They'll be home soon. Emma will hug me and tell me how happy she is that I'm here, and will squeeze me tight the way shealways does. Chase will be welcoming and friendly, and will probably offer to help carry my bags even though I showed up unannounced. I'll smile and joke and make some comment about how their couch better be comfortable.
I'll pretend everything's fine.
And maybe if I pretend long enough, it'll become true.
Or maybe I'll finally break, shatter into so many pieces no one can put me back together.
The sound of a car door slamming outside makes me jump, my whole body jerking.
They're home.
I stand up, smoothing my sweater with trembling hands, checking that my sleeves are pulled down far enough to hide the scars. The old ones and the new ones, the roadmap of my pain carved into my skin. I paste on a smile, pulling my lips into the right shape even though it feels wrong. Rebuild the mask. Become the Maya they expect—loud, funny, wild. The girl who drinks too much and laughs too hard.
Not this broken thing, trying to remember why she's still breathing.
The key turns in the lock. Light spills in from the porch.
By the time Emma walks through the door, I'll be fine.
I have to be.
2
JACKSON
The puck hits the back of the net, and the crowd explodes.
I don't celebrate. Not yet. I skate back to center ice, tap Chase's glove as he passes, and lock eyes with our goalie. Fifteen seconds left on the clock, and we're up by one, but that means nothing until the buzzer sounds.
The face-off is mine. I win it clean, send the puck to the boards where our defenseman pins it. The other team scrambles as the clock ticks down.
Five. Four. Three.
The buzzer blares through the arena.
Now I celebrate.
Chase slams into me first, then the rest of the team piles on. Gloves hit the ice. Someone's yelling about the bar. The energy is electric: pure adrenaline and victory, and the kind of high that makes you forget how much your body hurts.
"Captain!" Our rookie forward, Jenkins, is grinning like an idiot. "That setup was fucking beautiful."
"Chase made the goal," I remind him, but I'm smiling too. I can't help it.
We won. Home game, divisional rival, and we shut them down. As captain, this is what I live for: leading my team to victory, hearing the Hartford crowd chant our names. The roar of twelve thousand people never gets old. Neither does the weight of the C on my chest.
I've been captain for five years now. Some days it feels like a few minutes, others like thirty years. Tonight, it feels right like everything clicked the way it was supposed to.
The locker room is chaotic. There's music blasting, guys stripping from their gear, and talking shit. Jenkins is dancing in his compression shorts, and our goalie, Reeves, is rating everyone's performance on a scale of one to ten. He gives himself a twelve.
"Fuck off, Reeves," someone yells, and everyone laughs.
I strip down, peeling off my compression shirt. My shoulder's already starting to ache where I took a check in the second period. Nothing serious, just the usual bumps and bruises that come with the job. I've played through worse.
Coach gives a quick speech about maintaining momentum, about the upcoming road trip to Montreal, about not getting cocky. I listen while unlacing my skates. We've got three games this week. Two away, one home. The schedule's brutal this time of year, but that's October for you.
The shower's hot enough to scald when I manage to get in. I stand under the spray and let it work the tension from my muscles. The high from the win is already fading, replaced by the familiar ache of a body that's been playing professional hockey for a decade.
I'm thirty-one. Not old by normal standards,but in hockey years?I'm getting there.
