The Captain's Vow

He lets a puck through the five-hole with six minutes left, and he sits in the room afterwards with the pads still cinched across his shoulders like a punishment he has not earned. The ice still screams where they carved it up. The Zamboni has already swallowed the rink's wounds, but the replay lives behind Jamie Carter's eyes: that last goal sliding through as if he had rolled out a red carpet for it. His five-hole. The stall beside him holds a jersey dumped on the floor where its owner left it, which is a statement rather than an accident. Connor O'Neill did not look at him after the buzzer, did not say a word, stripped and vanished into the shower as though Jamie did not deserve the breath. He probably does not. Empty stalls. Abandoned tape rolls. A half-empty bottle kicked under the bench. Sweat and ice shavings and cheap citrus disinfectant, and fluorescents humming their flat, unforgiving hum while he presses the heels of his palms into his eye sockets until he sees stars. Then a woman comes down the corridor with a stethoscope round her neck, reading glasses on a lanyard, a worn spiral notebook in one hand and a manila folder in the other that is thick enough to be a problem. Leah Hartwell. The new physical therapist. Coach mentioned her at morning skate. O'Neill made a joke about ice queens. Jamie ignored it, which turns out to be the last easy decision he makes all season. What follows: a scar he never shows anyone, the one person who does not flinch at it, a phone call he cannot ignore, a notebook nobody is supposed to read, a shot he does not take, a rule he cannot follow, a lie he tells the mirror, and an assist that never makes the sheet. *Go win this thing.* The folder in her hand has his name on it and a history in it that three people in this organisation have spent two years keeping quiet. She is going to open it. He is going to have to sit there while she does. And even then, nobody in this building is promising him forgiveness.