He traveled a lot when he was pro, the nature of the job, but he struggled with being away from his wife and his then newborn daughter, Imogen. The accident forced him to slow down, and now there is nothing he values more than time with his girls.
“On Sunday, I got a phone call from the dean.” He brings his coffee flask up to his lips, watching people shuffle awkwardly over the brim. “Oh yeah, you can all look fucking uncomfortable. Not Director Skinner, oh no, it was above him. The dean wanted to know why my team of highly skilled, division one athletes had purposely injured another student.”
“Coach, we—”
“Shut your mouth, Johal,” he barks, slamming the flask down on the table. “The dean received a phone call from the student’s mother, who threatened to pull her sizable donation to the new Arts building. She’s understandably very upset, not only because her child was hurt on college property but also because he has a competition in two weeks.”
He doesn’t need to tell us. We all know about sectionals. It’s all Anastasia shouts at us when she’s trying to get us off the ice.
Kris had told her he would take a shot every time she said the wordsectionals, earning snickers from the guys around him. I had been ready to step in, but she pinned him with a glare so cold a chill ran down my spine, and she wasn’t even looking at me.
She had looked him up and down slowly, and I saw him shuffle on the spot, but then, she gave him a dazzling smile and patted him on the arm. “I’d take a shot every time you miss the goal, but I don’t have time to get alcohol poisoning this week.”
That’s why the guys love her, even if she does spend most of her time calling us the bane of her existence and telling us to learn how to tell the time. She can hold her own and she’s funny when she’s grumpy.
“Am I boring you, Hawkins?” I hear faintly, only fully registering he’s talking to me when Mattie elbows me in the ribs.
“No, sir. I have a migraine, but I am listening.”
His eyes narrow as he assesses if I’m lying, but I’m white as a sheet with huge bags under my eyes. He’d be hard-faced to try to say I’m not ill right now.
I would get migraines when I lived at home from the stress of spending so much time with my dad. They were unbearable, which is how I know if I keep on top of the painkillers, I can just about function. If I let it spiral out of control, I’ll be vomiting and hiding from the light like a vampire before I know it.
“So, you can see we’re in quite the predicament here. Now tell me, who did it?”
The room is still silent because, as I said, everyone has said it wasn’t them. The normal thing to do would be to speak up, tell Faulkner he’s got it wrong, and work together to find out the truth.
But that isn’t the Titans’ way.
He’s decided we’re guilty because we’ve given him no reason to believe he can trust us to tell the truth.
He’s had years of petty, exhausting bullshit where it’s turned out to be a guy on the team to blame every single time. He won’t give us the benefit of the doubt because we’ve never earned it.
“You’re all off the team until someone comes forward and admits the truth.”
The silent room erupts into chaos as every person tries to reason with him. The volume increases and my head aches until he eventually bellows, and everyone stops talking instantly. “I don’t give a fuck about forfeiting your games. I will make this team finish bottom if you boys don’t start behaving like men!”
I’ve said before he’s a scary guy. His anger is bubbling up so blatantly it’s unmissable, but he’s disappointed when you look beyond the flushed face and the loud voice. Robbie has been pinching the bridge of his nose and staring into his lap for the last five minutes, disappointed, too, because he can’t coach a team that doesn’t exist.
“Hockey is a privilege! College is a privilege!” Faulkner shouts. “When I have my answer, you can play again.”
I clear my throat and avoid eye contact with my teammates. “It was me, Coach.”
* * *
I knowthe Tylenol is wearing off the moment nausea hits me like a bus.
Coach is on the phone to the dean, uhming and yesing, not giving too much away. I’ve already received about twenty messages calling me a whole host of creative insults, which is deserved, I’d say.
Faulkner doesn’t believe me. I can tell by how he’s watching me as he mumbles into the phone, but his hands are tied, and I gave him an out he desperately needed.
He could lose his team for God knows how long because nobody would ever say it was them. Alternatively, he can lose me temporarily and have me back before the season is in full swing. It was a risk on my part, I’ll admit, since I don’t know what the punishment is but the longer we drag it out, the more my team suffers, and the more I want to beat the shit out of Aaron.
At least if I knock Aaron out I’d have something to be guilty of.
He puts the phone back in its cradle. “You don’t play until he can skate again. That’s what the dean said. You can come to games in your suit, but you sit and watch. You don’t train with the team, and you can’t be part of any team-related activities other than traveling.”
“Do you know how long he’s out for?”