But the Oliver I saw last week looked haunted. Those shadows under his eyes, the way he kept checking over his shoulder. Maybe he’s changed. Maybe we both have.
The cement podcast drones on about curing times and compression strength. Outside, winter wind rattles the windows. I pull the comforter higher, creating a cocoon against the cold and my racing thoughts.
Five years since that championship night. Five years of growth, therapy, learning to say no. Building boundaries brick by brick, even if some days they still feel paper-thin. Opening my practice, creating a life that accommodates my illness instead of fighting it. Finding friends who understand that sometimes I have to cancel, that my energy is a limited resource, that I’m not faking or exaggerating when I say I can’t.
But lying here at one a.m. with Billy’s cologne still faintly in my nostrils and Oliver’s ghost filling my head, I wonder if I’ve really changed or just gotten better at avoiding situations that might require those boundaries. Is there a difference between being strong and just being protected?
The podcast host moves on to environmental impacts of cement production. My eyelids grow heavier but won’t quiteclose. This is the liminal space CFS creates—neither awake nor asleep, neither sick nor well, neither past nor present.
I think about Oliver’s hands, how they used to shake slightly after games from adrenaline. How he’d hold them out, watching the tremor with fascination and fear. “It’s like my body doesn’t know the game’s over,” he said once.
Maybe that’s what we were—two people whose bodies and minds couldn’t agree on what was real, what was over, what was worth fighting for.
The tree branches tap against the window like morse code. The cement podcast discusses load-bearing capacities. My phone sits silent on the nightstand.
And I lie here wondering: is there even the slightest possibility that, just maybe, right at this moment, he’s thinking about me?
Chapter Eight
Oliver
The chill in the rink nips at my face, sharp enough to make my eyes water, bringing me back to life after walking through the heated halls in the rest of the sports complex. The temperature difference hits like a slap—welcome after the suffocating warmth of the corridors where parents had been milling around, their chatter echoing off walls decorated with trophy cases and team photos from decades past. I drop my bag on the floor, where the impact echoes through the empty rink, the sound bouncing back at me from the far boards.
The maintenance door to the rink opens with a grinding mechanical whir, and the Zamboni emerges, its headlights cutting through the dim morning light filtering through the high windows. The driver, an older guy in a Portsmouth High beanie, gives me a casual wave as he begins his methodical path around the ice, ready to smooth it over for practice. I’m twenty minutes early for my first day, and though I met the team overwinter break, there’s still a knot of anxiety in my stomach, tight as a fist.
From somewhere deeper in the complex, I catch the distant sound of skates being sharpened—that distinctive grinding whir that’s been the soundtrack to my life for two decades. The smell hits me next: that unique cocktail of rubber mats, old hockey gear, and the sharp metallic scent of the ice itself. It should be comforting, but today it just reminds me of everything I’ve lost.
Coaching was always the plan after the NHL, even before the injury. Even when I was at my peak, scoring hat tricks and getting my face on cereal boxes, I knew I’d end up behind the bench someday. I never wanted to pursue a second career that would put me in the spotlight—no commentary gigs, no sports analysis shows where former players critique current ones while wearing too-tight suits. I’ve had enough of cameras and microphones shoved in my face. Plus, I like kids. Even teenagers, whose self-centeredness I find endearing in a way that reminds me of my own rookie years, when the world revolved around the next game, the next goal, the next win.
Stuffing my hands into my hoodie pockets, my fingers finding the worn spots in the fleece lining, I watch the Zamboni make its way around the ice in perfect, overlapping circles. The machine’s hum fills the space, almost meditative, but the knot in my gut tightens with each pass. Through the rink’s glass doors, I can see the equipment room where someone’s already laying out practice jerseys—the mundane ritual that once centered my entire existence.
I was looking forward to today, counted down the days over break, but now that it’s here, something is off. The fluorescent lights buzz overhead, making everything look washed out and unreal. Maybe I’m shooting too high and should have started with coaching a younger group—Mites or Squirts, kids who still think anyone who played pro is a superhero. Even though my position for the high school team is assistant coach, I’m just nowrealizing that I might be in way over my head. These kids have seen me play on TV. They know exactly how far I’ve fallen.
What if this practice is a shit show? What if Jeff realizes within ten minutes that hiring me was a mistake? What if I’m fired even before my first game? The local papers would have a field day—“Former NHL Star Can’t Even Handle High School Hockey.” Where would I even go from there?
I’d have to leave hockey behind completely, and I don’t have any other skill sets. Twenty years of my life devoted to one thing, and now I can’t even do that properly. I’d have to start all over, at the very bottom of a new industry. People will side-eye me with confusion when they hear I used to play in the NHL, wondering how it’s possible the mighty can fall so far. “Oliver Paxton? THE Oliver Paxton? And now you’re... what, selling insurance?”
My breathing speeds up, each inhale shallower than the last. The rink tilts slightly to the left, the Zamboni’s path beginning to blur into a white streak. I gulp in a deep breath, the cold air burning my lungs, but it does nothing. My chest feels wrapped in plastic, tightening with each failed attempt to breathe normally.
With hands shaking, I frantically glance around. The empty stands loom over me, all those seats that will be filled with judging eyes. It’s still only me and the Zamboni driver in here, but car doors are slamming in the parking lot. The team will be here any minute. I can’t have anyone see me this way.
I rush toward the locker rooms, my legs feeling disconnected from my body, then realize that’s the worst destination possible—the team will head there first. I turn around so fast I nearly trip over my own feet. Grabbing the next door I find, the handle slick under my sweaty palm, I fling it open. It’s the physical therapy room, adjacent to the locker room, the familiar smell of athletic tape and that peculiar antiseptic scent hitting me immediately.
Darting past the treatment table with its crisp white paper,past the skeleton model that someone’s draped a Pine Island High jersey over, past balance boards stacked like oversized poker chips and a whirlpool tub in the corner, I find a hiding spot behind the racks of therapeutic balls—red, blue, yellow, all different sizes—and sink along the wall until I’m sitting down. The floor is cold through my pants. The room pulses and ebbs, walls breathing in and out, everything too fragile, as if the whole world could crack into pieces at any moment.
I close my eyes, trying to ground myself with the breathing exercises the team psychologist taught me after my injury, focusing on the wall against my back. The painted cinder block is rough even through my hoodie. This is reality. The cold floor beneath me. The faint sound of the Zamboni still making its rounds. I’m here, right now. Even if every cell in my body is screaming that I’m dissolving into nothing.
“Oliver?”
My eyes fly open. Devin stands above me, her face twisted with concern, those brown eyes I used to wake up to every morning now filled with worry instead of love. She’s wearing black leggings and a Pine Island Physical Therapy fleece, her hair pulled back in the same messy bun she always favored for work, a few strands escaping to frame her face. In her arms, she’s carrying a plastic bin filled with resistance bands and therapy equipment.
What’s she doing here? Of all the people, in all the places?—
I came in here to hide, and she’s the last person I want to see right now, witnessing this complete breakdown. But I don’t even have the strength to tell her to leave.
I lower my eyes, finding a thread on track pants—frayed, probably from where I’ve picked at it before—and focusing on it with every ounce of my willpower. The thread is real. I can see each individual fiber.Inhale, one... two... three...
She sets down the bin with a quiet thud, then sits beside me without hesitation, close enough that I can smell that ocean-scented lotion she’s always used. She says nothing. Just sits there, her presence both comforting and mortifying. I keep counting my breaths, and slowly my heartbeats space themselves out. My hands steady. I float back down into my body like I’m descending through water, becoming solid again.
