Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 81281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
“Thank you,” I say, but I know there’s more coming.
“I still have concerns though,” she says, and her tone becomes slightly harder. “The underlying anger is still there.”
I look at her.
“The improvement is real,” she continues. “I’m not walking it back. But improvement and resolution aren’t the same thing and you know that. You’re managing it but trust me when I tell you that it has a ceiling, Locke. We’ve talked about this. Whatever is feeding your anger, it’s still there. And my concern is that at some point this season, or next season, or in the playoffs when the pressure compounds and the stakes are real, the lid comes off. And when it does, the team will let you go, and I doubt another will take you. Your hockey career will end.”
Her words strike true, but it’s not a warning I need. I know how precarious things are. They’ve been that way forever.
“I’ve managed it for nine years,” I say, my only defense.
“You’ve managed it badly for nine years,” she corrects me.
I look at the window again.
She’s not wrong, but neither am I.
“So.” I bring my eyes back to her. “What do you want from me?”
“I want to know where it comes from.”
“Come on, Livia. You should have this figured out by now.” I reply evenly. “You know my childhood. I learned early that I wasn’t anyone’s priority. Attachment issues and all that.”
“That’s not where it comes from,” she says softly and with such certainty, I know I can’t bullshit her. “The childhood history is real and it matters, but that’s not the source of the anger. That’s the foundation. Something happened, Locke. Something very specific. And it’s that thing that’s been driving the on-ice behavior for the better part of a decade.”
I say nothing.
The room is very quiet.
“There was someone,” she continues, carefully. Like she’s handling a live bomb. “I’m guessing you were close to that person and now you don’t have him or her anymore.”
I force myself to hold her gaze.
To not look away.
She leans forward over her desk. “I’m not guessing. Someone you trusted completely failed you, and it left behind an anger that keeps resurfacing on the ice. It’s got nothing to do with the refs or the opposing players or the institutional oversight you despise. All of this is about one person, and I want to know who it is.”
I’m not sure at what point in her onslaught I decide to offer a truth or why I’m doing it, but I say, “It was a friend.” The word feels strange in my mouth, as if from a language I used to speak. “We grew up playing together, went through Major Junior together.”
“Your best friend,” she surmises.
I nod. “He was the only person I’d have called family. At that point in my life, the only one.”
“What happened?” she asks gently.
I lift my chin. “He betrayed me.”
She’s quiet for a moment. “How?”
“Does it matter?”
“You know it does,” she chides.
A small, mirthless laugh escapes. “Yeah… I guess it does. But all you need to know is that the betrayal cost me everything in that environment, and he did it deliberately, and I’ve never—” I stop, unlock my teeth. “I’ve never reconciled it. There. That’s the answer. That’s where the anger comes from. A person I trusted completely destroyed something I couldn’t rebuild, then I had to face him across the ice on a schedule determined by the league for the next decade.” I look at her. “Satisfied?”
“That’s Adam Belleau? The player that called you a traitor?”
“The one and only,” I grit out.
“What did he do?”
“I just told you—”
“You told me the category,” she says. “Not the thing.”
“The thing isn’t your business.”
“It became my business when it started costing you jobs.” She says it quietly. Not cruelly, but without backing down. “Did he sleep with someone you cared about?”
The question is so far from the actual thing that a bark of a laugh escapes and I shake my head. “No, nothing like that.”
“Did it happen on the ice? Take a cheap shot, cost you a contract somewhere—”
“No.”
“Then what—”
“Drop it.”
“Locke.”
“I said drop it.” My voice comes out harder than I intend and she doesn’t flinch, which is simultaneously what I expect from her and what makes me want to put my fist through the window.
She looks at me, unwilling to back down, searching for a new in. “He lied,” she guesses, and I blink in surprise at how close she is. “He lied about something very important. And it made you look like the problem when you weren’t.”
The accuracy of it lands a physical punch to my gut, which immediately knots up.
I don’t confirm it. I don’t have to. She can see it in my face and we both know it. The fact that she got there without me telling her is both impressive and infuriating at the same time.