Page 4 of Sven

“Fine, but I’m coming to see a game next month.”

“Bye, Dad,” he said as he hung up and threw his phone on the bed.

The rage inside of him felt so big, yet somehow, he felt so small. It was a familiar feeling after getting off the phone with his father.

He needed cardio and made his way to the hotel gym. None of his teammates would be up yet, but he needed to get some of this energy out.

After he walked into the gym, he got on a treadmill, and before he knew it, he was running. He was running hard and trying to forget the way his father always made him feel. Sven was a professional hockey player on one of the best teams in the league. Although he was a good player, when your father is the famous Peter Olsson, nothing is ever good enough. His jersey was hung in the rafters at Madison Square Garden. He had a fucking statue back in Sweden. As good as Sven was, living up to his dad was impossible and living in his shadow was cold and so fucking lonely... which is probably why he fucked everyone he could.

When he was growing up, his dad wasn’t around very much when he was playing. But when Sven was thirteen, his dad had retired. In the latter half of his last season, he took a hard hit, injuring his knee. Though he tried to come back the following year, he didn’t have it anymore. He was looking at a retirement he didn’t want. All the energy and love for the game, he put on Sven.

His father demanded perfection out of Sven, pulled him out of school, and got him a tutor and countless coaches and trainers. Peter Olsson 2.0 is what he would force Sven to become. Sven tried, but he was never good enough. And when he wasn’t good enough, punishments got worse and worse.

He pumped up the speed and ran even harder, trying to forget and outrun a painful past. Just like in that moment, he was always running on a treadmill, never making it out of the shadow.

2

Natalie

Natalie looked at her phone again. It had only been two minutes since she had glanced at it, even if it felt like ten. The sun left a glare on the shiny coffee table in a high-end executive waiting room. With one more peek at her phone, she was trying to deal with the nerves. Even though she’d grown up with these people, they still held too much power over her life.

The name of the Roper Foundation hung behind the reception desk. The logo she’d known her entire life. In place of the O in Roper was a cardigan sweater her grandfather had famously worn in the children’s show he’d starred in for decades.

“Natalie, please come in,” said Mr. Jeffers, the Roper Foundation’s lawyer.

“Thank you, Mr. Jeffers.”

She stood and walked into his office with her throat in her chest. This was not what she wanted to be doing. He crossedbehind his desk and greeted her with a warm smile, but it didn’t do a damn thing to calm her nerves.

“Please sit down,” he said, gesturing to the chair across from him. “I’ve been looking over the file you sent over. What an awful predicament.”

While she thought he was being sincere, losing her job and possibly her career was more than a predicament.

“How was it you were hoping we could help you?”

Natalie took a deep breath. She tucked her soft blond hair behind her ear and dug for courage.

“I was wondering if there was any way we could fight it. You can see the reason I was fired is in the file. I believe it is false, and I won’t be able to find work with that on my record. I was wondering if maybe the foundation’s lawyers would be able to help.”

“Hmmm,” Mr. Jeffers hummed as he looked over the file. “I absolutely agree. The reason you were fired is total BS. But, sadly, that’s just not what the lawyers here do.”

He set the file down on his desk, looking back at her with pity.

“I know it’s not what they usually do, but I guess I was just wondering if there was anything they could do. I’ve never asked anything before,” she said, trying to not let her anger get the best of her.

Yes, the foundation had been founded by her grandfather, a beloved children’s TV persona, to continue his dream of giving books to every child in the country. So, no, it wasn’t what they usually did, but they could.

“Have you talked to your grandfather about this?”

“No, I didn’t want to bother him with it.”

He nodded and peered at the file again. “I’m so sorry you’re dealing with this, Natalie. I’ll see what we can do. While I can’tpromise you a job or anything like that, I can promise the foundation will keep it quiet.”

“Okay, well, thank you for looking into it.”

She left his office and made her way to her car, wanting to scream. And as soon as she was safely in her car with the door shut, that was just what she did. Yet that scream didn’t do much to get rid of the anger inside of her.

And, of course, the foundation would keep it quiet but offer no help... something she should’ve known. She was just mad at herself for thinking they would help. Helping her wasn’t their priority, but keeping it quiet was. They didn’t care that she was fired for hateful reasons. If no one found out about it, the foundation’s name stayed clean.

---