I shrug. “I read it. Well, one page.”
His smile is soft, forgiving. “I’d probably have done the same.”
He sounds so…kind and sad all at once. But maybe there’s wistfulness in his tone too? And want. Yes, definitely want. “Did you want to read it?”
It feels weird to offer, but worse not to.
He seems to consider that as I grab a spatula and slide the cookies off the tray and onto a rack. “I do, but also…I probably shouldn’t be late.”
“I hear you,” I say. “Don’t want to be fined.”
“I don’t,” he says, but he makes no move to go. “Was it…a hopeful letter?”
I smile, both sad and optimistic. “It was. They have a happy ending. I mean, they did wind up together.”
“True,” he says, wryly, a hint of his humor coming through. “But how they got there is what matters.”
“It is.”
He nods to the door. “I should go.”
This time he turns to leave, but he stops once more in the doorway. “How hopeful?”
I laugh, for the first time in ages. “Very.”
He repeats that word as he takes the cardboard and leaves, the morning sun making a silhouette of him as he strides down the path, and I feel a little bit lighter than I did last night.
49
OPERATION RESUMED
CORBIN
The whole drive down to the arena, voices repeat in my head.
Annabelle from the other day:Do you love her?
Theo from last night:Grow up. People have bad days.
Annabelle again:You don’t like it when you’re not in control. When you think you could fail.
Theo:You should be the kind of man who stays.
All through morning skate, they grow louder. I wonder, too, what the last letter said. But I also don’t know if it matters. Not right now at least.
After, as I grab some lunch with the guys, I hear another voice.
Mabel’s. Saying:Very.
That one sticks with me when I go to my friend Ford’s place. He’s out of town and said I could use it. I don’t want to go back to Cozy Valley for only an hour, so I lie on the couch and close my eyes to rest before the game—because yes, I should rest. It’s part of the job.
I don’t sleep though.
I think about failure. How much I fear it.
I think about bodies breaking down. How terrified I am of that.
I think about losing the things, and the skills, and—most of all—the people I love.
