jeremy
I had just hung up with the movers—they were already starting to haul boxes out of Arthur’s house—when my manager’s voice cut through the room.
“Are you almost logged off?” Laci asked me for the hundredth time.
“Yes. As I said earlier. I’m clocked out for the day, so all my time right now is completely voluntary.”
I grabbed the stack of papers she wanted organized and went to file them. Total bullshit. I wasn’t getting paid to deal with new client files, yet here I was, still working.
Her favorite line whenever I pushed back?Sometimes we do things we don’t get paid for to finish the job.
Right. Easy for her to say.
I should be grateful I even had a job and that the guy from my old sober house pulled strings to get me in here.
“Any more thoughts on starting a skating program for kids? I did that back downstate, and it took off?—”
“No one likes hockey.”
I clenched my jaw.Iliked hockey. An entire city liked hockey. Hockey had been my whole damn life, even if I’d screwed it up with booze. It was still a skill I had.
“Yeah, no one,” I muttered, thinking she wouldn’t hear.
She did.
“Careful. That mouth of yours will get you tossed right back where you came from.”
“Whatever. I’ll go back to filing.”
I kept fucking filing until the only thing keeping me upright was knowing I’d head to the stadium tonight. A hockey stadium, because apparentlyno one liked hockey.Stupid. Except that was where Dirks would be, and I needed to get to him.
I needed Luna’s signature, needed her to come down, to stand beside me for once. And I’d finally worked up the guts to try and make it happen.
I just wished I had someone to talk to about it, to unload even a piece of this weight. But I didn’t. I lost Austin—my only real friend—when he went to rehab. Not long after, I followed. Now all I had were acquaintances. People I could nod to at meetings, small talk in passing, but nobody who reallyknewme. Not like Austin did. Not like Dirks had once.
I was fucking lost and stuck in the past, I guess—trapped in the loop of what I used to be, what I destroyed. Hockey player. Drunk. Washed up before I even had the chance to burn bright. I kept replaying it, like somehow if I rewound the tape enough times, I’d find the moment I could’ve done it differently. That’s not how life works, and there are no redos. I’d sit in the shit I made and try not to drown in it.
Sobriety was supposed to fix me. That’s what they said—get sober and get your life back. But no one warned me that once the booze was gone, all I’d have was myself, and if I didn’t like the person staring back, it’d be a long fucking road.
I was sober, yeah. But I carried the same ghosts. Same shame. Same fucked-up reel of mistakes playing over and over in my head. The cravings weren’t even the worst part anymore. It was the emptiness. The quiet at night when I couldn’t call anyone, couldn’t text, couldn’t distract myself with another shot or another blackout. That’s when it hit the hardest—how alone I really was.
I tried to tell myself that filing papers wasn’t the worst thing in the world. It was better than waking up in a gutter, better than handcuffs, better than puking blood. But Christ, it still felt pathetic. Volunteering my time because I didn’t have the backbone to tell Lacie to shove it.
Maybe that was the truth of it—I wasn’t brave, not really. Brave people had friends. Brave people made something out of themselves again. Me? I was just trying not to fuck up today bad enough that tomorrow disappeared.
Tonight I was going to the stadium to see Dirks. I had to. I needed Luna. I needed to face her, to finally take the step I’d been circling for weeks. It wasn’t for her, and it wasn’t even for him—it was for me. I needed her signature, needed her to come down and put her name on the line, because this wasn’t just about hockey or trying to relive the past. It was about proving that I could stand on my own two feet again instead of waiting for someone else to drag me there.
For the first time in months, it felt like something that might actually matter.
But I’d still be walking in there alone.
I showed up at the game like I told myself I would, sat in the stands with my hood pulled low. And when the final buzzer went off and the crowd spilled out, I should’ve gone home. I should’ve called it a win just for showing up.
Instead, I followed him.
It was now or never as I had stared at the paperwork on the passenger seat. Her name was right there in bold black ink, the last piece I needed to finally close out the estate. It took me a solid hour to work up the nerve to go knock on her door. An hour of pacing, sweating, going over every possible reason I could give for being there that didn’t make me sound fucking stupid.
The hardest lesson I learned when I finally got sober was that karma’s a bitch, and once I stopped drowning myself in booze, I had no choice but to face reality. Sobriety didn’t hand me a clean slate—it shoved a mirror in my face and made me look at every fucked-up choice I’d ever made.
