Page 36 of The Longest Shot
Every time, I decided to be the team mascot instead of their captain.
I contrast those memories with those of watching Morgan's team. Every player knowing exactly where to be, when to rotate, and how to support others. No confusion and no hero-ball. Just pure, distilled hockey born from a captain who demands excellence and accepts nothing less.
They follow her into battle because she's earned it through competence, not comedy. They trust her because she holds them accountable, not because she lets them off the hook with a wink and a smile. They're winning because of her leadership, not in spite of it.
My team has equipment that costs more than most people's cars. Custom everything, from skates that were molded to our feet using some NASA-grade process to sticks that are basically carbon fiber magic wands. Our rec room has leather chairs and a sound system that could make your ears bleed.
When it's not flooded, anyway.
Her team has jerseys with iron-on numbers that peel at the corners, equipment held together with prayer, duct tape, and spite, and a locker room that used to be a storage closet and still smells like it. And they're playing better hockey than we are, because she's a better captain than I am.
No—because she's an actual captain and I'm just a walking punchline wearing a letter I don't deserve.
The worst part is that I can't even pretend she's wrong. She saw through my whole act in about thirty seconds, peeled back the layers of deflection and misdirection to find the terrified kid underneath who's so scared of conflict he'd rather watch everything burn than have one uncomfortable conversation.
But this isn't just about being a shitty captain or losing games or disappointing Coach Pearson or taking a steaming dump on Maine and Mike's legacy. This is about the fundamental failure at my core, because I realize now that my failure with Morgan three years ago and my failure as a captain aren't separate issues.
They're the same fucking wound, festering for two decades.
I force myself to actually look at that night. Not the director's-cut I've been screening in my head for three years—the one where I'm the charming rogue keeping things casual and she's the girl who couldn't handle it—but the documentary version nobody wants to see.
Stars scattered across a black velvet sky. Sand still warm from the day's sun. Morgan's face, lit by the moon and the distant boardwalk lights, looking at me with an expression so open it should have come with a warning label to handle with extreme care.
"So what happens when camp ends?" she'd asked, voice soft. "With us?"
The silence that followed couldn't have lasted more than three seconds, but in my memory it stretches like taffy. It's three seconds of potential where I could have said something real, like that I was scared too and that I didn't know what would come next but that I wanted to find out.
Instead, I panicked like the house was on fire and I was the only one who could hear the smoke alarm.
The jokes poured out, each word a tiny knife, and I kept throwing them, watching her face close up shop in real-time,watching something precious and irreplaceable pack its bags and leave forever. Because that's what I do. I'm an emotional hazmat crew, containing dangerous feelings before they can spread.
Each word a bullet.
Each joke a betrayal.
Her face changing from open to guarded to gone.
Like watching time-lapse footage of a flower dying.
She didn't overreact. She didn't misunderstand.
She saw exactly what I was: a coward in a clown suit.
Jesus Christ, I didn't just lose her. I taught her that trusting people—trusting me—was the worst mistake she could make.
The study room's silence doesn't feel empty anymore. It feels full of every serious conversation I've ever dodged, every teaching moment I've deflected with humor, and every opportunity for real connection I've murdered with a well-timed punchline.
My phone buzzes. It's probably one of the guys wondering where I am, why I'm not at whatever party someone's throwing to pretend we didn't just embarrass ourselves on home ice. The party where I should be right now, center stage, three beers deep and five jokes into making everyone forget we're imploding.
But I can't bring myself to stand up and walk out there and perform the role of Rook the Jester, everything's-fine-we'll-get-'em-next-time Rook, the human embodiment of toxic positivity. Because Morgan just detonated twenty years of carefully constructed bullshit, and I'm sitting in the mess.
The worst part is that she was right about everything.
Iama jester dancing for a predator's amusement. Idolead a team of entitled assholes who've never faced a consequence I didn't turn into a punchline. Ididdestroy what we had because I was too scared to be real for five fucking minutes. And I'mstilldoing it now, totally allergic to being genuine as a captain and a man.
So what the fuck do I do now?
The question hangs in the empty room like a challenge I'm not ready to accept. Because how do you fix something that broke when you were seven years old, listening to plates shatter downstairs? How do you learn to be serious when your entire survival strategy is built on making sure nothing ever gets serious or quiet?
