Time peels away.
Memories of a much younger me, anxiously waiting at the front door, fill my head. I can hear it now. The squeak of Nat’s beat-up, junkyard-rescue of a car limping into our driveway. Then his boots on the porch steps. Then his hand turning the lock.
‘Hey, shrimp.’
‘Hi, Nat.’
He would ruffle my hair before sauntering to my brother’s room to play video games while I retreated to my room to write really bad poetry about his emerald eyes.
I blink and the memory recedes.
What is Nathan Campbell doing in Lucky Falls?
The answer doesn’t matter.
Only one thing is clear.
I can’t ever, under any circumstances, run into Nat again.
Chapter Two
NATHAN
I thought the woman in the truck next to me was having a seizure.
Or maybe a heart attack.
One minute, she was staring at me like a ghost through the windshield.
The next, she face planted.
I drive out of the grocery store parking lot and, right before merging into Main Street traffic, I glance at her truck in my rearview mirror.
From this distance, I can see the woman creeping out of her car and hurrying into the store with her chin tucked to her chest.
She seems unharmed. Heart-attack free.
That’s a relief.
“I hope I didn’t come off as a creep,” I mumble, rubbing my chin.
Did she notice that I jogged to the passenger side of my car to put up my grocery bags so I could peer into her window?
Nah, probably not.
She was too busy squeezing her hands to her chest and melting into the lap of the passenger seat. I stood there for a good minute, assessing whether I should knock on her window and check if she was breathing. In the end, I saw her chest move and figured her little make out session with her chair wasn’t any of my business.
As I drive to the stadium, I put the strange woman out of my mind and turn up my ‘Pump the Jam’ remix. The thudding bass gets louder as I push the stadium doors open and trot inside like a boxer before a headline match.
The smell of the rink fills my nostrils and my heart thuds in anticipation.
Oh, I’m ready for the fight.
But my opponent isn’t the other players on the ice, stretching in preparation for our training.
‘You’ll never walk again, Campbell. Even if you do, you won’t be able to play hockey.’
I keep putting one foot in front of the other.
