“Al, I would never force you to talk about it with me, but it might make you feel better,” I say, trying to tread lightly as I move to sit next to her.
Pain flickers across her pretty face, and Al shifts away from me. “I don’t know what there is to talk about. Don’t you know I’m a distraction for you?” she says, her voice dripping in sarcasm.
“No, you’re not.”
“How else would you describe your performance during your games in Wisconsin?”
I wasn’t the only one who was off my game that weekend, but I was upset about where I stood with Alondra after the party. It wasn’t her fault, though. I’ve always been able to check my personal life at the door when it comes to hockey, but I did a shitty job in Wisconsin.
“I’m allowed to have a bad weekend without it being your fault. I’m only one person, I don’t dictate whether the team wins or loses,” I say, but Alondra’s mouth flattens.
“No, but you’re the captain of the team. You play a pretty big role, whether you want to admit it or not.”
She’s throwing up walls, trying to block me out, but I won’t let her.
I owe a lot to Coach, but he doesn’t get to decide this for me.
I roll my eyes, dragging a hand over the stubble lining my jaw. “You’re right. I am the captain, and your dad is my coach. I can’t change that, but I’m not going to let it affect our friendship. Church and state, remember?” I can’t get a read on her, but I refuse to let her pull further away from me. I know I’m lucky as hell she’s even here with me tonight, considering I spent most ofthe day wondering if Al was going to run as far as she could in the opposite direction from me.
Was telling her she’s a distraction the only thing Coach said?
Alondra shuts her eyes, pulling her knees closer to her chest, and I need her to believe me. “You didn’t see how disappointed he was,” she whispers, and the sadness in her voice stabs me straight through the heart. “He said I would understand why he’s asking me to leave you alone if I ever loved something as much as you love hockey.”
My inhale is sharp, and her reaction makes a lot more sense.Fuck, why would he say that to her?All anyone has to do is watch Al skate to see how she leaves everything on the ice. If anything, I’d even argue that Alondra might love skating more than I love hockey, and I hate how he’s made her question herself.
“Shit, Al. You have to know how wrong he is. You love skating. I could tell from the first time I watched you just how much you love it. I’m sorry, Coach never should’ve said that to you,” I insist, wishing I could grab him by the shoulders to force him to see his daughter for the wonderful person she is.
Alondra has more heart than most of the guys I’ve been on the ice with, and I’m disappointed in him. I want to respect Al’s wishes, but he’s wrong for this. I know it.
“What if he’s right?” she asks, her eyes slowly opening to look at me, and it devastates me how empty they are. “I quit skating. If I could do that, did I really ever love it?”
I want to scream for her. From everything I’ve learned about her relationship with Bradley, quitting was the safest option, even if I hate him for taking it away from her. It reminds me too much of Momma.
Hearing the doubt in her voice as she questions everything is painful.
My hand drifts up to reach for her necklace, borrowing a fraction of her strength. “He’s not right. He doesn’t know what happened during your relationship with Bradley, or how you did it to protect yourself. And Coach certainly doesn’t know you were fucking strong enough to leave him, because I know how hard it can be to make that decision,” I say, my throat threatening to close up as my own nightmares surface.
A lone tear slips down her cheek, scarring my heart. “Thanks, but it’s easy for you to say . . .” Al trails off, wiping her cheek with the back of her hand.
“My momma used to figure skate before she met my dad,” I say, my voice catching. It’s hard for me to talk about because I choose to focus on when it was only the two of us, instead of everything before. But I think Al might need to hear some of the before, because I hate hearing her diminish her choices. “She was good, but Momma skated because it made her happy, and he didn’t like that she had something to love other than him. Her parents cut her off when she refused to give me up for adoption, so she didn’t have anyone but him. When I fell in love with hockey, the rink became our safe haven from him, and just because she had to quit, it didn’t take away the love she had for skating.”
I think that even as a kid, I could see the difference in my mom when we would go skating compared to when we were at home, and I loved seeing her happy. Some of my best memories are of when we would go skating.
Alondra’s face pales, her glistening eyes widening.
“Is the necklace hers?” she blurts out, and I’m shocked it’s taken her this long to ask about it. I’ve caught her staring at it more than a few times.
I pull it out from beneath my shirt, twisting the skate pendant between my fingers, nodding. “She gave it to me when I started having nightmares after he went to prison. I wear it asa reminder that she’s always with me, and we are free to live our dreams.”
I can count on one hand how many times I’ve taken it off since then. It’s become a good luck charm in some ways, because Momma has a way of making me believe everything will be okay.
“What did he do?” she asks, her voice barely above a whisper.
Flashbacks of the night I woke to the sound of him screaming at her have haunted me for years. The nightmares still happen, though, not as often as they used to.
Putting it into words is more than I’m capable of.
I look away, dropping my hands to the comforter, gripping the soft material in my hands to ground myself. “Al, I . . . can’t. I’m sorry, I just can’t.”
