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He's the guy who put my brother into the boards. He's the reason Nico's standing on a foam pad in our parents' kitchen trying to get to thirty seconds. I've known that for six months. I've said it to myself every morning in the crease. It's the thing that holds me up.

And I looked away first.

At four, there's video.

Halvorsen runs the Harrow game back for the whole team. He doesn't call anybody out by name, he never does, but he doesn't have to. He stops the tape on Lindqvist's second shift, the shot he put into the goalie's chest, and lets it sit there frozen while the whole room looks at it.

"That's a goal," Halvorsen says. "Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, that kid puts that in his sleep."

Nobody says anything. Gunnar grins down at his phone.

Lindqvist's at the back of the room, in the last chair, arms folded. He says, "Yeah, Coach."

But I'm not looking at the shot.

I'm looking at the corner of the frame. At the top of it, behind the Harrow goalie, out of focus: the Harrow bench. Marrack, with his arms crossed. And in the second before the shot, Lindqvist's head turns, just a little. A quarter-inch. Toward the bench.

Halvorsen hits play. The puck goes into the goalie's chest.

That night, I find the full broadcast online.

I sit on my bed with my laptop on my knees and the volume down low so it won't carry through the wall. I skip the first two periods and go straight to the end. The handshake line. The broadcast catches part of it, the camera on the Harrow end while the announcers talk over it about the third period.

I find it. Marrack, glove off. Lindqvist, stopped in front of him. You can't hear anything. You can see Marrack smiling. You can see Marrack's hand not letting go, five seconds, six, seven, which is too long. You can see his other hand come up and pat Lindqvist's shoulder.

And you can see Lindqvist's face, for about a second and a half, before he skates out of frame.

He doesn't look guilty. Guilty looks like your eyes on the ice and your shoulders down.

He looks scared.

I drag it back. I play it again. I drag it back. I play it again.

And then I realize what I'm doing. I'm sitting here at midnight dragging the little red bar back and forth over the same ninety seconds of video. The same thing I do with the other clip. The one I don't need the screen for anymore.

I close the laptop.

On the other side of the wall, it's quiet. No laughing tonight. No voice going up at the end of a question.

I lie down in the dark and listen to it be quiet for a long time.

7

THEO

Jace Pruitt reads the room list on the bus like it's a death sentence.

"Gunnar and Wes. Me and Okoye." He runs his finger down the page. "Kasper and—huh." He frowns. He looks up toward the front, where Dane is sitting alone in the first row with his earbuds in. "Kasper and Brooks?"

"I asked for a change," Dane says without turning around.

"Okay. Who are you with, then?"

Dane takes one earbud out. "Lindqvist."

The whole bus goes quiet. Then somebody in the back says "oh" in a long, low voice, like we're watching a horror movie and somebody just went into the basement, and the whole bus loses it.

"RIP, bro," Gunnar says, leaning over the seat to clap my shoulder. "It was nice knowing you."