Page 33

TWENTY-TWO

DERRICK

I sit slumped on Dr. Sloan's couch, wearing my Vipers hoodie and jeans, damp hair curling slightly from the cold post-practice shower.

My legs bounce with leftover adrenaline.

My hands, clenched too tight, placed on my thighs.

Across from me, Dr. Sloan doesn't say anything at first. She waits, so patient this woman.

She's a saint, cool, composed, pen poised but unmoving.

"You want to talk about what happened out there?" she asks gently.

I let out a sharp breath, eyes fixed on the floor. "Which part?"

She doesn't answer, just waits again. That's her thing. The silence is never accidental. Eventually, I cave.

"I flinched. Again. But then I didn't. Willis threw me into one-on-ones with Maxwell." My voice catches on the name. "I got through it."

"I saw." She leans forward slightly, elbows on her knees. "That was a big moment."

"Yeah, and it still feels like I'm hanging by a thread." I rub the back of my neck. "Like if that puck had been an inch higher?—"

"But it wasn't." She interrupts softly. "And you caught it. You didn't just survive it, Derrick. You faced it head-on."

I drag a hand down my face, frustration still simmering under my skin. "So why do I still feel like shit?"

"Because the fear doesn't disappear just because you prove it wrong once." Her voice is calm, steady. "Your brain still remembers the trauma. The body still holds it. Today was a win, but it wasn't a cure. There's no switch we flip that makes you who you were before."

That hits harder than I expect. "Then what's the point?"

"The point is learning how to live with it.

Not letting it define you. You're not broken, Derrick.

You're healing, and healing isn't linear.

" She sits back, folding her hands in her lap.

"And you're allowed to be angry that it's not easier.

You're allowed to grieve the version of yourself that existed before the injury. "

My throat tightens again. "And what if that version never comes back?"

She tilts her head slightly. "Then we build a new one. One that can hold all of this," she waves her hand in my direction and continues. "The strength, the fear, the failure, the fight. You don't have to erase any of it to move forward."

I sit in silence for a moment, her words echoing in the quiet room.

"I still don't know if I'm ready," I admit, voice low.

"You don't have to be," she says. "You just have to keep trying."

The room falls quiet again. My leg hasn't stopped bouncing, a persistent rhythm that matches my racing thoughts. Outside her window, the voices of my teammates can be heard in the distance, the sound of the Zamboni making its rounds along the ice, a familiar comfort.

"When I was five," I start, surprising myself, "my mom took me to my first hockey game.

Nosebleed seats was all she could afford.

I remember being mad we were so far away.

" A ghost of a smile touches my lips. "But then the goalies came out.

That's when something clicked. The way they moved, how they controlled everything.

. .I told my mom that night I was gonna be one of them. "

Dr. Sloan nods, her expression open, not pushing.

"She worked two, sometimes three jobs to get me gear.

Used stuff, mismatched pads. Kids laughed, but I didn't care.

" My fingers pick at a loose thread on my hoodie.

"Every milestone, every achievement, it was all for her. My hockey achievements were an accumulation of both our hard work. I want to make every goal I save worth it.”

I swallow hard, my throat suddenly tight.

"And now? What does hockey mean to you now?" Dr. Sloan asks, her voice gentle but probing.

"That's the problem. I don't know anymore." The admission feels like ripping off a bandage, raw and stinging. "Before, it was everything. Simple. Now it's tangled up with the accident, with fear."

"That's normal," she replies.

"On the ice today, with Maxwell. . . I felt like I was back there. Finals. The lights. The sound the puck made when it—" I cut myself off, my hand unconsciously touching the faded scar near my temple. "For a second, I wasn't here anymore. I was there."

Dr. Sloan leans forward. "That's a flashback, Derrick. It's a normal response to trauma."

"Normal for someone who doesn't belong on professional ice anymore," I mutter.

"Is that what you believe? That you don't belong?"

The question hangs between us. I think about earlier, how Maxwell's shots had terrified me at first, then how something had shifted. How I'd found my body again, my reflexes, my instincts. The way Bast had watched me from across the ice, gray eyes intense.

"I don't know what I believe anymore," I admit. "But I know what I want."

"Which is?"

"To stop being afraid. To play like I used to." I pause, gathering courage. "To figure out how to get out of my own way."

Dr. Sloan's lips quirk in a small smile. "Those are good goals. Complex, but good."

"How do I even start?"

"You already have." She gestures toward me. "You showed up today, to practice, to this session. You faced Maxwell. You're talking about things that scare you."

I consider this, turning her words over in my mind. Maybe she's right. Maybe I've been so focused on what I've lost that I haven't recognized what I'm gaining. A new kind of strength, forged in pain but no less valuable.

"One day at a time?" I ask, a hint of my old self peeking through. This new mantra seems to be the theme of my life in more ways than one. One day, one moment, one night, step by freaking step. My words to live by.

Dr. Sloan smiles. "One day at a time. And remember, healing isn't about erasing what happened. It's about building something new with the pieces you have now."

As I stand to leave, I feel lighter somehow. Not fixed, she's right that there's no magic switch, but steadier. Like maybe I can do this after all.

One day at a time. One shot at a time. One conversation at a time.

Starting with Bast. I don't know how to start but I have to try.

When I eventually exit her office, the corridor is silent.

The stadium is largely deserted now but there he stands, Sebastian, propped against the distant wall like some brooding sentinel.

God, this man. Even when he's scowling with his arms crossed, he's absolutely stunning.

The overhead lights cast shadows along his jawline, highlighting the intensity in his posture that would intimidate anyone else.

Our eyes meet across the empty hallway. I prepare myself for judgment. For frustration, for how short I was with him earlier. Anything. Something that would confirm I've disappointed him yet again, but his expression gives nothing away, a practiced mask of neutrality.

Instead, he straightens with deliberate slowness, pushes off the wall with a graceful shift of his shoulders, and simply waits.

We walk in silence to the car, our footsteps echoing against concrete, the only sound between us. Neither of us knows where to begin. The weight of all our unsaid words feels physical, something I could reach out and touch if I dared.

The tension stretches as the city passes by in a blur of muted colors, neon signs smearing into watercolor streaks, streetlights pooling gold on wet pavement. Seattle at night feels both beautiful and melancholy, matching the hollow ache in my chest.

At the house, I drop my gear inside the door with a muffled thump and start for the stairs, already cataloguing excuses to retreat to my room, a room I haven't actually slept in for weeks.

That fact alone has me reeling. How did I get here?

Sharing Sebastian's bed night after night while pretending during daylight hours that we're just. .

.what exactly? Teammates? Friends? Something undefined that neither of us has been brave enough to name.

At this point I'm willing to lock myself in my forgotten bedroom just to avoid whatever conversation is brewing between us.

The walls would offer sanctuary from his penetrating gaze, from the questions I know are coming.

I was so brave when I left Dr. Sloan's office, full of determination and clarity about what I needed to say to him.

Now, though, that courage has evaporated like morning dew, and I want nothing more than to brush it all under the rug, pretend everything's fine, keep living in this beautiful, fragile limbo we've created.

Bast's voice stops me, low and certain in the quiet foyer. The sound of it freezes me mid-step, my hand hovering over the polished banister, my heart hammering against my ribs like it's trying to escape.

"Derrick."

I turn slowly, feeling my resolve dissolve beneath his gaze like sugar in hot water. This man has always had the ability to unmoor me with just the sound of my name on his lips.

"You're gonna have to talk to me." His voice is steady, measured, the voice he uses when he's trying to contain something volatile beneath the surface.

I cross my arms, a shield of flesh and bone that does nothing to protect my heart. "Like you talk to me?" The words come out sharper than I intended, edged with weeks of unspoken frustration.

He flinches, just slightly, a micro expression anyone else would miss, but I've spent hours memorizing the topography of his face. "That's not fair."

"Isn't it?" My voice rises, bouncing off the high ceilings of his immaculate home. "I've been in your bed, your house, your arms and I still don't know what the hell we are. What you want. Who you even are." The truth spills out, messy and raw, impossible to recapture once released.

"Don't do that," he warns, his accent thickening the way it does when emotion breaches his carefully constructed walls.