I heard Heath sip his tea. "Weird being here without you," he said.
"You're doing fine," I said.
Quiet for a beat. "That's not what I mean."
The ocean pushed against the shore outside my window. In Chicago, the radiator ticked.
"I know," I said. "I miss you."
I'd never said that to anyone. Not to my parents when I left for juniors. Not to any human being in twenty-three years.
Heath let the sentence stand. He gave it space.
"Good," he said. "The bear documentary's actually incredible. This one grizzly keeps trying to catch salmon and falling face-first into the river. Eleven times. Doesn't quit. Pickle energy."
I laughed.
We talked for another half hour. He told me about the soup, and I told him about the bluff over the ocean and the waves. I didn't mention Dr. Voss or Scripps.
His breathing slowed toward sleep.
"Get some rest," I said.
"You too. Night, Kieran."
"Night."
The next morning I drove south along the coast until the buildings thinned, and the cliffs took over. Parked in a gravel lot and walked down to a rock shelf above the waterline.
I poked around the tide pools. A purple sea urchin. Hermit crabs. I crouched at the edge of a pool and watched.
Then I walked to where the rock met the open ocean and sat down.
I sat there until my brain turned quiet. When thought came back, it arrived clean.
If I left hockey, I lost Heath.
His entire life existed in a city fifteen hundred miles from any ocean. If I walked into Dr. Voss's program in two years, I walked out of his life. He'd try to make it work. Heath would fully commit, refusing to give up even when it hurt. Hard to knock over.
I knew what distance did to things that needed proximity to survive.
I picked up a rock. Dark, smooth, the size of my palm. The underside was rougher, pocked by years of tidal abrasion. Two surfaces.
I put it in my jacket pocket.
The plan I'd devised at nineteen had assumed I'd want nothing in the present tense. It assumed wanting lived safely in the future, always at least two years away. Then Heath walked into the present.
A wave hit the shelf hard enough to send spray across my shoes.
I stayed until the light shifted from white to gold. Then I stood, checked the rock in my pocket, and walked back to the car.
***
O'Hare was my gateway back into Chicago, gray carpet and recycled air. I grabbed my bag off the carousel and turned toward the exit.
Heath was leaning against a pillar near the doors.
Hands in his jacket pockets. Hood up against the cold bleeding through the automatic doors. His nose was red.
