The puck hit top shelf with a sound like redemption.
The arena detonated. My teammates engulfed me, keeping me upright when my knee finally quit completely. On the jumbotron, Finn was crying and cheering simultaneously, his inhaler forgotten, his small fists pumping triumph.
We added an empty-netter. 4-2 final. Conference finals secured.
But in the tunnel afterward, hidden from cameras, my knee buckled completely. I went down hard, catching myself on the concrete wall, leaving bloody handprints from where I'd been gripping my stick.
Serena found me—she always found me—tears streaming down her face, mixing with the mascara she'd worn for the cameras.
"No more," she whispered, supporting my weight. "Please. No more."
"Conference finals start Thursday—"
"You can barely walk. You just dragged yourself down the ice like your leg was already amputated." She was crying harder now. "What are you proving? To who?"
"I need—" But I couldn't finish. Need what? To prove I wasn't finished? To secure one more payday? To show Finn that sometimes you play through pain that wants to kill you because that's what love looks like?
"You need surgery," she said firmly. "You need to walk at Finn's wedding. You need to stop treating your body like it's expendable."
Above us, eighteen thousand fans chanted my name, unaware their hero was bleeding internally, held together bytape and chemicals and a woman who loved him enough to watch him destroy himself for three more games.
Just three more games.
The conference finals against Texas turned into a Shakespearean tragedy performed on ice. By game four, I was basically playing one-legged hockey, using my stick as a cane between whistles.
The media smelled blood and redemption in equal measure. "Brad Wilder: Playing Through Hell for His Son" ran on TV. The clip of me collapsing behind the bench, then hauling myself back over the boards, had eight million views. They'd turned my disintegration into inspiration porn.
"They're calling you hockey's greatest dad," Serena said, scrolling through her phone with disgust. "Like destroying yourself is somehow noble."
"It sells tickets," I muttered, adjusting ice packs that had become permanent appendages.
A photographer caught her helping me stretch my knee before game five—me grimacing, her hands gentle but firm, both of us unaware we were being watched. The photo exploded across social media: #RelationshipGoals #RideOrDie #StepMomGoals. The comments made Serena throw her phone across the room.
"They're debating whether I'm using you for money," she said, voice brittle. "Or if you're using me as a replacement mom. Like we're a math equation instead of—"
"Instead of what?"
"Instead of two idiots trying not to drown while everyone watches."
We lost game five. 4-1. I played seventeen minutes and accomplished nothing except proving entropy applies to human joints. In my bedroom afterward, I found myself holding Sarah's journal—the one I'd hidden but couldn't throw away. Her handwriting looked like birds taking flight.
Brad will play until his body literally falls apart. It's his language. His love letter. His stupidest quality and the reason I fell for him.
Serena found me there, tears I hadn't noticed sliding down my chin.
"She knew," I said, showing her the entry. "She knew I'd do this."
Serena read it, then sat beside me on my bed and took my wrecked hands in her steady ones.
"She'd be proud," Serena said carefully. "Also furious. She'd probably throw your pain pills at your head while filming your heroics for Finn's future wedding."
"You didn't know her."
"No. But I know you. And Finn's fifty percent her, so I know she was brilliant and stubborn and had questionable taste in men."
I laughed despite everything. "Do you?"
"Have questionable taste?" She traced the surgery scars on my knuckles. "Absolutely."
