The apartment’s a disaster.
Empty Thai containers breed on the counter, their plastic lids multiplying like roaches. There are four coffee mugs in the sink, all with the same oily film on top from the cheap beans I’ve started buying, because if it tastes bad enough, I might not drink so much of it.
Every horizontal surface is covered in a thin dust of hockey tape shavings, crumbs, and printouts of shot charts.
The only clear space is the strip of kitchen table where I keep my laptop, open 24/7, screen frozen on whatever the last highlight I was breaking down.
Tonight I’m reviewing a sequence from last season, someone else’s season, actually, some AHL goalie with a flair for disaster.
I run the video on loop, watching him drop too low, chase the puck out of the blue paint, give up a soft goal and then stare into the camera like he’s waiting for the firing squad.
I should be learning from it, but mostly I’m just marveling at the way a single mistake can wreck an entire narrative.
Every three minutes, my phone lights up. Usually a text, sometimes a call. All from Ash.
The preview flashes: “Hey man, you good?” or “You at the gym today?” or sometimes just the three dots of an unsent message. I don’t open any of them.
The longer I wait, the heavier the unread badge gets, but I can’t make myself do it. If I read them, I’ll reply. If I reply, I’ll break.
At 2:17 a.m., I order a burrito from a place across the city, just to see if the delivery guy will judge me.
He does, but I tip extra, so he keeps his mouth shut. I eat half of it, cold, standing by the window and looking out at the dark, rain-drowned street. The city is still.
For a second, I think about how easy it would be to just walk out into the night and keep going, just never come back.
Instead, I open a new tab and search for flights. Oakland is the first suggestion, because the algorithm knows me better than I know myself. There’s a red-eye in four hours.
I click “Book” without even looking at the price, then close the browser before the guilt can catch up.
Packing is automatic. Two shirts, one pair of pants, hockey gloves because it’s the only thing that feels like armor.
I stare at my reflection in the bathroom mirror, wondering when I started looking like a mug shot, eyes sunken, hair overgrown, skin too tight across the jaw. I don’t shave. I don’t care.
The Uber arrives at 4:40, the driver an old man with a beard so thick it looks bulletproof.
He doesn’t talk, which is perfect. The ride is quiet, just the hum of the highway and the distant, late-night pulse of the city.
Every so often, my phone lights up, but I turn it face down.
At the airport, everything’s a blur of halogen and linoleum. Security is a joke at this hour, no line, just a bored agent who glances at my license, then at my face, and says, “Big day ahead?” I shrug.
He waves me through.
I buy a bottle of water and a protein bar at the newsstand, even though I know I won’t eat it.
The gate is half-empty, just a collection of business travelers and the kind of insomniacs who fly standby for fun. I sit by the window, watching planes taxi in the pre-dawn dark.
My hands won’t stop shaking, so I jam them in my pockets.
The phone buzzes again. I don’t look. I’m afraid if I do, the battery will die from the weight of all the things I haven’t said.
Boarding is fast.
I take my window seat, pull my hood up, and try to look asleep before we even take off.
The guy next to me smells like eucalyptus, like maybe he bathes in it, and he keeps sighing as if the whole world is one long, slow disappointment.
When the plane levels out, the turbulence starts.
