“But…at least he’s still letting you play?”
“Fornow,” Jack scoffs. “Until I fuck up and he benches me for the rest of the season.”
“I guess I don’t understand why that would be such a bad thing,” I say. “Don’t you want to make sure you stay healthy?”
“It’s not about that,” he huffs. “It’s…” He shakes his head. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Well…Make me understand then,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest.
Jack drops his head back on the couch, heaving a sigh. “Hockey is…It’s all I have, you know?”
“Well that’s just not true.”
He looks over at me, brow cocked.
“You have your sister, and you have Ian, and you have your aunt…You have lots of things outside of hockey, Jack.”
“I havepeople,” he stresses. “But I don’t have any otherthing.”
“I’m not following.”
He throws his hands up, making a frustrated sound. “What else am I good for, Abby? I’m not that smart, and I have no other talents. Hockey is the only thing I have that makes memeansomething.”
His phrasing gives me pause, and I shift so I’m turned toward him on the couch, bracing my head against my fist. “And that’s important to you?”
“It’s just…” He runs his fingers through his hair, making it stand up on its ends. He glances at me warily. “Are you sure you want to hear all this?”
“Perfect paper material, remember?”
That gets a small smile out of him, and again, it brings me a bit of relief. “You know my parents died when I was twelve.”
“I do,” I say with a nod. “Lila told me about it.”
“We were a really tight-knit unit, us and our parents,” he tells me. “My dad used to take me to all the local games. It was kind of ourthing, you know?”
I want to tell him that no, I don’t know, given that my own father spent most of my life pretending I didn’t exist, but that’s not what he needs right now, so I just nod.
“When they died…Dee was just so little, you know? It felt like I had to step up and betherefor her. We spent six months in that foster home before the courts finally granted our aunt custody, and Dee was such a tiny thing. She got picked on a lot. It always felt like I had to be there at all times to look out for her. Hockey kind of fell to the wayside in the face of all that. I sort of forgot about all the things that mademehappy and focused on what would makeherhappy. I did that for a long time.”
I feel a squeezing sensation in my chest as I imagine a tiny Jack Baker, trying his best to keep his little family together in the wake of so much loss. Sure, my dad was shit, but I had my mother for my entire childhood, and all the years I had with her were wonderful. I can’t imagine losing her at such a young age. Losingeverythingso young.
“What changed?”
Jack sighs. “I met Ian when we started at our new school. Hewas already on the hockey team, and when he found out I used to play at my old school, he convinced me to try out for the team. I almost said no at first.”
“Because of Lila?”
He nods. “I didn’t want there to be anything to distract me. She needed me, you know? It felt like doing something for myself was selfish, given that I was all she really had.”
“But you eventually joined.”
“I did,” he says. “And Dee…shelovedwatching me play. She and my aunt came to every practice, every game. Every win felt like it was for them, and every goal made me feel like I was flying. For a while…it felt like as long as I was playing, everything would be okay.”
“Do you feel like if you quit playing, you’re letting them down somehow?”
He chuffs a laugh. “Damn, shrink, you don’t pull any punches.”
“Comes with the territory,” I say with a chuckle.