Chapter 153 TYLER

Chapter 153 TYLER
By the time first period started, I was already in the gym. I hadn’t bothered going to class. I hadn’t even tried to come up with an excuse for it. The second I woke up, I knew I wasn’t sitting through lessons pretending I could focus on anything other than the mess in my head.

So I came here instead.

The air in the gym carried that familiar mix of rubber mats and metal, something I’d always associated with control. You show up, you put in the work, you get better. Simple. At least that's how it was supposed to be.

I adjusted my grip on the barbell and pushed through another rep, jaw tight as I forced my shoulder to cooperate. The movement wasn’t clean. It hadn’t been clean all morning. There was a lag in it, something slightly off that I kept trying to ignore.

I racked the weights harder than necessary and exhaled through my nose, rolling my left shoulder once.

It didn’t feel right.

I told myself it didn’t matter.

I’d been here for hours, moving from one exercise to the next like I could force my body back into shape if I just didn’t stop long enough to think. But thinking had a way of catching up anyway.

Harper’s face kept slipping into it.

The way she’d looked at me on the porch. The question she’d asked.

What if that happens to us?

I dragged a hand over my face, grabbing a towel and wiping the sweat from my neck. I didn’t answer her then. And even now I still didn't have an answer.

That part stuck.

Because it wasn’t just about her question.

It was everything.

Hockey. The finals. The drafted contract sitting in my inbox that I’d deleted like it wasn’t real. The idea that choosing one thing might mean losing another.

I bent to pick up a dumbbell, but the gym door opening pulled my attention away.

Coach Turner walked in first, his presence filling the room the way it always did. Right behind him was a man I didn’t recognize, dressed too neatly to be one of our staffs, his eyes already scanning the space like he was measuring something.

Coach spotted me and nodded. “Mercer.”

I straightened slightly. “Coach.”

They walked over, the man’s attention settling on me properly now.

“This is Mr. Hargrove,” Coach said. “He’s with a scouting team out of Chicago. They’re in town early to observe some of the finalists and facilities.”

Chicago.

The word lodged somewhere in my head.

Hargrove stepped forward, extending a hand. “Tyler Mercer. I’ve heard quite a bit about you.”

I shook his hand. “Hopefully nothing bad.”

He smiled faintly. “Quite the opposite. You’re on a few watch lists. We like to see how players carry themselves off the ice too, not just during games.”

My grip tightened slightly before I let go. “I’m doing my best.”

His gaze dropped briefly to my shoulder. “I see you’re out of the sling.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Didn’t need it anymore.”

That wasn’t entirely true.

But I wasn’t about to say that.

Coach folded his arms. “We were actually heading to the rink. Figured we’d take a look at how things are progressing.”

Hargrove glanced back at me. “If you’re up for it, we wouldn’t mind seeing you move a bit. Nothing official. Just a feel for where you’re at.”

I hesitated for half a second.

Peter’s voice showed up in my head before I could even give an answer.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ his voice said, like he could already see this going wrong.

But another part of me pushed louder.

‘This is what you’ve been waiting for.’

“I’m good,” I said. “I can do it.”

Coach studied me, like he was checking for cracks. Then he nodded once. “Alright. Keep it light.”

Light.

Right.

By the time we stepped onto the ice, a few of the guys had filtered in from their break. The rink wasn’t empty anymore. Skates scraped against ice, voices bounced off the walls, and suddenly it felt like something closer to a real game.

Peter skated up beside me, lowering his voice. “You sure about this?”

“I’m fine,” I said, not looking at him.

“You don’t look fine.”

“I said I’m fine.”

He didn’t argue after that, but I could feel him watching me anyway.

We split into sides quickly, nothing formal, just enough to get movement going. I took my usual position at center, muscle memory sliding into place like it had been waiting for me.

The puck dropped.

For the first few seconds, everything felt… familiar.

My skates moved the way they were supposed to. My stick connected clean when it needed to. I weaved past one player, then another, the rhythm building under me in a way that almost made me forget everything else.

The noise around me faded into something distant.

This was where I made sense.

I caught a pass cleanly and pushed forward, cutting through the defense with a burst of speed that felt close to what I remembered. My focus locked in, narrowing down to the goal ahead.

I could do this.

I still had it.

I drew back for a slapshot, shifting my weight, lining it up the way I’d done a hundred times before.

And then—

Pain.

It hit fast and deep, like something inside my shoulder just seized up without warning. My grip faltered mid-motion, the strength draining out of my arm before I could stop it.

“Shit—”

The stick slipped from my hands.

I dropped to my knees before I could catch myself, the ice biting through my gear as I tried to steady my breathing. My shoulder burned, not the dull ache I’d been dealing with, but something sharper, something that made moving feel like a bad idea.

“Tyler!”

Voices closed in around me.

Hands reached out, teammates crowding too close, asking questions I didn’t answer.

I barely heard them.

My eyes lifted on instinct.

Hargrove stood near the boards, arms loosely crossed, his expression unreadable. But there was something there. A shift. A hesitation that hadn’t been there before.

That was enough.

“I’m fine,” I snapped, shrugging off the nearest hand.

“Dude, you’re not—”

“I said I’m fine!”

The words snapped out of me, sharp enough to cut through the noise around us.

Coach stepped forward. “Easy. It was just a test run. You’re still recovering. This doesn’t change anything.”

But it felt like it did.

It felt like everything I thought I had just got pulled out from under me.

“Get off me,” I muttered, pushing myself up.

Peter grabbed my arm lightly. “Tyler, just—”

“Don’t.”

I pulled away from him harder than necessary, brushing past him as I headed for the bench. My jaw clenched tight as I yanked off my gloves, my skates, anything that felt like it was holding me in place.

I needed out.

The stares followed me anyway.

By the time I got to the parking lot, my chest felt too tight, like there wasn’t enough air even though I was breathing fine.

“Tyler!”

Her voice stopped me.

I didn’t turn.

I couldn’t.

Footsteps closed the distance quickly, and then her arms wrapped around me from behind, warm and familiar and everything I didn’t know how to deal with right now.

“You’re in your gear,” Harper said lightly, clearly oblivious to the turmoil inside me. “Since when are you back on the ice?”

My jaw tightened.

She stepped into my line of sight, just enough to look at me. “Hey… are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I said.

It came out colder than I meant.

She blinked slightly, thrown off. “You don’t sound fine.”

“I said I am.”

I tried to step around her, but she moved into my path again, not letting me go that easily.

“You can talk to me,” she said, softer now. “If this is about the game, you’re going to be okay. You’ll be ready by finals—”

“Everyone keeps saying that,” I cut in, my voice rising before I could stop it. “But what if I’m not?”

She went quiet.

“What if this is it?” I went on, frustration pushing through now. “What if I thought I was getting better and I’m not? I just tried to play, Harper. One game. And my shoulder gave out like it didn’t even belong to me.”

“You weren’t supposed to be playing yet,” she said carefully. “You’re still healing—”

“Don’t,” I snapped.

She froze.

“I mean it,” I said, stepping closer without thinking. “I love you. I really do. But if you tell me one more time what I’m supposed to be doing, I’m going to fucking lose it.”

The words hung between us, too harsh to take back.

Her expression shifted, hurt flickering across her face before she tried to hide it.

“Tyler…”

I leaned down and kissed her, quick and rough, more frustration than anything else. My hand came up to her shoulder, holding her there for a second.

“I know you’re worried,” I said, my voice lower now. “But I need space. Just… give me that right now.”

I moved past her before she could respond.

I didn’t look back.

When I got into the car, my hands were already gripping the wheel too tight. I started the engine and pulled out faster than was allowed on school grounds, the road blurring past as everything inside me pushed louder.

The scout’s face.

Coach’s voice.

Harper’s eyes.

The hurt in them.

I drove without thinking about where I was going, just putting distance between me and everything else until the school was long gone behind me.

The road opened up into an empty stretch near the edge of town, a field spreading out wide and quiet.

I stopped there.

The engine cut, and silence dropped in hard.

I sat there for a second, staring ahead, my reflection faint in the windshield. My shoulder throbbed, but it wasn’t even the main thing anymore.

It was everything else.

The pressure.

The expectations.

The feeling that no matter what I did, something was going to fall apart anyway.

I got out of the car, slamming the door harder than necessary.

“Fuck.”

The word tore out of me, loud enough to startle birds into flight.

I dragged both hands through my hair, pacing a few steps before stopping. My chest felt tight again, like it had nowhere to put everything building inside it.

My mind flashed back to the rink again.

To the way my arm gave out.

To the look on Hargrove’s face.

Then Harper.

The way she looked at me after I snapped at her.

I clenched my fists.

It wasn’t supposed to go like this.

Any of it.

I turned back to the car, my reflection staring back at me through the driver’s window. For a second, I just stood there, chest rising too fast.

Then I swung.