Shane did something he had never done before in his life.
He skipped morning practice and arrived late for the pre-game call time.
The locker room dripped with heavy silence when Shane walked in, tunnel-vision focused on his cubby, already dressed and just needing to put on his gear. He could tell that Hayden was sticking close to him, posturing, but other than that, Shane wasn't aware of any of it.
They were playing Winnipeg. Their team had had a mediocre season so far, but tonight, Shane intended to win.
He sat down on the bench to lace his skates, eyes locked onto each familiar twist and turn of his fingers through the loops, and he didn't look up until the door slammed open. Even then, he managed not to startle.
Theriault, who had coached the Voyageurs for as long as Shane had been playing for them, slammed into the locker room with a sickened snarl twisting his sunburned face. He started shouting as soon as he was through the door. "Listen up!" he hollered, face already red, as if everyone in the room hadn't been waiting for his arrival, and instantly frozen when he appeared. "I don't want any. Fucking. Distractions." He leveled a glare around the room, but he ended it on Shane, his dark eyes staring him down across the locker room while everyone else stared with held breaths. "We're here to play a fucking game tonight!" Theriault barked, still completely focused on Shane. Shane met his eyes without blinking, without standing, without moving at all. He held his breath and remembered Ilya whispering, "Things turn out all right."
"Yes, Coach!" someone said, a beat too late, their voice alone.
"We're here to play a fucking game," Theriault repeated. "And we better fucking win. Hollander, if you see a fucking camera, I want you covering your face and ducking away with your tail between your legs. You don't fucking talk to anyone until you talk to us. Got it?"
"Yes, Coach," Shane said without raising his voice, intonation smooth.
"And you never," he pointed his finger, which had a long white scar down it from where a skate had once cut him, nearly bisecting it, "fucking dodge my calls before a game again, or skip practice, or you're not fucking captain anymore. Understood?"
"Yes, Coach."
He slammed the door as he left. Shane bent over and resumed lacing up his skates, fingers steady, mind faraway.
No one said anything. Not JJ, or Miitie, or even Hayden.
Hayden did, though, put a hand on his shoulder and squeeze.
They got dressed.
Shane stood up. He felt distant from himself. He felt almost half-blind, like he was looking at the world through gauze. He was never very good at energetic speeches that could rile up his teammates or ignite a passion in them. His approach focused more on personal advice, detailed suggestions, and individual attention. He was still a good captain. Today, he put on his helmet as they all watched him and said, "We're winning this one," and left the room.
He took Theriault's instructions and studiously shouldered past every camera and microphone thrust in his face. Stepping onto the ice was like emerging from a darkened tunnel into sunlight. There was something metaphorically powerful about the ice beneath his skates—the sudden weightlessness of it. The knowledge that with the slightest push, he would fly.
People were already in the stands, but Shane couldn't hear them. He saw some people standing and cheering. He saw others with their hands cupped around their mouths. All he could hear was the roaring rush of blood in his ears.
He made it through warm-ups deafened, vision tightening, head rushing. If any of his teammates said anything to him, he didn't hear them. He was hardly aware of Hayden, hovering, concern written clearly across his face, or even his own face, already projected above their heads on the Jumbotron.
Shane hadn't really expected anything else. Probably, most people had assumed he would be benched for this game. Players who had big scandals blow up in the middle of the season usually were.
But was this a scandal? That was probably the exact question the NHL was trying to figure out right now.
And it wasn't Shane's fucking business what they decided, not until they told him to get off the fucking ice and never return.
Until then, he could do this. This was maybe the only thing he could do.
The first face-off. Winnipeg's center was a big dude Shane had met a million times over the years but barely knew anything about. He was fast and ruthless, a strong player but not a very calculated one, and as they bent down into position, legs splayed and skates angled, ready to take off at the drop of the puck, Shane grit his teeth, waiting for the inevitable chirping.
The Winnipeg center coughed. "That was fucked up," he said, a little lamely, mouth pursed like he knew it. Shane blinked. Those were the first clear words that had reached him since the locker room, and, for a brief moment, they were drowned out by the dull roar of the crowd (was it bigger than usual? Maybe he didn't want to know). "Hope you're—hope you're doing well."
Shane glanced at him. He was still expecting a twist. "Thanks," he said, returning his eyes to the ice.
"Yup," the guy said, and coughed again.
The puck dropped. Shane won the face-off.
Shane had dissociated during games before. It had started a long time ago, even before the WJC, during games when he felt more stress. Back then, it usually had something to do with things outside the sport—stress over examinations or who he was taking to prom, or the college placement tests his mom made him sit for just in case, whenever his real life stress compiled with the pressure he felt on the ice. In the past few years, it mostly happened during extremely important games. Playoff games, or games that would make the difference between a wildcard spot in the playoffs or the end of his season. It only happened to him a handful of times over six seasons on the ice, and Shane had learned methods for pushing away that strange, focused fogginess he sometimes felt creeping up his shoulders and neck. He did not allow himself to make a habit of it, because the results fluctuated. Sometimes, when he lost focus so thoroughly, it made him sloppy. He would lose sight of the puck, or his honed instincts would dull a little, make his turns wider and slower, offset his aim, or take away his usual ability to see five steps ahead.
Sometimes, though, Shane's conscious mind checked out, and all that remained was hockey. The game. The stick, the puck, the net—in that order. His body, and years and years of doing nothing else.
That night, Shane did not play like he had something to prove because he couldn't even think that far in advance.
He played like he was one of the best players in the league, because he was.
A franchise player. A generational talent. Shane fucking Hollander. Hockey was not as popular in America as it was in Canada, but if any person in the US was capable of naming two current hockey players, his name would be one.
He knew that.
He let himself forget, though, and he just played the game.
"Hollander is on fire tonight."
"We were all wondering what we could expect from the Voyageurs' Captain."
"Yes, this certainly could have gone quite differently for Montreal."
"I think I'm seeing some tension on the ice, and certainly on the bench, but it's not coming from Hollander's corner, that's for sure. I mean, look at that goal, that's a thing of beauty right there-"
He won.
He won like it was easy, and he wasn't a person but just a body—a robot—that was designed to do nothing but put pucks in nets. Around him, his teammates floundered, stalled, and lost the puck. Shane scored three goals. One assist. They won, 4-2, within regulation time.
He might have blacked out on the way back to the dressing room. He knew he didn't participate in whatever paltry celebration his team acted out on the ice, even though they were desperate for wins this late in the season, with the playoffs looming ever nearer. Later, Shane would only remember being on the ice, gazing up at the scoreboard, and then nothing, then standing in front of his cubby, sweaty and skateless, his back turned to his silent teammates.
Hayden coughed. Shane wondered how long he had been standing there, doing nothing.
He pulled his jersey over his head and stood there, staring at it for a moment longer.
"So." That was Comeau. Shane looked at him blankly. "We never acknowledge this, or…?"
Shane looked at his jersey. Hollander. 24. C. His was the best-selling name on their team. Would that still be true tomorrow? Next month? Next year? Would his name still be on jerseys next year, and would it be a Voyageurs jersey? He just didn't know. "The video is real," he said, because there wasn't much point in denying it anymore. "Rose and I dated for a while. It didn't work out."
"Because you're gay," Comeau said flatly.
"Hey, man," Hayden said, launching to his feet. "If you have a fucking problem-"
"If you have a problem," Shane interrupted, and he didn't have to shout to shut Hayden up, "you should say it. I'm your captain. What's your problem? How can we expect it to affect your game?"
Comeau scoffed. "Affect my game? What the fuck, Hollander? My fucking game?"
"Did it affect my game, tonight?" Shane asked him blankly. "Last year? The year before? How many championship rings do you have, and how many did you have before I became your captain?" Comeau launched to his feet, but Shane calmly finished, "I was gay then, too, just to be clear."
He said it.
He said the words out loud, like they weren't crushing him.
Boiziau got one large hand on Comeau's shoulder and pushed him down, hard. "Capitaine," he said with careful emphasis, "only a fool would give a shit about that. You proved yourself tonight, no?"
Shane didn't want to have to prove himself. He shrugged.
"We all know you're a great player," Miitka said, still boxed up in his goalie gear. He looked a little awkward, but he still spoke up. "No one could doubt that, Shane, and you're a great fucking captain. No one here has any complaints about your captaincy."
"Sure, unless you're bothered about your captain lying through his teeth for years," Drapeau muttered.
Shane glanced around the dressing room, watching gazes flit about, wary and unwilling, or uncomfortable and anxious. Shoulders squaring. Lines being drawn.
There were twenty guys in the dressing room. Shane had Boiziau, Miittie, and Hayden. He knew Drapeau and Comeau would never be happy about this. The rest were wild cards, and he could imagine a future where a few of them, Koch and Couillard, maybe, came around, but he couldn't rely on that.
But Shane couldn't rely on any of them.
He dropped his helmet on the floor and let it clatter. "I'm gay," he said, and it felt wild and reckless to say it, but he had to. He knew he had to. "I've always been gay, as far as I know." He saw more heads turn, eyes blinking, and Drapeau sneered and looked vindicated. "You're right that I've never said any of that before. I am pretty sure none of you are morons, though, and should be perfectly capable of understanding why I never said it. I think that's obvious, and it's been made more than obvious tonight." He gestured outside the dressing room, alluding to the press and the fans and their coach. He was sure it would get back to Theriault, but Shane couldn't care about that right now. "I've kept a large part of my life a secret from you, and to be honest, I don't know how long I would have continued to keep it a secret if this hadn't happened. I actually don't know. I think this might have been better if I could have controlled it, but I can't. It's completely out of my hands, and I'm not exactly having a good fucking time right now." He closed his eyes. He breathed. "That has nothing to do with hockey, though. You don't have to like me, and you have never been obligated to. I don't care. But I'm a great fucking player, and I am going to get this team to the playoffs. If you would like to try to get there without me, I guess that's a conversation you need to have with management. I won't stop you."
He turned his back on them and resumed undressing.
"Maybe he should have his own locker room," someone muttered, and Shane didn't know if it was a real suggestion or a malicious chirp. His shoulders rose to his ears. Hayden snarled something inarticulate and the dressing room descended into tense silence once more, his speech just a ripple in the pond, fading already.
Shane ignored them. He made a promise to himself that he was here to play hockey, and nothing else. Unless they were on the ice, his lips were sealed.
There would be another game, then another, then they would play Boston in their home arena, and then they would be in the playoffs. Of that, he had to make sure.
"Puck bunny," Comeau snarled quietly, checking him hard with his shoulder as he left the room.
Shane ignored that, too.