Chapter 68 The Call
Crew's POV,
The unknown Seattle number appeared on my phone three weeks into Vancouver, and my first instinct was to ignore it.
Probably a telemarketer. Maybe someone from the Titans' front office with paperwork I'd forgotten to sign. Nothing that required immediate attention.
But something made me answer.
"Hello?"
Silence. Then breathing. Then a voice I recognized immediately.
"Crew? It's Joel."
I almost hung up. My thumb hovered over the red button. Every instinct screamed to end this call, block the number, pretend it never happened.
But something in his voice stopped me. Not manipulation. Not the practiced charm he'd always used to get what he wanted. Just genuine desperation. The sound of a man who'd hit bottom.
"What do you want, Joel?"
"I need to talk to you. About Harper. About everything. Please. Just five minutes."
I walked out onto the balcony, closing the door behind me so Harper wouldn't hear. She was in the bedroom, on the phone with the contractor about clinic renovations. She didn't need to know about this call unless it became something worth telling.
"You have three minutes," I said. "Talk."
Joel took a shaky breath. "The marriage is over. Brianna moved out three days after the wedding. She's staying with her mother. We're getting divorced. The papers are already filed."
"That was fast."
"It was inevitable. We both knew it at the altar. We just went through with it anyway because we're both cowards who couldn't face the embarrassment of calling it off." He laughed bitterly. "Three hundred people flew in for a wedding that lasted less than a week. My parents are furious. Brianna's mother won't speak to me. And I'm sitting here alone in my apartment realizing I destroyed everything for absolutely nothing."
"I'm sorry to hear that." I didn't mean it, but it seemed like the right thing to say.
"Don't be. I deserve this. All of it." Joel's voice cracked. "Crew, I'm not calling to get Harper back. I know that's over. I know she's with you now and she's happy and I fucked up any chance I had years ago. I'm calling because I need to say I'm sorry. To you."
That caught me off guard. "What?"
"For junior hockey. For taking credit for your assists. For the draft. For getting picked while you got overlooked." He was talking fast now, words tumbling over each other. "I knew what I was doing. The whole season, I knew I was stealing your plays, taking credit for work we did together. And I did it anyway because I was scared. Scared that if scouts knew the truth—that you were the playmaker and I was just the guy finishing your setups—they'd pick you instead of me."
I leaned against the balcony railing, processing. Twelve years. I'd carried this grudge for twelve years. And now Joel was confessing like it might absolve him.
"So you sabotaged me," I said flatly.
"I sabotaged both of us. Because yeah, I got drafted. But I spent twelve years knowing I didn't deserve it. Knowing I'd stolen something from you. And that guilt ate at me every single day." He took another shaky breath. "You became the better player anyway. You made it to the NHL through pure talent and work ethic. You earned everything you got. And I just... coasted on lies and nepotism and opportunities I didn't deserve."
I didn't know what to say. Part of me wanted to gloat—this was the vindication I'd fantasized about for years. Joel admitting he'd wronged me, that I was better, that he'd failed while I'd succeeded despite him.
But sitting here listening to him fall apart, I just felt tired.
"Why are you telling me this now?" I asked.
"Because I've spent the past three weeks in therapy. Mandatory, part of the divorce proceedings. And my therapist keeps asking why I sabotage everything good in my life. Why I cheated on Harper. Why I married someone I didn't love. Why I can't just be honest about what I want." Joel's voice broke. "And I realized it all traces back to junior hockey. To that first big lie. To stealing credit from you and learning that dishonesty works. That taking shortcuts gets you ahead."
"So this is your amends. Your recovery step or whatever."
"I'm not in recovery. I'm just... trying to figure out how to be less of a piece of shit." He laughed, hollow and sad. "Crew, I fucked up my entire life. I lost Harper. I married someone I don't love and now I'm getting divorced before our daughter is even born. I'm going to be a father in four months and I have no idea how to be a decent human being, let alone a decent parent. And it all started with stealing from you."
I was quiet for a long moment, watching Vancouver's lights glow below. The city I'd moved to. The fresh start I'd built. The life I had now that was nothing like the one I'd imagined twelve years ago when I went undrafted.
"I forgive you," I said finally.
"What?"
"For junior hockey. For the draft. For taking credit. I forgive you." The words felt strange in my mouth but also right. "Joel, I spent twelve years hating you. Resenting you. Using that anger as fuel. And you know what? It didn't make me happy. It made me bitter. So I'm choosing to let it go."
Joel was crying now. I could hear it clearly. Full sobs over the phone. "Thank you. Jesus Christ, thank you. I don't deserve your forgiveness but—"
"You're right. You don't deserve it. But I'm not doing this for you. I'm doing it for me. Because carrying that grudge was destroying me." I took a breath. "Joel, you need to figure out your shit. Get actual therapy. Be a good father to your daughter. Stop sabotaging yourself. But you need to do it without me in your life. This conversation? This is goodbye. For real this time."
"I know. And Crew? Take care of Harper. She deserves someone who chooses her. Be that person."
"I already am that person."
"Good. That's... that's really good." He took a shaky breath. "Goodbye, Crew. And thank you. For forgiving me even though I don't deserve it."
He hung up.
I stood on the balcony for a long time after, phone in my hand, processing. The grudge I'd carried for twelve years—gone. Just like that. Replaced with something that felt like pity mixed with relief that my life wasn't his disaster.
The balcony door opened. Harper stepped out, wrapped in one of my hoodies.
"Who was that?" she asked.
"Joel."
Her expression shifted immediately. "What did he want?"
"To apologize. To me, weirdly enough. For junior hockey. For taking credit for my assists. For the draft." I pulled her close. "He's getting divorced already. Brianna left him three days after the wedding."
"Wow. That's... fast."
"That's inevitable." I kissed the top of her head. "He wanted me to know he's sorry. That he sabotaged me because he was scared. That everything in his life traces back to that first lie."
"How do you feel?"
I thought about it. Really thought about it.
"Free," I said finally. "I spent twelve years hating Joel. And now I just feel sorry for him. He's not my enemy. He's just a sad guy who made bad choices and is finally facing consequences."
Harper turned to look at me. "You forgave him."
"I forgave him. Not for his sake—for mine. I was tired of carrying it."
She kissed me softly. "That's growth. Real growth."
"Dr. Okonkow would be proud. I'm basically her star patient at this point."
"You're my star patient." She leaned against my chest. "Crew, you've come so far in eight weeks. You went from overdosing on a practice rink to moving cities, starting over, playing clean, forgiving your biggest rival. That's incredible."
"I had help. You, mostly. Dr. Okonkow. David. The team. Mike. Maya. Everyone who refused to let me self-destruct."
"You did the actual work though. Nobody could do that for you."
We stood there on the balcony, watching Vancouver at night. The city we'd chosen. The life we were building. The future that was finally starting to feel real instead of theoretical.
"Do you think Joel will be okay?" Harper asked quietly.
"Eventually. Maybe. If he actually gets help and stops sabotaging himself." I pulled her closer. "But that's not our problem to solve. He's not our responsibility anymore."
"It feels weird. Being completely done with him. After everything."
"Good weird or bad weird?"
"Just weird. Like closing a book I've been reading for ten years. The story's over but I keep expecting more chapters." She looked up at me. "But I'm glad it's over. I'm glad we're here instead of there."
"Me too."
My phone buzzed. Text from David, my sponsor: How you doing tonight? Checking in.
I typed back: Good. Had an unexpected conversation with an old enemy. Ended up forgiving him. Feeling surprisingly okay about it.
His response came immediately: That's freedom, man. Letting go of resentment. Proud of you.
Harper's phone buzzed too. She checked it and smiled. "Maya. She wants to know if we're free next weekend. She's coming to visit. Says she needs to see the clinic space in person and also she misses us."
"Tell her yes. We'll take her to all the Vancouver places we've discovered."
"We've been here three weeks. We've discovered approximately two coffee shops and one Thai restaurant."
"Then we have a week to discover more places. Very achievable goal."
We went back inside. Harper returned to her contractor emails. I pulled out my recovery workbook—homework from Dr. Okonkow about identifying triggers and developing coping strategies.
One of the prompts was: "Describe a resentment you've been carrying. What purpose does it serve? What would happen if you let it go?"
I thought about Joel. About twelve years of anger. About the grudge that had fueled me but also poisoned me.
I wrote: "I've been carrying resentment toward Joel Hartley since I was eighteen. The purpose was giving me motivation, making me work harder, proving I was better despite being overlooked. But it also made me bitter and angry and unable to move forward. Tonight I let it go. And what happened was: nothing bad. Just relief. Just freedom. Just space for something better."
Dr. Okonkow would be thrilled. I was basically writing her dream client responses at this point.
"What are you working on?" Harper asked, looking over.
"Therapy homework. Very exciting Friday night activities."
"We're so cool. Me emailing contractors about drywall specifications. You doing therapy worksheets. We're basically rock stars."
"The coolest. Definitely not two people in their thirties eating leftover pizza and going to bed at nine thirty."
"Hey, nine thirty is a very reasonable bedtime for responsible adults."
"We're not responsible adults. We're disasters who occasionally pretend to be functional."
"Recovering disasters," she corrected. "There's a difference."
I pulled her onto the couch next to me. "You're right. We're recovering disasters. And we're doing pretty damn well at it."
"Yeah," she agreed, settling against my chest. "We really are."
Fifty-one days clean. Three weeks in Vancouver. One clinic space leased. One grudge released. One future being built one decision at a time.