Practice is at 7:00, which means I arrive at 6:59, bag already half-zipped, skates laced and ready to go.
The parking lot is a patchwork of dirty slush and fresh tire tracks, and the only people outside the rink are a couple of kids playing keep-away with an empty Gatorade bottle.
Inside, it’s all halogen glare and the chemical stink of disinfectant, the halls echoing with voices that mean nothing to me.
I time it so I’m the last one in the locker room, but not so late that I draw attention.
There’s a rhythm to these things, too early, you get the small talk, the teammates who want to fill the silence with stories about who they fucked last night or which D-list celebrity DM’d them; too late, you get the side-eye, the “thinks he’s better than the rest of us” vibe that never goes away, no matter how many years you play.
I split the difference, slide into my stall, and start gearing up with my head down.
There’s a blur of noise around me, the slap of tape on shin guards, the hiss of someone spraying on deodorant like they’re dousing a fire, the low rumble of Raz and O’Doul arguing about whether a hot dog is a sandwich.
I tune all of it out, moving through my routine in total silence. I don’t make eye contact. I don’t laugh at the jokes, even when they’re good. I just suit up, helmet last, and head for the tunnel.
On the ice, everything changes. Out here, I have a job. Out here, every ounce of emotion is a liability, so I strip it down to the parts that matter: angles, reaction time, the thousand-yard stare that lets me see the puck before it’s even left the stick.
I set up in the crease, slam my pads together, and wait for the first shot.
The guys cycle through the warmup, one-timers from the blue line, tip-ins from the slot, cross-crease passes that test my lateral speed.
I stonewall every one. I'm playing the best hockey of my life, and I know exactly why, the net is the one place where shutting everything out is a skill, not a flaw.
Out here, the thing that's destroying me everywhere else is the thing that makes me untouchable.
The sound of puck on pad is the only music I need.
The team is still winning. Three straight, our best streak of the season. Nobody talks about why.
Coach Vasquez runs the drills with her usual clipped intensity, voice echoing off the glass.
She doesn’t coddle, doesn’t let up, and for that, I’m grateful. She runs us through power play, penalty kill, odd-man rushes. My save percentage climbs with every rep.
Nobody chirps, nobody celebrates, and nobody, least of all me, mentions the wall I’ve built between myself and the rest of the world.
I see Ash across the ice.
He’s skating with the third line today, maybe punishment for something, maybe just the rotation.
He looks smaller in the jersey, like the weight loss is finally catching up to him, but his stride is clean, his stickwork sharp as ever.
He doesn’t look at me, not directly, but every time the play runs my way I can feel the heat of his focus, the question hanging in the air: “Are you okay?” He never asks it out loud, but it’s there, circling the rink with every lap.
Midway through practice, we run a drill that simulates traffic in front of the net.
The idea is to desensitize you to chaos, to let the bodies and the sticks and the trash talk blur into white noise so you can still see the puck through the storm.
O’Doul parks himself in my crease, chirping nonstop, but it doesn’t get to me. What gets to me is Ash, sliding in from the left, taking a shot low-glove, then crashing the net for the rebound.
I catch the shot clean, trap it in my glove, and hold it high. Ash keeps coming, and for a split second, we lock eyes, just long enough for the whole world to compress into that space between us.
Then he tries to pivot, maybe to avoid collision, maybe not, but the blade catches an edge and we tangle.
He falls, hard, skates taking out my legs, and I go down on top of him, the two of us sprawled in the crease.
There’s a split second where it’s just us, helmet to helmet, breath clouding in the cold air.
I feel the heat of him through the pads, the tension in his arms as he tries to get up without making it obvious.
