Play resumes.
The other team smells blood and they’re pressing hard, throwing everything at the net, and Zach makes the first save. Then the second. I’m holding Blythe’s hand so tight I’m probably hurting her but she doesn’t complain.
Three minutes later they score on a deflection. The puck bounces off someone’s skate and changes direction and Zach’s glove closes on air and the red light goes on and I make a sound that doesn’t sound human.
“It’s okay,” Goldie says, touching my shoulder. “It’s one goal. They’ll come back.”
But they don’t.
Five minutes left and they score again on a breakaway. Zach gets a piece of it but not enough and the puck slides past him. The final buzzer sounds and in all the years I’ve watched from family suites, and private boxes, and right up against the glass at times, I can’t remember feeling as defeated as this. The series is now three-two.
The team looks miserable in the handshake line and Zach is the last one off the ice. He pulls his mask off and even from here I can see his face. The way he won’t look at anyone, like he wants to disappear.
He’s going to go home and take himself apart over this. I know him. He’s going to sit on his couch in the dark and watch those goals over and over until he’s convinced himself he’s worthless. That they should call someone up from the AHL. That he doesn’t belong here.
Blythe tugs on my hand. “Are you okay? You look like you’re gonna cry.”
I am going to cry. I’m going to absolutely lose it.
“I’m fine, sweetie. Just sad we lost.”
“We’ll get them in Game 6.” She says it with the absolute confidence of a nine-year-old who believes her lucky socks control the universe. “Luca will be back and we’ll win.”
Luca’s not going to be back. Not after that fight, and I’ve seen some really bad fights in my life. Which means Zach’s going to have to start Game 6 in an away city and he’s already spiraling and I can’t be there and I can’t help and I can’t?—
I have to see him.
Tonight. I don’t care what lies I have to tell. I don’t care what I have to do.
I have to see him.
I’min the passenger seat of Mom’s car, twisting a loose thread on my jeans around my finger until the tip turns red and starts throbbing. Post-game traffic is crawling out of the arena garage and Mom hasn’t said anything since we got in the car, which is somehow worse than yelling, because I know she’s pissed, but it’s the quiet kind where you can feel her picking her words and discarding them one by one.
“Your father isn’t coming home tonight,” she finally says, her voice tight, her eyes fixed straight ahead on the brake lights in front of us. “He’s staying at the hotel near the practice facility. He needs... space.”
“I know. I figured.”
Space is a nice word for it. Damage control is probably more accurate.
“I’m going to go stay at Kara’s tonight,” I tell my mom as shepulls into the driveway, my voice casual even though my heart is already racing ahead to Zach’s apartment. “I need to study more for my exam and Kara knows this forward and backward. I’ll go straight there. I promise.”
She lets out an exhausted sigh that encompasses everything, Dad and the mess the team is dealing with, and I know I’ve won. “Just text me and let me know you’re safe.”
The drive to Zach’s apartment takes twenty-two minutes from my parents’ house. I can make it in eighteen when traffic cooperates, or when I speed a bit and race the yellow lights. Tonight I’m replaying the third period in my head. Two goals. He let in two goals after coming in cold off the bench and we still lost and none of that is his fault. Luca’s the one who lost his mind and jumped a guy, Luca’s the one who got ejected and left Zach scrambling with no warmup. But Zach doesn’t think like that. Zach thinks in angles and inches. Right now he’s going frame by frame through the footage, measuring the exact distance between where his glove was and where it should have been, and turning that gap into proof that he doesn’t belong.
I pull into visitor parking and cut the engine. One text from Kara: cover story locked in. you owe me. I send back a string of heart emojis and grab my overnight bag from the backseat—change of clothes, toothbrush, and the jersey I snatched from under my pillow, the one that still smells like him even after I’ve slept in it a dozen times.
He doesn’t answer the first knock. Or the second. I dig out the key he gave me in March, the one he pressed into my palm while staring at the floor instead of my face, mumbling something about emergencies like he couldn’t quite sayI want you to be able to get to me whenever you need to.
The apartment is dark except for the glow of his laptop screen. He’s on the couch in his sweats, watching the game footage on loop. Deflection. Goal. Reset. Deflection. Goal. Reset.
“Hey,” I say softly, dropping my keys on the counter and toeing off my shoes.
He doesn’t look up. “How’d you get in?”
“Key. Remember?”
“Right.” He scrubs a hand over his face. “You should go home. I’m not—I’m not good company tonight.”
