My body feels like it's made of wet cement, heavy and dragging, because I didn't sleep a wink. Not one.
Last night's still clawing at me.
Caroline's face — the wrecked, devastated way she looked at me when she told me why she left. Her voice shaking, her hands trembling, tears running like I'd cracked her open all over again. And when she shoved me out, literally dragged my ass out of her room... I didn't leave.
I stayed in that hallway for two hours, slumped against the door like an idiot, waiting. Hoping she'd open it again. That maybe she'd let me fix it, even just for a second.
She didn't.
The only thing I heard was her crying.
Not soft, pretty tears like in the movies. No — this was raw, ugly, broken. Sobs that cracked and broke, spilling out of her like every breath hurt to take. Each one slammed into me through the wood of her door, carving straight down my ribs like knives.
And I just sat there. Back against the door, fists pressed into the carpet, every sound tattooing itself into my skull. I couldn't block it out, couldn't stop hearing her, even when my ears rang.
God, it gutted me. Because I knew those tears were mine. My fault. My cheap, dirty words put them there. And even after the sobbing faded into silence, that silence felt heavier. Like it was pressing me flat, grinding me into the floor.
That's when I left. Not because I wanted to. Because I couldn't take sitting there one more second, knowing I'd already broken her in ways I couldn't tape over.
And now, here I am. Game day. As an alternate captain, I should be running strategies through my head — faceoff plays, power play rotations, penalty kill setups. I should be thinking about how to shut down Lakeview's top line or how to get under their skin.
Instead, all I see is her face. That look of pure anger. Pure betrayal. Pure hurt.
I should feel relieved, right? I finally got answers to the questions that's been eating me alive for three years. I should be planning how to make it up to her, how to win her back, how to get my best friend back.
But I can't.
I'm sitting here paralyzed, drowning in guilt. Because now I know the truth: it was me. My words. My cowardice. My stupidity. The one thing I never meant to do, I did anyway.Hurt her.
And hurt doesn't even cover it.
Destroyed is the better word. I destroyed her. And the worst part? She heard words I didn't even mean, words I never wanted her to hear. And still, they broke her.
So yeah, my team's amped, pumped up for blood tonight. And me? I'm sitting here like a shell. Suit on, skates laced, body on the ice but my head buried somewhere back in that dorm hallway.
I'm supposed to be their firestarter. Instead, I'm smoke and ashes.
My body's in the rink, but my head? Not even close. It's nowhere near hockey, nowhere near tonight's game plan. It's stuck in the past — locked on the one moment that ruined everything.
That day. That fucking day.
The day she overheard me. The day that burned it all down in one stupid, careless instant.
If I could, I'd mark it on my calendar in red ink, circle it a hundred times, slap a skull sticker on it. Cursed. The day I torched the only friendship that ever mattered.
I remember it all too well...
3 years ago...
Prom's in a few hours and, yeah, I know it's not exactly normal for a guy like me to feel giddy. But screw normal — I'm practically vibrating out of my skin. My heart's racing like I just downed three Monsters and a pre-workout shake on an empty stomach.
And it's not even about prom itself. Couldn't care less about the stupid slow songs or finding out who's gonna be the prom king and queen. It's about what happened last night.
In her bedroom.
Caroline and me, lying there, like always. Except this time wasn't like always.
We've been doing that since forever — crashing in each other's beds, sleepovers practically every night, sharing rooms like it's the most natural thing in the world. Back then we didn't care about stuff like changing in front of each other either — stupid kid stuff, y'know? Yeah, well, that changed. Pretty sure it'd be weird if she just stripped down now like she used to.
