Her fingers curled in my hoodie, knuckles grazing my back as she buried her head deeper into my chest.
Tears flooded my eyes, nostrils flaring, the truth gutting me like a fish.
But I held strong, sniffing my emotion back and making a new vow to myself, and to her, to be her friend now. I couldn’t change the past. I couldn’t rewrite what happened.
I only had now, and I would make the best of it.
“I promise to leave it alone now. I won’t keep trying to revive something I know is dead.” I swallowed, pulling back just enough to press my lips to her forehead. I squeezed my eyes shut as she let out a shaky breath at the contact. “Friends, Ari. That’s all I want. Just let me be your friend.”
Another squeeze of her hands at my back was her only reply.
The First Crack
Ariana
2017
It was an accident, the first time I saw Shane on my television after that night he found me in Boston.
I was a newlywed, happy as a clam as I sat cross-legged on the floor of my new bedroom and unpacked boxes of clothes, the two-carat diamond ring glittering on my finger. 2013 felt like a lifetime ago. Since then, I’d met Nathan, fallen madly in love, been engaged and married and was now moving into our first house together.
It would be a lie to say Shane never crossed my mind. He did. I had a feeling he always would. But that cold winter night in Boston four years ago had cleansed me of him in a way. I’d been able to look him in the eye and tell him how I felt, and it helped me move forward.
I didn’t follow what happened to him after his injury. I didn’t want to know. Any time I thought of him, I tried my best tounthink. It was a wound I didn’t want to poke, a scab I knew better than to pick at.
But Georgie had become a hockey fan in the last few years, thanks mostly to Nathan and his affiliation with the league through his job. Nathan worked in finance, and his firm specialized in alternative investments — money that movedquietly, through channels most people never saw. Sports were just another asset class to him, another place where numbers could be bent, optimized, and leveraged.
And right now, my little brother was sprawled out on my king bed, hand buried in a bag of chips and a game on the TV as he kept me company while I unpacked.
Part of me wanted to tell him to shoo so I could listen to an audiobook or some music, but he was fifteen now, a sophomore in high school and quickly becoming too cool for his older sister. If he wanted to hang out with me, I was going to take it. I had a feeling those days would come to an end far before I was ready.
I was sorting through a box of Nathan’s, folding his night shirts and pajama pants, when a reporter said a familiar name and made me freeze mid-fold.
“Shane McCabe, assistant coach for the Jacksonville Barracudas, joining us now.”
My heart stuttered so hard I felt it in my teeth.
The camera cut to him, and I stopped breathing.
The last time I had seen him, he had been on crutches outside that restaurant in Boston. He’d been pale, too thin, and hollowed out by pain — both physical and mental. That boy had looked defeated and lost, the kind of broken that made me ache just to witness, even if I was still mad at him.
But the man on my television looked nothing like that.
“Whoa,” Georgie said from the bed, suddenly sitting up. Chips spilled onto the comforter, but he didn’t seem to notice. “No way. I had no idea Shane was still in the league.”
“Me either,” I managed on a breath, the corner of my lips curling as the reporter asked him question after question.
And it wasn’t a lie. I didn’t know what happened to him after his injury. He’d told me he was done playing, but I knew there was no way he’d let hockey go forever. It was in his soul. It was who he was.
So to see him now, still able to be a part of the sport he loved so much…
I couldn’t help but smile.
“Man, look at him,” Georgie said, grinning as he shook his head and popped another chip in his mouth. “Hard to believe I used to ride around on that guy’s shoulders. What a stud.”
I laughed.
It felt like shaking rust off my ribcage.
