“Now, are you done denying it? Because no matter what you said, no matter how hard you push me away, I’ll still be here. I’ll stay in the shadows as long as you need. I’ll stay and wait for you to be done. I’ll stay and wait for you to realize you’re my life, my breath, my every thought. You’re in my heart, Aurora.You aremy heart.”
“I-I think I am. Because I think I love you.”
A quiet zap seizes Severin’s body as it turns to stone under my touch and his eyes lock on mine.
“Y-you…” he rasps out, his chest heaving now. “Say that again.”
It’s both a plea and a demand.
I draw in a ragged breath. “I—’’
“Sava! Are you coming?” Exton shouts from the end of the hall and then quickly winces and retreats when Severin shoots him a glare.
“I’ll be there in a second,” he tells him before turning back to me. “I have to go, Lychik, but promise me you won’t disappear. Promise you’ll be here when I come back from that ice.”
The worry, the fear, in his voice that I might disappear breaks something in me. How have I not seen this before? How have I not realized that it mirrors mine like two sides of one coin.
“You need to go to the hospital; you’re not going out on that ice. I won’t let you.” I clutch his jersey harder.
“Lychik.” He gathers my hands in his, pulling them from his jersey as he brings them to his lips and kisses. “I promise, I’ll let you take me anywhere you’d like after the game. Any hospital, emergency room, or psych ward. I’ll follow you into hell itself if that’s what you want. I’ll do it, but right now I need to be on that ice. For my team. For Emett. Is he okay?”
I nod. “Yeah, he knows things like that can happen in hockey. He just got scared for you. I-I think he loves you very much.”
I hear the loud thump of his heart at the sound of that.
“Tell him I got Lincoln, so nothing can happen to me.”
“Lincoln?” My eyes widen. “You actually carry him around? I thought you threw him away with the rest of fan gifts.”
“I don’t let him out of my sight. It’s a gift from my boy.”
My lower lip sneaks in between my teeth. “He’ll be glad to hear that. But I can’t let you go out there.”
“I’ve let everyone down tonight, Aurora.”
“Your team will unders—”
“They will. I know they will, but I’ll never forgive myself for allowing my own demons to cloud my game. I won’t forgive myself for possibly destroying the playoffs. But most of all I won’t forgive myself for allowing Emett to see that. To see all that pain and blood on the ice he loves so much. I’ve tainted it with my rage.”
“Sava…”
“Just promise me you’ll be here afterward, please?”
I exhale, closing my eyes and nod before opening them again. “I’ll be here. I promise.”
Sava nods, picks up his helmet and stick and starts wobbling down the hall before he turns his head and says, “Aurora.”
“Yeah?”
“I love him too, but don’t tell him that, okay?”
“Why?”
“I want to be the one who tells him. He deserves that.”
A single tear rolls down my cheek at his words, because I know them to be true. I feel it.
Maybe the mask and the man behind it are not all that different after all…
