Page 54 of Empty Net
Define breakfast.
Her reply comes in less than ten seconds.
Caleb.
My mother can weaponize punctuation.
I type:
I will eat when we land.
She sends back:
With vegetables.
Then:
And water. Coffee is not water.
Then:
You sound less organized even in texts.
I look at the words and almost laugh. Almost. Instead, I turn the phone face down because less organized feels too close to alive, and alive feels too close to the conclusion I am not ready to send anyone in a text.
I open the laptop again. Monday. Hale. Reports. Work.
For twenty minutes, I manage to be useful. I isolate Isaac's shifts. I note that his first-step aggression improved in the second period and degraded late in the third under pressure, which is expected for a call-up with limited NHL pace exposure. I write that veteran support accelerated correction but should not be mistaken for independent readiness. I do not write Nolan's name. I do not need to. The sentence knows.
Across the aisle, Davis falls asleep with the tablet on his chest.
The cabin dims. Cloud cover softens the light. Nolan shifts in his seat, small and controlled, and the movement pulls at my attention like gravity.
I do not know what to do with being in love.
This is inconvenient because knowing what to do is my defining professional trait. I know what to do with a bad contract, an aging defenseman, a development curve, a cap crunch, a medical risk, a conflict of interest. I can build processaround almost anything. Process is not the enemy. Process saved us. Process made the thing between us possible without making it rotten.
But process cannot tell me when to speak.
It cannot tell me whether loving Nolan quietly is patience or cowardice. It cannot tell me whether he needs space or whether space is just another room where silence can rebuild itself. It cannot tell me how to participate without pushing.
Rebecca's voice returns with the cruelty of old accuracy.
You will understand every decision they made and you will never make one of your own.
I made one. The recusal. The disclosure. The choice to give up control. But love is not a single decision. Love appears to be an ongoing series of opportunities to do the wrong thing with sincere intentions.
I hate this.
Nolan turns his head.
This time he looks at me fully.
The plane around us keeps doing plane things, engines and air and plastic cups, the soft rustle of sleeping men in expensive suits. Nobody notices because nobody is looking for a whole conversation across three rows.
His face is tired. Pain held under the skin. Something else too. Not regret. Not certainty. The space between.
I do not smile. Smiling would ask too much.
