She lets the silence sit between us until my breathing evens out. She reminds me to eat something, even if it’s just toast. She tells me grief doesn’t follow rules or timelines—it shows up whenever it wants and doesn’t ask for permission.

She says my mom would’ve liked the man I’ve become, even if I don’t always like him myself.

When we hang up, I sit on the edge of the bed, elbows on my knees, staring at the floor.

I think about my dad, or rather, the absence of him.

A man who left before he ever learned how to stay.

He is a ghost I rarely think about at all, mostly because my mom made sure his absence didn’t leave a hole. She filled every corner of our lives so completely that it never felt like anyone was missing.

I consider staying home. I could let the day pass quietly and let the grief take up space without witnesses.

Then I picture the rink. I think of the ice, the routine, and the sound of blades carving into something solid.

I need motion instead of memory.

I need noise instead of silence.

For a moment, Iveline flashes into my mind—the way she laughed last night, the red dress, the way she looked at me like she wasn’t afraid of what she saw.

I shove the thought away before it can take root. Wanting her right now feels like stealing focus from a grief that still deserves my full attention.

***

The arena feels different when I walk in.

Voices stay low. Jokes land softer. Even Brick doesn’t slam his gear like he usually does. Someone even turns the music down in the locker room without a single complaint.

They know.

Or maybe they just feel it, like they do every year.

In a locker room, there are no secrets.

We spend more time together than we do with our own families. We know each other’s cycles, moods, and scars.

They know that on this day, I don’t initiate the chirping. I don’t lead the stretches with my usual intensity. Even the coaching staff seems to give me a wider berth. It’s a strange, heavy kind of grace.

But then there’s Finn. He knows that if he treats me with kid gloves, I’ll spiral. He knows I need the friction to stay grounded in the present.

“Morning, sunshine,” he says brightly, skating backward in front of me as we take the ice. “You look like a man who needs a miracle—or, at minimum, a dozen donuts.”

I glare at him, the expression hard and flat.

He grins wider. “Okay. Hostile. Noted. We’ll work on that.”

Ten minutes later, he tries again.

He chirps during a drill, deliberately botching a pass just to get a rise out of me. I snap at him, my voice echoing off the rafters. He laughs like that was his goal all along.

He’s annoying as hell, but he’s effective. He’s keeping me here, even when my heart is eight years in the past.

And then I notice her.