Total pages in book: 143
Estimated words: 130275 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 651(@200wpm)___ 521(@250wpm)___ 434(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130275 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 651(@200wpm)___ 521(@250wpm)___ 434(@300wpm)
I skidded out of the parking lot, trying to stop my hands from shaking. That frame. That framed jersey. Why did they have to do that? Why did I have to see that?
I drove and drove, pushing the speed limit, but couldn’t stop my hands from shaking. Was this what he’d felt like when he’d roared down the road? When he’d done what he did? My blood trickled down my arm. My knuckles were split open, wounds raw.
But worse, I could smell my blood.
Blood …
The coppery scent immediately yanked me back to the moment I prayed I could forget. The one that was as tattooed onto my brain as deeply as the black and red ink on my neck. I felt my breathing stutter, the white puffs of smoke bursting into misty staccato balls before me. My stomach swirled, the fire I held on to like a crutch extinguishing by the second as that night came tumbling back.
I made a harsh right turn onto the dirt road that led to home but slammed my foot on my brakes halfway up, at the pond. I was panting like I’d just run a marathon. I couldn’t be in the car. It was too enclosed, too stifling, reminded me too much of that night …
Jumping from the driver’s seat, I ran to the pond, inky thick ice coating its surface. I stopped at the edge, head tilted back as I stared at the darkening sky.
In memoriam …
A choked, strangled sound wrenched from my throat. I bent down, palms flattening on the ice. Anything to ground me. Christ. How did we even get here? How had it all gone so wrong?
Why hadn’t he said anything? Why hadn’t he just talked to me—
Throwing my head back, I screamed into the night sky, hearing sleeping birds fleeing from the surrounding trees. I slowly stood, throat raw, body jumping with adrenaline, and moved to the shed that I hadn’t opened in I didn’t know how long.
Placing my bloodied hand on the handle, I wrenched it open and found my old skates staring back at me. I ignored the punch to the gut I received when I saw the second pair leaning beside them.
Grabbing mine, I kicked off my boots, not caring if my socks were soaked through as they slapped on the snow. I slipped them on and felt nauseous as that familiar rush of rightness took me in its hold. I glanced up at the sticks that stared back at me like they had a soul, like they had memories that lay trapped in the layers of wood.
Before I could overthink it, I grabbed for the one with black and gold tape—Bruins colors. As I held it, it felt sacrilegious. I never believed I deserved to hold this stick. How could I when it belonged to my hero? The one who’d taught me everything I knew. The one I’d looked up to, emulated, laughed with and run to. The one who’d shone so bright he lit up the whole friggin’ sky.
Now, I was permanently stuck under his eclipse.
Instinctively moving to the pond, I placed my right blade on the ice and pushed off until I was gliding along the surface. The harsh wind slapped at my face. My lungs, which felt like they’d forgotten how to function, drank in a long gasp of air. The tip of the stick in my hands dragged across the pond’s frozen surface. I tapped it back and forth like I was passing a puck in between. It came as natural to me as breathing. This. Ice. Hockey.
I closed my eyes as I circled the pond. And like I had slipped into another plane, I heard the distant echo of two kids laughing …
“You think you can take me, kid?” Cillian’s deep voice rang out over the snow and wind as I ran toward him, stealing the puck from under him. “Hey!” he laughed and chased me down the pond at what felt like a million miles an hour. These days, he couldn’t catch me. When I slipped it through the two branches that made up our makeshift goal, he wrapped his arms around me, swooping me off the ice. “You’re better than me now, kid. How the hell did that happen?”
The smile on my face was so wide my cheeks ached. I shrugged.
“You know that, right?” Cillian said, releasing me and circling where I stood. “You’re gonna go all the way. Everyone sees it. All eyes are on you.”
I didn’t see it. Cill was the best hockey player I’d ever seen. I was pretty sure I would never measure up. He was older than me and was the star of every team he’d ever been on. Ever since I could remember, I’d wanted to be just like him.
“It’s in the stars, kid,” he said, roughing at my messy hair with his gloved hand. “We’ll play at Harvard together, then hit the big time. NHL, All Stars. Olympics.” He smiled and pressed a kiss to my head. “Together, yeah?”