I don’t respond.
When the last of them filters out, Phoenix steps into the doorway. His shadow hits the floor before his voice does. “Want to tell me what’s going on?”
I don’t look up. “Bad night.”
“Try bad month.” His tone hardens. “You’ve been a grenade waiting to go off. Now you have. And we’re all paying for it.”
I toss the stick into my bag, the sound sharp. “You finished?”
“No.” His voice drops. “You’re better than this, Flint. You’ve fought your way up from nothing. You used to skate like you had purpose. Now you skate like you’re trying to disappear.”
That hits harder than it should.
He steps closer, tone almost pitying now. “You’re chasing ghosts, whatever they are. Fix it before it kills your game.”
When he leaves, the silence feels heavier than his words.
I sit there long after the lights dim, the only sound the hum of the air vents. My hands ache from the fight. My ribs ache from the hit I took before the penalty. But the worst ache is in my chest, the hollow, bruised space where the emptiness lives
I should text him.
I should scream.
I should quit.
Instead, I just stare at the floor.
When I finally drag myself out to the parking lot, the sky’s the same dull gray it’s been all week. My reflection in the car window looks feral. My eyes are too bright, skin too pale.
I almost laugh.
This is what he’s done to me. He didn’t even have to try.
The quiet is worse than the noise.
The crowd’s roar used to linger in my ears after games, a living thing that followed me home. But tonight, after another loss I carved with my own hands, there’s nothing. No cheering, no booing. Just silence. It feels like it’s pressing on my skin, trying to find a way in.
My apartment smells like stale coffee and old whiskey. The lights are still off; I didn’t bother flipping them when I came in. I drop my duffel by the couch and stand there, helmet still dangling from my fingers. I can’t move.
Maybe if I don’t undress, the night won’t be real. Maybe if I just stand here long enough, I’ll blink and find myself back on the ice before everything went to hell.
The first bottle’s already open. I don’t remember opening it. I just remember the sound—the smallpop—and the way it feels like permission.
The whiskey’s cheap, but it does the job. The first swallow burns, the second numbs. By the third, my body’s remembering what it’s like to stop shaking. My throat is raw, my lips salt-bitten. My knuckles ache. I can still see the look on the coach’s face when he benched me in the third period. That disappointed mix of fury and pity. Like he already knew I’d self-destruct eventually. Everyone did. The “Flint Fire,” they called me. Burned hot, burned fast, burned out.
I sink onto the couch and let my body go slack. The leather sticks to the sweat on my neck. I take another drink to quiet the sound of my own pulse. It doesn’t work.
The game replays in my head. Every wrong stride, every reckless hit, every stupid, desperate swing that cost us the win. I can still hear the thud when I slammed into the boards trying to check a guy twice my size. The crack of my stick when it snapped across the ice. The look Phoenix gave me after the third penalty, like he didn’t recognize me anymore.
And maybe he’s right not to.
I close my eyes, but Alaric’s face is there instead—that cold, beautiful mask he wears when the cameras are on him, when the crowd screams his name like he’s some kind of saint. Ice Prince.
Untouchable. I hate that I know what he looks like underneath that armor. I hate that I love it.
Another drink. It doesn’t even sting anymore. That’s how I know I’ve gone too far, when the burn turns to warmth, when the warmth turns to nothing.
I try to convince myself I don’t care. About the loss. About the team. About him. But my mind keeps circling back like it’s tethered to the same center. Him. Always him. It’s not fair that I remember every moment. It’s not fair that I can’t stop replaying it. That he gets to walk away untouched while I’m still bleeding from something no one can see.
