Chapter 22 Ryan's Breaking Point

Chapter 22 Ryan's Breaking Point
Ryan’s Pov

I knew something was wrong before the email even finished loading.

When the Midsemester Results were posted, I stared at the screen in my dorm room, with my jaw tight and my heart pounding in a way that had nothing to do with hockey. I clicked the first grade.

C minus.

The next one.

D.

The last one.

C.

My grip tightened around the laptop until my knuckles turned white.

This wasn’t who I was supposed to be, I was not supposed to be perfect or brilliant, but not this, I hadn't expected to fall apart this fast.

The memory of Elsie sitting across from me, tapping her pen impatiently, making me redo problems until I understood them instead of memorizing them, everything felt heavier.

I shut the laptop and ran both hands through my hair. I could already hear father’s voice in my head.

"You have only one job."

"Make sure you don’t embarrass the family and don't waste my money."

The knock on my dorm door came thirty minutes later.

I didn’t need to ask who it was because no one else knocked like that.

I opened the door to see father standing there in a tailored suit that probably cost more than my entire semester of textbooks. His expression was calm, but I had known that look since childhood. It was the look that came before the damage.

“Dad,” I said carefully.

“We need to talk.”

We didn’t sit because father didn’t like sitting when he was disappointed. He preferred to stand and loom.

“I received a call from the dean this morning,” his father began.

My stomach dropped to the ground.

“You assured me things were under control.”

“They were,” I said quickly. “I just—”

“You just what?”

I swallowed. “I had some setbacks.”

“Setbacks.” father repeated the word like it was foreign.

I hated how small I felt under that gaze. I was six feet two, well built and the captain of the hockey team. People moved away when I walked down a hallway.

But in front of my father, none of that mattered, I was was ten years old again, holding a report card that wasn’t good enough.

“I’m working on it,” I'll said. “I’ll fix it.”

“You said that last semester.”

“That was different.”

“Because you had that girl tutoring you?”

The word girl felt like a slap.

I stiffened for a moment. “Her name is Elsie.”

“I’m aware.”

My father’s eyes sharpened. “I tolerated that arrangement because it produced results. Now she’s gone and your grades are collapsing.”

My jaw clenched. “You made sure she was gone.”

“I made sure you weren’t associating with someone beneath you.”

The words burned into my chest. I was there, that Saturday when he promised Elsie the whole world if she made me pass this semester, now the same him had gotten rid of her because she was beneath me.

“She wasn’t beneath me.”

His father stepped closer. “Careful.”

My chest rose and fell faster. “She was the only reason my grades improved.”

“Which proves my point,” my father said coldly. “You are incapable of discipline without supervision.”

That hurt more than me more than I had expected.

“I’m not incapable,” I said to him quietly.

“Your transcript disagrees.” father continued.

I felt heat creep up to my neck. “I can handle this.”

“No,” father said in a flat voice. “You cannot.”

The finality in his tone made something twist inside my chest.

“What are you saying?” I asked him.

“I’m saying I will not continue funding mediocrity.”

My breath hitched in my throat. “You said as long as I stayed eligible for hockey...”

“This is no longer about your hockey.”

There it was, the shift in his tone and attitude.

I watched father as he folded his hands behind his back. “If your grades do not improve immediately, I will withdraw you from the university.”

I felt like the air had been punched out of me.

“What...you can’t,” I exclaimed before I could stop myself.

“I can.” father said in a tone that had dropped faster than the temperature in the room.

“You wouldn’t.” I said with pleading eyes.

“I would.”

The walls felt like they were closing in on me as my ears rang.

“You’d pull me out? Over grades?”

“I would pull you out because you are embarrassing the Blake name.”

There it was again, I was all his name, always the name.

“And then what?” I asked in an unsteady voice despite my effort to control it.

“Then you will come work at the company. Full time, no distractions and no sports.”

My stomach twisted violently. No hockey? The one thing that felt like mine, the one thing that wasn’t handed to me because of a last name.

“You can’t just decide my life,” I said, but the protest sounded weak even to me.

“I already have.”

The words landed like a hammer.

I looked at my father and for the first time, something inside me didn’t just shrink, it snapped.

“I’m not you,” i said quietly.

My father’s eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”

“I’m not you,” I repeated more strongly now. “I don’t want to sit behind a desk and bark orders at people for the rest of my life.”

“And what do you want?” my father asked sharply. “To chase a puck until your knees give out?”

“At least that’s mine.”

The silence that followed was dangerous.

“You think hockey defines you?” his father asked.

“No,” i said, shaking his head. “But it’s the only thing I chose.”

My father studied me for a long moment. “You are a Blake. You do not get the luxury of choosing.”

The words felt suffocating.

For years, I had lived inside that rule. I wore it like armor. I mocked people who didn’t have what I had because it was easier than admitting I didn’t own any of it. Except with her.

Elsie never cared about my last name. She never flinched when I argued, she never laughed at my weak answers and never let me slide by on charm.

She had looked at me like I could be better, not because I was a Blake, but because I was Ryan, and I had thrown that away.

“She believed in me,” I said before i could stop myself.

My father’s expression hardened. “She was using you.”

“No,” I said, louder now. “She wasn’t.”

“You are naive.”

“I’m not naive,” I shot back. “You are.”

The word hung between us like a thin thread.

My father’s face went cold in a way I had only seen in boardrooms.

“You will fix your grades,” my father said slowly. “Or you will leave this school. Those are your options.”

My hands were shaking now, though I forced them to stay still.

“And if I refuse?” I asked.

“You won’t.”

The confidence in that answer hurt more than the threat.

My father didn’t think I had it in me to fight abd maybe he was right.

When the door finally closed behind my father, the silence in the room was deafening.

I sank onto the edge of his bed and stared at the floor as father’s word filled my head. I knew he meant every word he said; he would withdraw me from school and force me into the company, there would be no more hockey for me, I didn’t want to imagine my life that way but I didn't have a choice.

I dragged a hand down on my face. When had I started being afraid of the man I was supposed to respect? When had fear become normal?