Page 99 of Hard to Handle

“Tough game tonight.”

I glance over at Maysen and nod. “Sorry. I . . . was fucking up left and right out there.”

He shrugs, probably surprised that I’m not arguing or being defensive about it. “It happens, man.” He pats me on the back as I head toward my locker. “At least we still won.”

“True.” I nod. I hate knowing I didn’t contribute. Hate knowing that if there was a text from my dad, which there hasn’t been for the last couple games, exactly what it would say.

“At least we have a few days to shake it off.”

“My body could use it,” I tease and throw my gloves into the locker, sighing when I see my screen light up with Dad on the message ID.

“I knew he wouldn’t be able to resist for long,” I mutter.

With a deep sigh, I pick up my phone. Panic hits when I see the three words on the screen.

Dad: Call. It’s Jonah.

Within seconds, I’m out of the locker room, trying to find a place where I can hear and talk and have some privacy.

My mom doesn’t pick up on the first call. I end it and try again.

“Hello?” She sounds like a ghost of herself.

“Mom? Mom. What happened? How is he?” My words sound strangled from part panic, part disbelief, part just when I was trying to figure out a way to live for me, I’m sucked back into the darkness of shame.

And of course, the self-loathing is like an old enemy—unabashed, relentless, and unforgiving.

“He coded. He—”

“He what?” I bellow. How the fuck do I get out of here?

I can’t breathe.

“He coded and the ambulance came and . . .” The vibrato in her voice, the pure fear, hits me harder than any punch I’ve ever taken. “They revived him. He’s at the hospital.”

“Why? What happened?” I need to get out of here.

“Another bacterial infection in his lungs. His body, Hunter . . . it’s broken and can’t take much more. The doctors say his immune system is always on the defense and they were lucky to bring him back this time.” She emits a sound I never want to hear again.

It’s raw and abraded and sounds like her heart has been ripped from her chest.

“Mom. But he’s okay now, right? He’s resting and—”

“Yes. He is. He’s under observation and will come home tomorrow most likely.”

“Okay. Okay.” I repeat the words over and over, almost as much for me as for her. Almost as if I need to talk myself into believing that everything is going to be okay when I know at some point it’s not.

“Your father’s heart,” she murmurs almost in the same fashion as I just said okay.

Two people lost in the miserable grief and confusion we know is coming but want to deny.

“Yes, I know. His heart is okay?”

The same heart that went into cardiac arrest the night he found out about Jonah’s accident. The heart that never fully recovered, but that only sparked to life when he pulled me onto the ice so he could somehow do something—boss someone else around and drive them into the ground, make them be what he thought Jonah was going to be—to save himself.

And I let him. Night after night. Day after day. Hour after hour. I let him break me down on the ice to punish me for what I’d done—for ignoring Jonah’s request, for being the reason Jonah got behind the wheel drunk, for killing the innocent driver he hit. I cried and burned and prayed . . . with no idea if my brother would die that next day. My other half was gone. I was alone. In agony, I begged and bled and sucked it up because coaching me was the only thing keeping him going. Punishing me was the only way he knew how to manage the dreams he had for Jonah. Dreams he’d never had for me.

“I don’t know what to do,” she whispers. “What am I going to do?”