We pull the goalie with thirty seconds left, Ash on the ice for the last push, blood still dripping down his chin.
We don’t score.
We lose.
When the horn sounds, Kruchten is the first to celebrate, arms raised, stick in the air. He skates past our bench, winks at Ash, and the look on his face is pure, undiluted contempt.
I want to murder him.
But Ash? He just stands, helmet off, blood on his jersey, and gives Kruchten a salute.
After, in the locker room, nobody talks. Tommy is icing his hand, O’Doul is face down on the bench, and Coach is in her office with the door closed, probably breaking things.
Ash is at his stall, taping a new stick, like nothing happened. I walk over, stand behind him, waiting for him to look up.
He doesn’t.
“You good?” I say.
He nods, but his hands are shaking.
“You want to talk about it?”
He shrugs. “Just another game.”
I don’t buy it, but I don’t push.
Instead, I reach out, rest my hand on his shoulder, and squeeze.
He doesn’t pull away.
For a second, the world is quiet. Just us, just the ache, just the echo of a fight that’s never going to be over.
I stand there, hand on his shoulder, and wish I could fix it.
But I can’t.
So I just hold on.
And promise myself, next time, I’ll put Kruchten through the fucking glass.
———
After a loss, the walk to the locker room is the slowest mile on Earth. But tonight, it's more like running a gauntlet of open mouths and snapping teeth.
Reporters everywhere, voices ricocheting off the cinderblock, lights so bright it’s like being interrogated in a cop show.
They want the narrative, "The team that survived." I can see the headline in their eyes. "Steelhawks Fall, But Refuse to Break." They want tears, confessions, raw meat.
I keep my head down, helmet cradled in the crook of my arm, pads creaking with every step.
My body is a single unbroken bruise and my brain feels like it’s had a power drill through both hemispheres, but I walk tall. It’s the only dignity you get.
I don’t stop at the first wave of cameras, the local station guys with their furrowed brows and the sound guy who always points his boom mic at the crotch.
I don’t even blink at the woman in the Chanel blazer who, last week, asked O’Doul if he’d “changed his approach to trauma” since the shooting. The only person I want to see is at the end of the corridor, framed in the white-hot glare of the interview backdrop.
Ash.
