That he wouldn’t be at home waiting for me.
That he wasn’t going to be with me ever again.
“Nick was…” I started. I felt my eyes burn. “Nick was my best friend. My number one. And I loved him more than life,” my voice broke and I paused, trying to will myself not to cry even harder in front of all these people.
I looked down at the casket again, and I hated it. I hated that it was closed, and I hated that he was in there more than anything in the world.
“And now you left me. You left me here alone, Nick,” I wiped the falling tears now. “And I hate you for it. And it sucks because… I can’t hate you…” I felt myself actually laugh as the tears kept falling while thinking of his troublemaker face back at the Ice League. So alive. So ready to get the absolute most out of each day. “You could make people sosomad at you, but then, they couldn’tnotlove you because you were so happy and so fun and so…”
So mine.
I crumpled the reading card in my hand. My throat burned too badly to continue, and I screwed my eyes shut and whispered, “I still love you. I still love your smile. I still love that stupid look you got on your face when you were trying to hide something from me. I still love you so much that it physically hurts, Nick. You said you wouldn’t hurt me… But this hurts really, really bad. Because I built everything around you. You were… you were my family, and now-”
And now I don’t even know how to live.
But I couldn’t say that. Not here.
I looked up and realized just how many people were staring back at me. There was an endless sea of people dressed in black… It seemed like every single person Nick had ever interacted with in the hockey community showed up here today.
And now they were all watching me cry.
Heknewhow much I hated people seeing me cry… He knew it and he went and died anyway. He actually fuckingdied.
And I couldn’t even hate him for it because he died to save a life. He died saving a little girl. How could you hate him for that?
It was sohimto dothat.
I clenched my fists and closed my eyes tightly, trying to will myself to finish…
But I couldn’t get over it.
I couldn’t accept it.
Because I didn’t even get to saygoodbye.
I made eye contact with Griff then, who was sitting in the third row… Why wasn’t he sitting with my family? Where had he even been since it happened? I called him about a dozen times this week… and nothing. Radio silence. Yet, I knew he was the only one who knew how this felt… and he couldn’t even text me back?
I wished right then that it was just the two of us and Dukehere.
And all of a sudden, I couldn’t take it.
I had to be alone.
I noisily thumped down the stairs and walked past all the people, completely ignoring every single person in the crowd.
34. Griff
I sat there in the frigid cold, watching my breath hang in the air in front of me more so than the funeral that was happening behind it.
The fact that Nick wouldn’t be coming up from behind me to slap me on the back and tell everyone that it was all just a joke was just…wrong...
And then there was Savannah… dressed in all black… sitting beside her solemn family… looking like a nightmare come to life.
She seemed so much more frail than the last time I’d seen her, and I immediately felt ashamed for not calling her back. This past week, every time her name popped up on my phone, it felt like I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t know what to say to her. There were no words for this… And now here I was, sitting behind a couple rows of people, hiding like a coward.
But I wanted to be there for her… I wanted to know how to help…
I missed the years where I knew every single detail about herlife…
