Which is so fucked up.
“Devin?” Jude peers at me from the table’s end. “What’s on your mind? You’re staring off into space.”
Everyone quiets, and I feel the weight of four pairs of eyes on me.
I clear my throat. “Uh, I saw Oliver yesterday.”
Jemma’s fork clatters onto her plate. “What?”
“It was so weird. He just moved to Portsmouth. He’s going to be coaching at a high school. I didn’t expect to see him ever again.”
Henry snorts, stabbing his pot roast. “Well, I hope you punched him in the face.”
Jude frowns, adjusting his glasses. “Honey. Violence?” But there’s something analytical in his voice. “Coaching high school hockey. That’s quite a fall from the NHL. The psychology of that transition must be... difficult.”
“He deserves it,” Jemma snarls. “If she didn’t punch him, I’ll drive there myself and do it.”
Henry leans forward, protective. “After what he put you through? Making you doubt yourself when you were sick? Some people need to learn consequences.”
Mom takes a slow sip of wine, lips thin. When she speaks, her voice is quiet but intense. “How did you feel, seeing him?”
Her question cuts through the others’ reactions. She’s asking about me, not him.
“His career ended,” I say quietly. “Shattered wrist. He looked... lost.”
“Good,” Henry says firmly, then softens. “Though I suppose... losing everything you’ve worked for...”
Jude nods slowly. “The identity crisis alone would be devastating.”
“Don’t make him sound sympathetic,” Jemma snaps. “He told Devin her chronic fatigue was in her head. He left her alone in a parking garage when she could barely stand.”
A year ago, I would have joined in with the bashing. I had plenty of my own angry retorts. Now, though, I just feel sorry for Oliver. When I saw him at the bar, so thin and nervous looking, there was no trace of the overconfident asshole who made me feel so small. It seemed he couldn’t even handle some people asking for his autograph, since he ran out the back door the moment a line formed.
What happened to him?
“We’re not defending him,” Mom says gently. “But Devin needs to process this however she needs to.”
And I do have complicated feelings about it. Part of me thinks he got what he deserved. Another part remembers the boy who was so terrified of failure. And a tiny part remembers the good times.
“Hey.” Jemma nudges my foot under the table. “Forget about him.”
I work up a smile. “I will,” I promise, already knowing that it won’t be that easy.
Chapter Four
Oliver
I pump my legs harder, doing everything I can to focus on the burn spreading through my lungs and calves—anything to avoid the terrible ache in my wrist, the place where the pain is the worst. The cold December air stings my throat with each inhale, but I welcome it. Physical discomfort I can handle. It’s the other kind that keeps me running.
I suck in breath after breath and crest the hill. Pine Island stretches out below me, quaint cottages and Victorian houses with snow-covered rooftops, the harbor frozen at the edges where the fishing boats bob against the docks. At the end of the street, Niall and Sophie’s house waits, but it doesn’t feel like a beacon of hope. There’s no triumphant feeling after completing a four-mile run in the snow. My watch beeps—thirty-seven minutes. Used to do it in twenty-five, back when my body was a machine instead of a collection of broken parts.
There’s just bitterness.
I’m out here, risking slipping on ice and busting my ass,because it’s better than being in my garage apartment feeling sorry for myself. The walls close in when I sit still too long, pressing against my skull until I can’t breathe. And it’s definitely better than being back home for Christmas, listening to my brothers talk about their promotions and their kids while Mom asks when I’m going to “get back on my feet.”
Slowing the pace so I don’t slip, I make my way down the hill. Ice patches gleam like mirrors under the streetlights that are already on at four in the afternoon—Maine winter darkness coming early and staying late. The last time I took a fall on ice, it ended my hockey career. I still remember the wobble in my right foot as I used the outside edge of my blade to make a sharp turn around the Devils’ defenseman. The crowd’s roar fading to white noise. The sickening crack that somehow echoed over eighteen thousand screaming fans. Then I was on the ice, staring at my wrist bent at an angle that made the trainer turn green. Shattered. Eight fractures. Two surgeries. Career over.
I’ve always wondered if the people saying it wasn’t accidental were on to something. Those skates never had issues before that game. Brand new laces that morning. Fresh sharpening from Joey, who’d been doing my skates for three years. Mark Bailey had been in my face during warm-ups that night, jaw clenched, something about me stealing his spot on the power play. But nothing could be proven. Security footage showed nothing unusual. Just bad luck, everyone said. My injured wrist protests violently, pulling me out of my thoughts, as if it’s giving up pretending to be strong now that we’re so close to home.
