Then I replay it again, but change the ending. In one version, he says my name. In another, he doesn’t turn away. In the last one, I reach out and touch him, and the world doesn’t end.
I know how pathetic it is. I know I’m inventing meaning where there is none. But the harder I try to forget, the more impossible it gets.
I fall asleep with my hands balled into fists, jaw clenched so tight I worry I’ll crack a molar.
In the dream, we’re back in the equipment room, hiding from the gunfire. Except this time, there’s no shooting, no sirens, just the two of us in a silent world, and when Darius reaches for my arm, he doesn’t let go.
When I wake, it’s still dark.
The urge to text him is so strong it makes my teeth ache.
I type out three different messages, then delete them all.
Tomorrow, I tell myself. Tomorrow, it’ll go back to normal.
But deep down, I know it won’t.
———
The new rink is a joke.
They call it SoDo Sportsplex, but it’s just a converted warehouse, whitewashed cinderblock, paint flaking in long strips from the beams, and the kind of LED tubes that make your skin look like it’s made of tallow and regrets.
The air is dense with ammonia and the ventilation system recycles every bad smell from every body that’s ever set foot in this building.
Practice starts at nine, but most of us are here by 8:30, ghosts in hoodies and sweatpants, faces raw from sleep or the lack of it.
The locker room is a trench of noise, guys rehashing last night’s NHL highlights or bitching about the new sticks the league sent out.
There are nineteen of us today, nobody’s filled the empty lockers yet, and the dead guys’ stalls are still marked with tape and a strip of black ribbon.
O’Doul is already half-dressed, taping his stick with the care of a mortician. He sees me walk in and gives a two-finger salute. “Yo, Rosen. You bring the donuts?”
I flip him off, but soft, like it’s a secret. “I figured you’d be on keto by now, O.D.”
He makes a face. “Fuck off, I’m carb-loading for suicides.”
Coach Vasquez rolls in right after, hair up in a severe bun, eyes so sharp I almost want to flinch. She claps once, loud, and every head turns.
“Listen up! No half-assing today. I want full effort, full speed, and nobody misses a shift. Got it?”
Everyone nods, but it’s mostly for show. We shuffle out onto the borrowed ice, which is rough and pitted, nothing like the perfect sheet at the Steelhawk Center.
The house lights are so bright it’s like skating inside a dentist’s mouth.
We run warmups, then lines, then suicides, then puck drills. It’s the same as always, except it’s not.
Every movement is just a little sharper, every collision carries a little extra force, as if the whole team is auditioning for the role of “most alive.”
Darius is in net, a black wall with eyes.
Every time the puck comes his way, he swallows it, no rebound, no drama, just absolute certainty that nothing will get past him today.
He doesn’t say a word, but I can feel his focus, a pressure that bleeds across the ice and soaks into my bones.
During a passing drill, O’Doul decks me, full shoulder. I go down hard, helmet smacking the ice, but I’m up again before the whistle. “You fucker,” I say, grinning through the sting.
He shrugs. “Keep your head up, rookie.”
