Page 53 of Like a Power Play (Greenrock University: Icebound #1)

Twenty Seven

Darcy

S omething most people don’t realize about living with a chronic illness is how much of it feels like failure.

Not the pain. That part, I can handle. The full body aches, the stiff throbbing joints, the fatigue. That all becomes background noise after a while. A constant presence you learn to ignore best you can.

But the failure? That’s harder to silence.

Failure for needing to cancel plans. For taking breaks. For saying no. For needing help. It doesn’t matter how valid the reasons are, some part of me always believes I’m letting everyone down.

That part is worse than the pain.

Which is why I’m here, in the Hornets visitor locker room, sitting on cold yellow metal with heat packs stuffed under my clothes and double knee braces, instead of curled up in bed where I probably belong.

I slept through the weekend. Skipped Monday’s practice, though not by choice.

My mom physically hid my skates. Peyton didn’t show for our early skate session the next morning, no matter how many times I said I’d be fine.

And Professor Palit pulled me aside after class yesterday, offering me virtual lessons again.

But tonight is the biggest game of the season so far. I owe it to Peyton—and the team, of course—to be here. And besides, everyone would get suspicious that my “food poisoning” was lasting so long.

“Why are the most important games always scheduled when my ovaries are rioting?” Harlowe grumbles, adjusting her massive leg pads.

She winces as Bailey yanks her short blonde hair into a painfully tight, completely ridiculous little bun on top of her head.

Half her hair still spills out the bottom, but at least the bangs are secured, which, I suppose, is the whole point.

“Because the other team couldn’t handle you at full power,” Bailey replies, snapping the hair tie into place with a satisfying pop. She pats Harlowe’s head like a well-groomed dog.

I glance around the room, mostly staying quiet.

Faith looks locked in, focused and ready to play.

I heard from Peyton that she patched things up with her ex, which probably explains the spring in her step these past few weeks.

Caydence is… well, Caydence. She’s currently leaned against the sink, slicking her hair into a ponytail so tight it gives me a headache just watching her.

Indie doesn’t look half as terrified as she did the first game of the season.

She’s still taking in slow, steady breaths, but now, she’s got a smile on her face as she talks to Lena about something I can’t quite hear.

It’s kind of wild how much you can learn about people just by listening. Watching. Like, how I know Caydence is Catholic, and Lena was born in Ireland. Harlowe has two moms and Zayda has a twenty-pound cat. That Indie grew up on a ranch down in Sundown Sands, Oregon, and has seven siblings. Seven.

I didn’t know any of that before. But I do now.

I don’t know if word got around about Minnesota, or if maybe I was just too much of a bossy bitch in the beginning, but the more I listen, the more they seem to listen too.

Lena’s been working on that low-angle wraparound shot I suggested at practice last week.

Faith adjusted her stride pattern after I pointed out she was wasting speed on wide-angle turns.

Even Caydence, of all people, accepted the electrolyte packets I gave her when she started to get dizzy during practice.

She didn’t say “thank you” or anything, but she’s been using them all week.

Lately, practice hasn’t felt like a job.

It’s felt like an escape. Like a reminder that, as much as I respect Professor Palit, I don’t have to spend my life in a job I’ll never truly love.

Like finding version of myself that’s old, yet new.

The same as before, but also different. No one looks at me like I’m fragile, because no one knows that I am.

Well… Peyton knows.

But she doesn’t treat me like I’m broken.

She just treats me like me.

I glance around the locker room and find her tucked into the corner by the bathroom, alone.

She’s staring down at her phone, thumbs tapping away.

I’ve seen her do it before every game. I just never knew what she was doing until recently.

Turns out it’s her dad she’s texting. He sends her a motivational message before every game, probably because she doesn’t let him actually come and watch.

She says it stresses her out too much and makes it harder to focus.

If my dad were Harrison Clarke, I think I’d feel the same way.

I saunter over and give her ponytail a playful tug.

“Flying low, or high tonight Icarus?” I tease.

But when Peyton whips around, the smirk that normally seems to be cemented to her face is gone. Her amber eyes are wide and glassy, her chest shuddering in rapid breaths.

My face drops.

My stomach drops.

My heart drops.

“Hey, are you okay?” I ask.

She nods, sucking in a breath, slower this time, but still shaky.

“I’m fine,” she says, turning back to her phone. I scan the locker room, everyone else still caught up in their own post-warm-up rituals. When I look back at Peyton, her cheek is sucked inward between her back teeth as she gnaws a hole through it.

Clearly, she is not fine.

I take one last glance around the room, before grabbing her wrist and tugging her into a bathroom stall. She doesn’t fight me. She doesn’t say anything. She just flies into it with me, the lock clicking shut behind us. A crease etches between her worried brows, and she looks at me, bewildered.

“What are you doing?” she whispers, her breath grazing my chin.

Her round eyes look up at me as she shifts back, though only an inch before the stall blocks her.

I study her for a moment. The dip in her cheek, the stutter in her breath.

I recognize this look. It’s the one she had after that phone call with her dad.

The one she had after reading that article last week.

She gets it before every game. But this is the full, unabridged version of it.

The extended edition, only, in the worst possible way.

Her throat bobs as she swallows, over and over like something’s caught inside. I want to clear it away. To make whatever this is stop.

“What’s wrong?” I ask. I hope she knows how sincerely I mean it. Peyton simply shakes her head, tossing a shoulder in an attempt to be cool. But I don’t want her to be cool. I want her to be honest. “Peyton, I can only help if you tell me what’s going on.”

It’s funny. That sentence has probably been spoken to me fifty times in the past year. I always rolled my eyes at it. But now that I’m the one saying it, I realize how true it is.

Her lips part as she sucks in another wavering breath, and her eyes drop to the concrete floor.

“I don’t know,” she says. “I’m… I’m just panicking.”

I nod, my mind swirling helplessly. I can tell she’s panicking. The only problem is that I don’t exactly know what to do about it.

“Okay, umh—” I glance around the barren stall, as if the answers will be engraved in the bright yellow walls. My head shakes, and I look back down at Peyton, tossing my hands out in a gesture. “What are you scared of?” I ask suddenly.

A crease slips over her brow. “What?”

“Well, you said you’re panicking—” I start, running a hand through my hair. “So what is it that you’re scared of right now?”

What Peyton and I have, it’s a give-and-go. One of us only makes the pass when we trust the other will be there to send it back. And right now, she needs to trust me.

“Okay, I’ll go first,” I say, watching the panic sink deeper. I swallow back the dry ache that’s been throbbing at the base of my throat since I got off the plane yesterday and straighten my posture. “I’m terrified to see Brenna. Like, stressed the fuck out.”

The furrow in her brow deepens. “Why?”

I hitch a shoulder. “I don’t know. I feel like if she sees me like this—” I gesture down my body, back into my loose, baggy coaching clothes, because just being here puts me in enough pain. “It’ll mean she won.”

The corner of Peyton’s lip twitches. It’s subtle, almost nonexistent, but I catch it. “Darcy, you’re coaching a D1 team. That’s huge.”

I nod. “Yeah, but she’s reffing them.”

Peyton’s brow quirks. “Because even when you were falling apart, you got drafted, and even in the prime of her health, she couldn’t.”

A soft chuckle slips out of me, and I look down at her, brushing the hair from her eyes. “Your turn.”

“It’s…” She hesitates. “A couple of things. And they’re not really all relevant right now.”

“That’s okay."

She falls silent for a moment, her breath steadying, then finally gives in.

“I’m scared that if I screw this season up, if the Sabertooths don’t draft me this summer— if we even make it to the finals —it’ll mean I only got here because of my dad.” She pauses, her gaze dropping to her fumbling hands.

“And I’m scared that if I do make it to the Sabertooths, it’ll be because of him too. But more than that...” She clears her throat, her shoulders shifting. Then, those amber eyes snap up, and everything else—Brenna, my flare-up, it all fades away.

“More than that, I’m scared that if I play like myself, like you said, I’ll let people down.”

“Like who?” I ask.

Peyton shrugs. “Everyone. The tabloids, the recruiters, the team, my dad.” She pauses. “You.”

My heart trips over itself, and the next words leave my mouth before I even choose them.

“Do it.”

Peyton studies me, confused. “What?”

“Do it. Let me down. Crash and burn and miss every shot, because it doesn't matter. What matters is that you're on the ice because you love it. Not to prove something. Not to keep a stupid family legacy alive. Not to rewrite the headlines. But because there's nowhere else you'd rather be.”