I missed those years where I could practically read hermind.
Before they lowered the casket into the ground, Savannah walked up to say a few words.
The urge to steal her away and protect her from this situation felt ten times more intense than it did when she was out there on the ice in her little red competition dress.
She took a shaky breath before she began, and I had to look away because it hurt too bad.
Instead, I looked up to the sky and tried to drown out her words. I wondered if he was up there somewhere… If he could hear her now… If he’d even want to hear her, or if it’d be too much for him too…
She broke off suddenly, and when I looked up at her, it seemed like she was slowly taking in just how many people were staring back at her. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of people who’d come out to pay their respects.
And when she made eye-contact with me, I saw the overwhelmed panic look in her eyes– the same look she had when she almost crashed my truck in the Blockbuster parking lot at seventeen.
And then she was done.
She moved down the aisle of chairs at a breakneck speed while wiping furiously at her eyes.
“What a waste. Such a hot piece of ass,” a voice behind me whispered as Savannah moved past us. “Damaged goods now though, am Iright?”
A couple chuckles came in response.
Hearing it cracked me open.
And I’m not gonna lie. I was drunk. I downed a few beers before coming here to face this… I’d been downing beers ever since hearing the news.
In one swift movement, I turned and punched the fucking douchebag square in the jaw before he could say anything more. I hoped I broke it and caused it to get wired fucking shut. Whoever he was, he didn’t deserve to talk for at least eight weeks.
But of course the guy wouldn’t just accept that he deserved it. A second later, I felt my neck snap back from being punched in the eye.
Soon, fists were flying everywhere as every hockey guy present seemed to take part.
I had incited a brawl.
But this time I didn’t have Nick by myside.
And I remembered him at seventeen saying how happy he was that he got to take on the world with his best buddy on the battlefield… and that made me blindly swing twice as hard at anyone I could hit.
I felt someone pulling me back then, and I fought him off… until I heard his voice.
“Stop it, you fucking asshole, Griff,” he screamed.
I turned to see Duke– who was now 19 and slightly taller than me, but much skinner– with a scowl on his face.
I stopped moving and let him jerk me away from the fight.
“Walk it off…” he pushed me forward with force. “Go find Savannah.” His voice cracked and the rims of his eyelids turned red. He held his mouth in a firm line trying to hide all emotion, but then he looked away and blinked furiously. “Go fucking find my sister, Griff.”
Hearing that sentence instantly filled me with regret over losing my head. Instead of defending her name against some asshole who I’d probably never see again, I should’ve been making sure she was okay…
I struggled for full breaths as I walked away. The longer I searched around for Sav without finding her, the tighter my chest became and the shakier my limbs felt… I wondered if this was what a true panic attack felt like. I pulled my tie loose and carelessly threw it on the ground as I walked.
It wasn’t until I moved toward the woods at the far end of the cemetery that I heard it.
Barfing.
I quickly spotted Savannah holding herself up against a tree, losing her shit at the base of it.
Her tiny body was racking with each wave of sickness.
