Page 95 of Payback On The Ice

"Theo," Halvorsen says.

"I have to go."

"Son—"

"Is the commissioner going to call Harrow?"

Halvorsen hesitates. Just for a second.

"I asked him not to," he says. "Not yet. But these things get around, Theo. It's a small conference. I can't promise you nothing gets back to Ashby."

I stand up so fast the chair tips over behind me.

"I have to go," I say again, and I go.

He's in the stick room.

Of course he is. It's game day. He's sitting on the overturned bucket where I sit every night, with one of his sticks across his knees, and he's taping it himself. Black on the blade, heel to toe. He hasn't taped his own stick since September.

He looks up when I come in. He sees my face.

He knows.

"You went through my phone," I say.

He puts the stick down.

"Theo—"

"You went through my phone. I was asleep. In your bed. And you went through my phone and read my messages from Cole, and then you got in your car and you went to Halvorsen's house."

"Yes."

"Why?"

He stands up.

"Because you came into my room at three in the morning crying," he says. His voice is low and very even. "Because you asked me to make you forget. Because you broke the rule, the one you made, the one about telling the truth, and you've never done that. Because you were going to go out on the ice tonight and play Game 2 against a man who threatened your friends and say nothing. Again. Carry all of it by yourself. Again." He swallows. "I couldn't watch you do it."

"So you took it."

"I took it out of your hands⁠—"

"That's not your call!"

It comes out of me so loud it echoes off the cinder block. Somewhere down the hall a door opens and closes.

"I told you," I say. I'm shaking. "I told you on Wednesday. I told you, it's mine. Mine to tell. And you said okay. You looked at me and said okay. And then three days later you read my phone while I was sleeping and went and told the one person I asked you not to tell."

"I was trying to help you⁠—"

"You did it again!"

He stops.

"You did it again," I say. My voice is breaking. I can't make it stop. "In September you decided I deserved a card table. You decided I deserved a pile in the corner. You decided I didn't get to eat until you said. And now you decided I don't get to choose when I tell my own story. You decide what I get. Every time. You always decide what I get."

"That's not⁠—"