“Hey, hey! That’s enough!” someone says, but I keep going.
Ihaveto keep going. I can’t stop now. I’m supposed to fight, aren’t I? That’s what I’m on this team for, and that’s what I’m doing with Chloe too. I’m fighting.
Her demons.
Punch.
Her insecurities.
Punch.
My own bullshit issues.
Punch.
For our fucking marriage.
“All right, all right,” someone yells in my ear, grabbing me by the shoulders and trying to pull me off the limp player in my hands.
When did he go down? Where did all this blood come from? I blink once, twice, and the bright lights and roaring cheers come back into focus.What the hell just happened?
“You’re good. You’re good,” the voice in my ear says, and they’re still clutching me tight. “You’re good, Keller.”
I try to shrug him off, but he keeps hold of me as I skate toward the box.
“No, no. You’re done for the night.”
“What?” I push at him as he drags me in the opposite direction. “What the fuck for?”
“You hit him with your stick. Right to the face.”
“Bullshit, I did!”
“You did. We saw it. Everyone did. You’re done.”
I try to scramble out of his hold, but it’s pointless. I’m tired. So fucking tired. I can feel it in my bones, right down to my core.
“All right, all right,” I say as he pushes me toward the door on the bench. “I’m going!”
I hop up the step, and someone pats me on the back as I head down the tunnel, ripping my helmet off and throwing it who knows where. Behind me, I can hear the crowd gasping and oohing, but I don’t stop to see what’s going on.
I need to sit down. Or lie down. I don’t know which. All I know is I need to get somewhere else and fast. My lungs are burning, my eyes are watering, and I’m on the verge of a panic attack in the very last place I ever wanted to have one.
I make it to the locker room just as the tears begin to fall, and it takes everything in me not to drop to my knees right then. I stumble to my stall and finally collapse. Everything from the last two months—no, from the last three years—all comes out in one long wail, and if I cared at all in this moment, I would be embarrassed, but I’m not. I’m just really, really fucking sad.
I sit like that for a long time, tears streaming down my face, my heart thundering in my chest, and blood pumping in myears. I don’t know when I finally calm down, but when I do, the rest of the team is piling into the room. From the looks of it, the game didn’t get any better.
Nobody speaks to me. In fact, very little is said, and most people are in and out of the showers, packing up to go home in under ten minutes.
Coach Smith claps me on the shoulder. “We’ll talk in the morning.”
I nod, but I don’t make a move to leave. I’m not eager to go back to an empty apartment anyway. When I finally look up, I expect it to just be me, but it’s not. Hayes, Locke, Fox, Hutch, and Lawson sit in their own stalls, all of them fully dressed, just like me.
I look every one of them in the eye, then say, “Well? Which one of you is going to tell me what a fuckup I am?”
“You’re a fuckup,” Hutch says.
“A big one,” Locke agrees. “Pretty sure you’re getting suspended for that one.”
