“What are you talking about?” I ask, brows furrowing. “Yes, he did.”
Avery shakes his head. “Who told you that?”
“Nobodytold me,I just connected the dots.”
Avery just keeps staring at me, his hand smoothing up and down the thigh of his pants to steady himself. He clears his throat. “Peyton, Dad didn’t quit. He gotcut.”
“What?!”My brows shoot to my hairline, and I whip around to fully face him, propping my free hand on my hip. “What are you talking about?”
“How do you not know this?”
“Becauseevery articleI’ve ever read says he retired?”
Avery tucks his hair-covered arms over his chest. “Do you believe everything you read on the internet?”
I roll my eyes, letting them descend onto my father, who is now in the kitchen with my mom, feeding “Flower”. Avery continues.
“The team was going in a different direction. Dad wasn’t getting the minutes he used to. And honestly, he was barely hanging on. He knew he wasn’t going to last much longer, and then when they told him… well, he had to make the call.”
My eyes squint, like maybe if I shift their perspective, I’ll be able to see things more clearly. But everything remains blurred. “But he always talks about it like it was his choice. Like it was his decision to leave.”
Avery nods. “Itwashis decision. His choices were to retire completely, or try to get drafted by another team. But he’d been playing for like, fifteen years at that point.”
My breath stays caught in my lungs, and I rub the inner corners of my eyes, still trying to process. This entire time, mywhole life, I believed that my dad gave up his career for us. I believed, in some twisted way, that I owed something to him because of it. That because he was the best, I had to be the best too. And it was built on… anassumption?
“My brain hurts,” I mutter, rubbing my eyes. Avery pats my back awkwardly.
“Yeah, I don’t know how you jump to conclusions like that.”
From the kitchen, my dad cuts in, calling out to me, “Hey! You gonna show me that AIHL shit?”
I give him a slow nod, my mind still whirling. “Yeah,” I answer, finally releasing the air I’ve held hostage in my lungs. “Yeah, I’ll go get it.”
Thirty One
Darcy
It’s a universal truth that winter break ends too quickly. l swear the space-time continuum has a grudge against respite.
Unless, that is, you have something worth returning to.
The rest of the break has been agonizingly slow. A doctor’s appointment. A blood draw. An ultrasound. A New Year’s party that was wrapped up by 10pm. Every hour that ticks by, I can’t help but miss GU. Professor Palit. The rink.A certain captain who lives in that rink.
Peyton and I have stayed in touch, though I’ll admit I muted her a couple times. Once for sending me endless live updates about a PWHL game while I was reading. Again when she got drunk with her brother’s friends, and sent me seven consecutive videos of her doing Bee Gees karaoke. And the next morning when she was updating me on the color of her vomit, though I ended up unmuting her later that day to update her on my progress of the book she gave me.
ME
Did you intend to gift me smut?
ICARUS
Welcome back.
That was, in fact, the goal.
ME
Have you read it? It’s pretty good.