Page 207 of Puck Me Back to Life

God.

His face. The horror on it isn't guilt.

Not yet.

It's shock.

Complete disbelief.

Like his brain simply refuses to understand what just happened.

I pause the video. My own face fills the screen.

Twenty-three years old. Terrified. Covered in someone else's blood.

I begin to cry. Not the violent sobbing I've become used to. Quiet tears. Steady.

Because for the first time in two years, I'm looking at that kid the way I would look at anyone else.

If Dante had been in that video…

If Tyler had been…

If Noah…

I would've said exactly the same thing.

It was an accident. Hockey is dangerous. It could have happened to anyone. The realization crashes into me so suddenly I bend forward over the steering wheel. A sound escapes me somewhere between a sob and a laugh.

It could have been anyone.

Not because William's death doesn't matter.

Not because my guilt disappears.

Not because grief suddenly makes sense.

But because for two years, I've been asking one impossible question:

Why me?

Watching the video gives me a different answer. It wasn't me. It was hockey. A terrible, impossible accident inside a game all of us chose to play.

I don't feel healed.

I don't feel absolved.

But for the first time, the certainty that I've been carrying begins to crack.

Maybe, just maybe, the boy crying on my phone screen deserved compassion too.

And if he deserved compassion… Maybe the man sitting in this car does as well.

By the time I get back to Ash's condo, the familiar comfort of the place settles over me almost immediately. Somehow, without either of us ever deciding it, I've started living here more often than my own apartment.

Part of it is convenience.

The other part is Angela and Dante.