The crowd around me erupts in cheers, and I feel heat flood my face. But I put my hand up against the glass anyway, matching where his is on the other side.
He grins and skates away.
Beckett passes the glass next.
His eyes move through the crowd and land on me, and he doesn't stop skating but something in his face changes. He nods once.
I nod back.
Then Theo finds me.
He's at the blue line when he turns and scans the front row. He finds me immediately and holds my gaze for one long moment.
I stare back as my heart races.
Cody circles back around, skating past again. He mouths something through the glass.
You're mine.
I blush.
The puck drops.
The arena explodes into hundreds of voices rising together, cheering, shouting, willing their team to win.
I watch the three of them on the ice.
I think about everything it took to get here. Every damaged decision and every wrong move and every piece of myself I thought I'd lost permanently and found again in the wreckage.
They took everything I was made of and unmade it.
I think about what came after the unmaking.
This.
This came after.
I'm no longer deconstructed. I'm put together in a way I didn't know was possible.
When it’s halftime, the guys disappear, so I reach into my bag and pull out the book.
I open it to a random page — one of the many where Theo's handwriting fills the margins. His notes. His thoughts. His conversation with me across pages and time and everything that happened between then and now.
I read one line.
You deserve better than what you've been given.
I close the book, put it back in my bag, and look at the ice.
I came to UW Seattle not realizing I was looking for answers about what happened to my boyfriend.
I uncovered dark secrets. Went through things I never imagined I'd survive.
I thought I knew what love looked like.
I know better now.
Love doesn't look like one thing.
