Tightrope

28

THEN

WILL

"Kid, let me be honest with you. You're good. You've improved a lot ever since you started playing here, and I know you're still two years away from your draft, but if you keep up the good work, you will get drafted." Coach Morgan said.

I was sitting across from him in his office, a place I was all too familiar with. I had been there more than once a month for the past three years, ever since I joined the team.

"Do you really think so, Coach?" Hope bloomed in my chest. 

"What happened to that confidence, Will? You know you're the best player this team has. You know you've been in the public eye. The NHL already has its eye on you." Coach Morgan assured me, and I felt all of my blood rush to my head.

The past three years had been surreal. Once Becca had left, I needed something to pull myself out of the depressing place I had landed myself in. I had found this local team who would take me at thirteen even though I didn't have nearly as much experience as the rest of the guys who had been playing in a team for their whole lives. 

They took me because I was fast. I may have not had enough professional training, but I could skate, and I had the speed.

I had gotten a job after school to pay for it, not bothering to tell my father about it. It's not like he would care anyway. 

I trained every single day after hours with Coach Morgan, and it wasn't long until I caught up with the rest of the team.

Three years later, at sixteen years old, I still had two years to go before my NHL draft. Nevertheless, I knew Coach was right. There had been a lot of noise regarding my name around the junior league, and I was projected as one of the top picks for my draft year. 

All I could hope was to up my game in the next couple of years, so it would all come true.

I nodded. "I know, Coach. Thank you." 

Coach Morgan laughed, "You're the best thing that has ever happened to this team, kid. Gotta love the girl who broke your heart bad enough to bring you here." 

Coach and the rest of the team had a vague idea about my past. When I first started playing with the team, I was in a foul mood all the time, still mourning the best friendship I had ever had. I was still trying to figure out what to do with all the love I still had for Becca.

I had only told them the general aspects of it. The girl I had grown up with and whom I loved very much had moved. I still loved her, of course, and I felt lost without her in my life. The team had told me to channel all that "leftover love" into hockey. To turn it into a drive for the game, for winning. 

And that was exactly what I had done. I had taken all of the love and all of the pain and channeled it into my game. It had pushed me to get up in the morning even when I didn't want to. It kept me standing whenever I wanted to give up after a bad practice. 

It gave me purpose. 

❈

I didn't even bother asking my father where he had been when he came back home one morning after being away for nearly a week. 

It was early in the morning, and I was eating cereal hurriedly because I was already running late. I had to swing by the ice rink to talk to Coach before school, and I really wanted to make it on time to my first period. 

"I need to talk to you, William." My father said, sitting down across from me. 

I frowned and my heart nearly stopped. We barely acknowledged each other these days. We mostly pretended the other one wasn't there, and I was fine with it. He hadn't hit me in a couple of months, not since I had hit him back. 

Years of training professionally at a team combined with the growth spurt that had brought me to his own height, had been enough to stop him. 

He had been drunk as usual, and he was going off about how late I had arrived last night.

He hadn't even been there when I arrived. He was coming up with stuff now.

He punched me once, and it took every ounce of strength in me, but I punched him back. Once. He had stumbled, surprised, and we never talked about it. 

He never said anything about it, and he never hit me again. Not even when he was drunk and mad.

"What about?" I asked, trying to sound uninterested, but the truth was that I was dying to know the reason why my father was speaking to me.

"You have a brother. It happened years ago. I was away visiting one of my... dates in Minnesota, and she got pregnant." He said, getting straight to the point.

He had never been one to sugarcoat things.

"What?" 

My father sighed annoyed, "You have a brother. It happened years ago. I was away..." 

I cut him off, "Yeah I heard that. Why are you telling me now?" 

 "His mother is out of the picture now. I am his father and other legal guardian so he will be coming to live with us." He explained. "Just don't be alarmed when you see a kid walking around." 

What did he care?

Is that what he had been doing all of these years when he went away?

Was he a better father to him than he had ever been to me?

❈

My brother arrived mere days later. He was a funny kid who didn't know when to keep his mouth shut. He spoke his mind all the time and didn't care about anything anyone said. He was amazing.

"I don't like your shirt," He said told me the first time we met. 

I had been wearing a Chicago Whispers shirt, and I took that comment as a sign that I needed to be the one to teach him about hockey.

I couldn't have a brother who didn't like my Chicago Whispers shirt.

"You'll change your mind," I assured him.

I looked around to see if my father was around, but he seemed to have gone to his room. 

"What's your name?" I asked him.

"Nathan." He answered.

"I'm William but you can just call me Will. We're brothers after all." I said, still processing everything. "Do you have a nickname, Nathan?" 

He shook his head. "Dad doesn't like nicknames." 

"Tell me about it," I laughed. "It doesn't matter, though. He doesn't have to like it. What about Nate?" 

Nate shrugged as if he really couldn't care less.

"So, Nate, how old are you?" I asked the question I had even dying to ask.

"Eight." 

So I had been eight when he had been born.

I had spent eight years of my life not knowing I had a brother. I had missed eight years of his life. 

Anger burned in my chest. How could my father do this to me? 

"How old are you?" Nate asked, looking at me curiously.

"I'm sixteen." 

"So are we brothers now?" He asked, and I couldn't help but smile.

I never thought I wanted a brother. I would have never wished my childhood upon anyone. It was mine to suffer and mine alone. 

I didn't know a brother was just what my life was missing until I met Nathan.

I prayed my father didn't give him the same childhood he had given me. 

I loved him instantly, and vowed to always protect him, whatever it took.

Whatever it took.

"Yes. We're brothers now."