It’s what you do when you don’t get to give one.
I told the truth. I took the suspension. I’m walking away from pro hockey.
I need to know who I am when I’m not performing.
I can’t undo what I did. I can’t rewrite the beginning.
But I can stop lying. I can respect your boundaries. I can give you space without turning it into another performance.
If that space lasts forever, I’ll live with it.
Because you don’t owe me forgiveness. You don’t owe me closure. And you don’t owe me a second chance just because I finally understand what I destroyed.
I stop writing.
The words are raw. Spare. True.
I close the notebook.
This letter isn’t for her. Giving it to her—asking her to carry my guilt, my growth, my need to be seen—would just be another way of putting my weight on her shoulders.
So I keep it.
This is mine to answer for.
36
THE QUIET AFTER (WREN)
Iwake to sunlight I didn’t ask for. My phone says 9:47 a.m. I’ve missed two calls from Aubrey and a text from Theo asking if I’m okay.
I turn the phone face down.
After last night’s downpour, the city is washed clean, shy spring light slipping through Larisa’s curtains. My body feels heavy—static humming just under my skin, colors dulled at the edges. That familiar pale-white buzz of overload.
Larisa is still asleep beside me on her double bed, wrapped in the Billie Eilish hoodie I bought her at the merch stand the other day, her hair sticking out at wild angles. She’s smiling in her sleep, mouth tipped up like she’s still there, still singing.
The memory of her joy over the past few days moves through me in warm bursts: greens, bright yellows, tiny sparks of light. I hold onto it as long as I can.
But the second I sit up, the weight returns. Last night. The concert. Him.
The way he looked at me under the marquee. Like he’dlost something he didn’t know how to get back. Like watching me walk away broke something in him too.
I shut my eyes harder. It doesn’t help. I can still see the steel blue, the gold flickering at the edges.
No. Not today.
Today is about leaving New York in one piece. About finding one small part of myself that isn’t cracked straight through.
My phone buzzes.
ERIN
If you’re still in the city, come say hi before you head back
I’m home
My heart drums.
