Page 13 of The Assist
At some point, Dylan comes in again. Says nothing, and limps over to the far bench, straps on an ice pack, and lies back with a soft groan. “You’re pushing too hard,” I say without looking up.
He grunts. “Says the woman who’s still here four hours after her shift.”
“Touche.”
The silence that follows is easy this time. Not awkward. Just quiet and comfortable.
“Hey, Clarke?” Dylan says into the quietness.
“Yeah?”
“You ever wish you’d picked something easier?”
I think about all of it. The arguments, the long days, the pressure to prove myself. The way people look at me like I don’t belong here. As though I’m temporary. The way I have to be five steps ahead, all the time, to keep the room. “Every day,” I say honestly.
“Me too.” I glance over at him, lying on the bench with his eyes closed, ice strapped to his shoulder. Vulnerable, in his own way. But still here. Still trying.
And for some reason, so am I.
CHAPTER SIX
DYLAN
There’s a moment, right before the puck drops, where everything goes silent.
Doesn’t matter if the arena’s packed, it doesn’t matter how loud the crowd is or how many cameras are shoved in your face. It all disappears for a second. One breath, one heartbeat. And in that moment I forget who I am.
It used to be the best part of the game.
Now, sometimes, it feels like the only part I can stand.
The rest of it, everything off the ice, is noise I haven’t figured out how to live with yet. The press, the pressure, the pretending. The constant feeling that I’ve fooled everyone, and one day, they’re going to wake up and realise I’ve got no right to be here. That I’m not the player they think I am.
Jonno’s voice barks across the rink, calling the team into a huddle for the pre-game review. I hang back near the bench, ankle taped, shoulder wrapped under my kit. I’m technically cleared to skate now, but there’s still hesitance in my stride, a phantom pain, and I can’t tell if it’s physical or something worse.
They said I was a natural. That I had ‘raw talent,’ that I was ‘born to play.’ It’s bullshit. No one’s born to do this. You claw your way in. You bleed for it. And even then, sometimes, you still don’t feel like you deserve it.
I remember being seventeen, all bones and nerves, standing in the dressing room of my first semi-pro team with kit two sizes too big and hands that wouldn’t stop shaking. I didn’t speak for the first week. Just watched, head down, absorbing every word, every drill. They called me ‘Mute.’ Said it like a joke, but it stuck.
A scout noticed me two months in. Took me aside after a game I don’t even remember playing. Told me I had a shot. That I had the kind of instinct you can’t teach.
I thanked him like it was nothing, then went home and threw up.
There’s something deeply messed up about being good at something that also slowly eats away at you.
People look at the stat sheets, the highlight reels, the goal tallies. They see confidence, swagger, and someone in control. What they don’t see is me lying awake at night, dissecting every missed pass, every shift where I could’ve hustled harder, every time I let someone blow past me on the boards.
They don’t see the fear.
The constant need to prove myself. Again. And again. And again.
Every contract I’ve signed has come with an expiry date, and every time I hit the ice, a part of me is trying to earn it all over again. As if it could all vanish if I screw up one too many times. And maybe it could.
The fear never goes away, it just gets quieter. Easier to ignore when you’re scoring goals and the fans are chanting your name. But when you’re benched? When you’re injured? When you’re notuseful?
That’s when the voice starts again.Told you so. You’re just a fluke. A flash in the pan. A mistake.
“You’re late,” Mia’s voice cuts through the static in my head later that afternoon, when I find her in the gym again,this time pinning rehab routines to the noticeboard with that sharp look she gets when someone’s irritated her. Someone always has.
