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Chapter 39 — Playing Through Pain
publish date:
2026-08-16 01:16:26
Latest chapter
Behind the Ice Wall Chapter 44 — Someone Inside
SKY’S POV I called Reyes before practice, too early for it to be a casual conversation, and he must have understood that from the tone of my voice because he told me to come straight to his office instead of the locker room. “You read the article,” he said, not a question. “Somebody close to the organization. That’s a pretty small circle, Reyes. Who has access to whether my sessions got discontinued?” “HR. Legal. Marcus’s office. Damian, obviously.” He rubbed his forehead. “That’s still six or seven people minimum, and that’s assuming nobody talked to somebody who talked to somebody else.” “It’s not random anymore. First it was a photo. Then rumors. Now specific details about my therapy sessions that only people inside this building would know.” I sat down across from him. “This isn’t bad luck. Somebody’s doing this on purpose.” “I agree with you,” he said, quieter than I expected. “I’ve thought that for a while now. I just didn’t have anything solid enough to say it out loud.”
Behind the Ice Wall Chapter 43 — Losing Control
SKY’S POV Thursday’s game started wrong and never fully corrected itself. I felt it in warm-ups already, a heaviness in my legs that had nothing to do with conditioning, my glove a half-step slow on shots I would normally read without thinking twice. I told myself it was fatigue. I told myself a lot of things that week that didn’t hold up once the puck actually dropped. First period, I let in a soft one. Not a bad shot, not a screen, just a wrist shot from the top of the circle that I should have had and didn’t, my angle slightly off, my reaction slightly behind where it needed to be. The bench went quiet in that particular way benches go quiet when nobody wants to say what everyone’s thinking. • Second period, it got worse before it got better. A two-on-one broke in clean, and I overcommitted to the pass, left the shooter an open net, and watched the puck go in from an angle I should have covered without any real effort. Two goals now, both on me, both the kind of mistake tha
Behind the Ice Wall Chapter 42 — The Empty Chair
SKY’S POV The new psychologist’s name was Dr. Whitfield. He had a firm handshake, a leather notebook, and an office that had been a spare conference room before someone decided the team needed continuity of care while Amira’s leave played out. “Sky. Good to meet you.” He gestured at the chair across from his desk. Not the low armchair Amira used. A regular office chair, the kind you’d get called into for a performance review. “I’ve read your file. I want you to know I’m not here to replace anyone. Just to help however I can during this transition.” “Sure,” I said, and sat down, and felt the wrongness of the room before he’d said another word. • He started with breathing exercises, the same basic ones I’d learned years ago before Amira ever taught me anything real. Box breathing. Four counts in, four held, four out. I did it because refusing seemed like more trouble than it was worth, but my chest stayed tight the whole time, like my body knew this wasn’t the same conversation ev
Behind the Ice Wall Chapter 41 — Under Investigation
SKY’S POV She didn’t call back the next morning. Or the one after that. Three days of nothing, and I told myself that was normal, that a woman facing a formal HR investigation had better things to do than update me on her decision. I told myself a lot of things that week that I didn’t fully believe. I found out what happened the way I found out most things lately — from Reyes, standing outside the equipment room, choosing his words like he was walking across ice he wasn’t sure would hold. “They put her on leave,” he said. “Effective this morning. Pending the outcome of the investigation.” “Leave. As in—” “As in she’s not allowed in the building. Not allowed to see players. Not allowed to do her job until this gets resolved.” He rubbed a hand over his jaw. “They’re calling it a neutral administrative step. Damian’s calling it exactly what he wanted from the start.” I stood there a second, trying to make the words line up with something that made sense. “She didn’t do anything.”
Behind the Ice Wall Chapter 40 — No Turning Back
SKY’S POV At the time, I had no idea Amira was thinking about leaving the organization. All I knew was that something had changed. The silences on her end grew longer. The version of her voice I caught in passing hallway moments sounded thinner than it used to. Weeks later she’d tell me she’d already been considering walking away, back around this same stretch. At the time, all I had was the silence itself, and the growing sense that something on her end had changed too. We weren’t supposed to be texting at all anymore. That made the silence easier to explain, but somehow harder to live with. I kept my phone in my pocket most nights instead of on the nightstand, like distance from the object itself might make the rule easier to keep. I broke it once, a single line asking how she was holding up under the ongoing scrutiny, telling myself a plain check-in didn’t count as the kind of contact we’d agreed to avoid. It sat unanswered for two full days before a short reply finally came b
Behind the Ice Wall Chapter 39 — Playing Through Pain
SKY’S POV Five days into avoiding each other on purpose, and I understood something I hadn’t fully accounted for when we agreed to it. Managing anxiety alone was one thing. Managing it alone while also missing the person who’d taught me how to manage it was a different weight entirely, one I hadn’t budgeted for when the plan sounded reasonable over the phone. Game one of the next round arrived regardless of any of that. Elimination hockey now, single mistakes carrying more weight than they had all season, and I skated out for warm-ups with a version of the old tightness already sitting low in my chest before a single shot had been fired. I told myself I could handle it. I’d handled worse. The first period went fine, mechanically. I stopped what I needed to stop, communicated with my defense the way I always did, felt my legs under me the way I expected to feel them. Somewhere around the midway point of the second, a shot got through that I should have had — clean read, good pos
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