I'm on my feet before I realize I'm moving, pacing the cramped hotel room like a caged animal. My hands won't stop shaking—violent tremors that make it impossible to hold anything steady.
The walls feel like they're closing in, the air too thick to breathe properly.
"No." The word rips from my throat, raw and desperate. "No, I'm not doing that. I'm not ready."
Sophie watches me pace, her expression mixing sympathy with ruthless practicality. "Asher, it's already done. The video is out there. There's no putting that genie back in the bottle."
"There has to be something else we can do. Some way to—"
"To what? Pretend it never happened?" Her voice is firm but not unkind. "The internet doesn't work that way. Once something's viral, it's permanent."
I whirl around to face her, desperation clawing at my chest. "Then we disappear. Go off the grid. Change our names and move to fucking Alaska where nobody cares about hockey."
"Asher…"
"I'm serious. People do it all the time. Witness protection, whatever. We just... vanish."
Blaze steps between us, his presence both calming and devastating. Because seeing him reminds me that this isn't just about me anymore. This isn't just my life imploding—it's his too.
"There has to be another way," he says, surprising me by taking my side. "We could make up an excuse. Say the video was taken out of context, claim it's deepfake technology, something."
Sophie shakes her head before he's even finished speaking. "It won't work. The footage is too clear, too obviously real. Any denial will look like cowardice and make things infinitely worse."
"How could it be worse?" I demand. "My entire life just got turned inside out for public consumption. How the fuck could it be worse?"
"Because right now, some people are calling it brave," Sophie says bluntly. "Some of the early reactions are actually positive. But if you try to lie your way out of this, if you make people feel stupid for supporting you, that goodwill will evaporate instantly."
She meets my wild eyes with steady determination. "You need to come out. Publicly. Officially. And you need to do it right. I'll help you write a statement, walk you through every word, anticipate every question. But it has to happen."
The room spins around me. Coming out. The words I've spent twenty-six years avoiding, the conversation I've had nightmares about since I was old enough to understand what being different meant.
"I can't." My voice breaks completely. "I literally cannot do this. You don't understand what this means for me, for my family, for everything I've worked for."
"I understand that it's terrifying," Sophie says. "But I also understand that hiding isn't an option anymore. The choice has been taken away from you."
"Exactly! The choice was taken away!" I'm shouting now, months of suppressed panic finally finding its voice. "This was supposed to be mine to control. My timeline, my words, my decision about when and how and if I was ever ready."
"But you never would have been ready," Sophie says quietly. "Would you? If Jackson hadn't forced this, would you have ever chosen to come out?"
The question stops me cold because we all know the answer. I would have kept hiding forever, would have died with this secret buried so deep that even I sometimes forgot it existed.
I feel like I'm drowning on dry land, gasping for air that won't come.
Blaze reads my expression and steps in immediately. "Let's take a break," he says, moving to my side. "Give him time to process this."
"We don't have time for this." Sophie starts.
"We have a few minutes," Blaze cuts her off, his voice brooking no argument. "Everyone needs to calm down before we make any decisions."
Sophie nods reluctantly, moving toward the small kitchenette in the corner. "I'll make tea. And coffee, if there's any. Everyone needs to think clearly."
In the brief silence that follows, as Sophie busies herself with hotel amenities that probably haven't been updated since the nineties, I reach for my phone.
I know I shouldn't look, every rational part of my brain is screaming at me not to, but I can't help myself.
I need to see how bad it really is.
The internet has exploded. Headlines multiply by the second across every sports website, entertainment blog, and social media platform.
The video has been shared thousands of times already, dissected frame by frame by strangers who think they have the right to opinions about my private life.
HOCKEY STARS' SECRET EXPOSED
GAY ATHLETES: THE LAST TABOO?
BLAZE AND ASHER: LOVE OR PUBLICITY STUNT?
The comments are a battlefield. Longtime fans expressing shock without judgment. Others renouncing their support entirely, promising to burn jerseys and boycott games.
Strangers calling us disgusting slurs, telling us we're going to hell, wishing us dead with the casual cruelty that only internet anonymity can provide.
But there are other voices too. People calling us brave. LGBTQ+ fans saying they feel seen and represented. Messages of support from athletes in other sports who've faced similar challenges.
The dichotomy is overwhelming—love and hate existing in the same digital space, separated by single scrolls of a screen.
"Hey." Blaze's voice is gentle as he approaches. "Don't do that to yourself."
He doesn't grab the phone aggressively or scold me for looking. Just extends his hand, waiting for me to make the choice to give it up.
"I needed to see," I say, but I let him take it anyway.
"And now you've seen. And you're still here. Still breathing."
Blaze sets both our phones on the far side of the room, then returns to pull me close. His arms wrap around me with the kind of steady strength that's kept me anchored through every crisis we've faced together.
"The things they're saying…"
"Are just words. From people who don't know us, don't understand what this means, don't have any actual power over our lives."
"They feel powerful."
"I know they do. But they're not." Blaze presses a kiss to the top of my head, and the simple gesture nearly undoes me. "We'll figure this out. Together."
I want to believe him. Want to sink into the certainty in his voice and let it carry me through whatever comes next.
But twenty-six years of fear don't disappear just because someone says the right words. And the comments I just read, the hatred, the disgust, the casual cruelty, those feel more real than any promise of getting through this intact.
I'm not sure I can survive what comes next. I'm not sure either of us can.