Chapter 17
Calder
By the time I get back to my truck, Arabella's laugh is still stuck in my head.
I throw the equipment bag into the backseat harder than necessary.
Does nothing. Because now my brain keeps replaying her standing on the ice laughing at tiny kids falling over like it was genuinely the best part of her day.
Warm. Open. Completely unguarded. Something uncomfortable settles low in my chest while I start the engine.
I can still see her kneeling on the ice tying skates. Tiny hands grabbing onto her sleeves. The way she celebrated every tiny victory like it actually mattered. Like those three shaky seconds of balance deserved the same excitement as winning something important.
Jesus Christ.
I rest my head briefly against the steering wheel. The entire morning felt easy. That should probably concern me more than it does. Nothing intense. Nothing complicated. Just good in a way I cannot stop replaying now that it's over. And somehow that unsettles me more than kissing her did.
I pull out of the parking lot while pieces of the lesson keep surfacing automatically anyway.
Arabella clapping dramatically when a little girl balanced alone for three seconds.
Arabella remembering every kid's name without hesitation.
Arabella grinning at me from the other side of the rink like she forgot how to keep parts of herself hidden for a while.
The warmth from earlier still lingers beneath my skin like my body has not fully accepted that the morning ended already.
Absolutely not.
I try redirecting my thoughts. Doesn't work. Because now I keep replaying the moment I said you smile differently here and the exact way she looked afterward. Briefly startled. Softened instantly, like nobody had ever pointed that version of her out before.
I can still see her kneeling in front of that terrified kid explaining that falling means learning.
The certainty in her voice. The ease of it.
She was patient without trying to appear patient.
Nothing rehearsed. Nothing polished. Just instinctive kindness moving straight through her body without resistance.
And standing there behind her, all I could think was: this is what Arabella looks like when nobody is judging her.
I exhale slowly at a red light.
Lighter around her. Less sharp. Like my body stopped bracing for impact every five seconds. I laughed more during one chaotic beginner skating lesson than I normally do in an entire week.
She makes me like myself more too.
By the time I stop at another red light, I'm already thinking about Daniel.
Fantastic.
It was nothing. Just a dad talking to Arabella after lessons.
Completely normal. The argument falls apart.
Because people who are normal about someone do not physically reposition themselves the second another guy touches their arm.
I drag one hand down across my face. I can still see Daniel's hand brushing casually against her.
Friendly. Comfortable. Familiar. That's the part that keeps getting under my skin.
Not flirting. History. The easy way Arabella smiled at him.
The inside jokes. References to previous lessons.
Like he already occupied space in her life naturally.
And Arabella did not even notice anything unusual. Because for her, it was normal. Which means my reaction was the problem.
People who are normal about someone do not physically move closer the second another man touches them. People who are normal do not feel their entire chest tighten because somebody else already knows the version of her who laughs easily.
I wanted her attention back.
Not for safety.
For me.
The excuses are wearing thinner every time I run them. We're just close. It's just attachment. It's just chemistry. None of those explanations cover it anymore.
The jealousy happened before I had time to think about it.
My apartment feels wrong the second I walk into it.
Too quiet. The silence presses harder than usual while I toss my keys onto the kitchen counter.
I stand there for a second longer than necessary, waiting for something I cannot identify.
Then it hits me. I got used to noise. Arabella talking.
Arabella laughing. Arabella existing beside me while we move through routines together.
I drag a hand through my hair and head for the kitchen. The apartment feels sharper without her in it. Not empty. Still somehow feels worse. Like the air itself settled too heavily the second I walked through the door.
Arabella stopped feeling temporary. Now she's built into the structure of my days. My body notices her absence before my brain fully catches up.
I lean against the kitchen counter and close my eyes briefly. The lesson starts replaying again automatically. Arabella laughing. Arabella grinning at tiny kids like their victories genuinely mattered. Arabella looking lighter than I have ever seen her.
Around her, I laugh more. I stop feeling constantly wound tight beneath my own skin. And today I felt normal. Not hockey normal. Not media-trained, hyper-focused, constantly waiting for criticism or expectations to crash into me. Just like a person.
I've been playing hockey since I was six years old.
By the time I was fourteen it became the primary thing I was.
The thing people noticed first, talked about first, expected first. My size.
My speed. My shot. My stats. The sport turned into load-bearing infrastructure for my entire sense of self, which I understood was useful and also deeply unhealthy but never really knew how to separate from myself.
Somewhere along the way I stopped distinguishing between Calder the hockey player and just Calder. They started feeling interchangeable.
This morning they didn't.
This morning I was just a person who found a tiny kid's rubber dinosaur under the boards and handed it back to him, and the kid looked at me like I had personally solved an international crisis.
Arabella laughed so hard she nearly lost balance, and none of it had anything to do with who I am on the ice.
I brace both hands against the kitchen counter for a second.
Because Arabella makes the world feel quieter.
Calmer. The loneliness inside this apartment suddenly feels obvious in a way it never used to.
Nothing dramatic. Just there. Constant enough that I stopped noticing it until now that I know exactly what it feels like when it disappears.
Arabella makes me feel less alone.
I laugh softly once. Humorless.
"Fantastic," I mutter to the empty apartment.
I start pacing. Restless energy crawls beneath my skin, the kind I would normally burn off through training except this has nothing to do with physical exhaustion.
She is careful with people. Gentle in ways she doesn't even seem fully aware of herself.
The memory of her kneeling beside terrified kids flashes through my head again. Warm. Patient. Safe. I stop pacing.
Arabella feels safe enough that I'm starting to depend on her. And losing her stops being theoretical.
I drag both hands back through my hair. How easy it felt walking beside her.
How instinctive the touching has become.
How natural it feels when she laughs at something stupid I say.
The fear sharpens into something uglier.
It is not whether Arabella wants me. It is whether I could handle losing her now that she matters this much.
I already built her into my life. Mornings, training, coffee, texts, routine.
And the dangerous thing about routines is that eventually your body stops treating them like choices.
The distance I keep telling myself I will create would take actual effort now.
Conscious effort. Sustained effort. Some part of me already stopped wanting it.
I spend exactly forty-three minutes pretending otherwise.
Forty-three.
Then my phone lights up on the kitchen counter.
Arabella: survived your terrifying fan club fame?
Warmth hits my chest so fast it's almost embarrassing. I stare at the message for a second too long before getting irritated by how fast my entire mood shifts just from seeing her name.
I type a response before I can think too hard about it. Barely. One child called me emotionally unavailable.
Three dots appear almost instantly.
Liar. They loved you.
A laugh escapes before I can stop it. Actual laughter.
Alone in my kitchen. I lean back against the counter while her laugh replays in my head again automatically.
The way she looked skating backward in front of those kids this morning.
The way she kept glancing over at me like she already expected me there beside her.
Like my place in that version of her life was already established somehow.
It felt natural to me too.
I glance toward the empty living room. Still too quiet. The silence no longer feels restful. Just absent. My phone buzzes again.
Thanks for helping today btw.
The message lands harder than it should because I can picture exactly how she would've said it. Soft around the edges. Tired. Happy in that unguarded way she only seems to become around beginner lessons and early mornings.
My chest tightens.
The truth is I almost texted her first. Twice. I caught myself reaching for my phone ten minutes ago because I saw cartoon dinosaur bandaids near the pharmacy counter downstairs and thought about the kid who crashed into the boards this morning.
Everything keeps leading back to her. I'm already planning tomorrow around seeing her. Training. Coffee afterward. The walk to her apartment. The routine doesn't even feel optional anymore. It just feels expected. Like my day already knows where it's going before I get there.
I put the phone down. Pick it back up. Set it face down on the counter again and stare at the ceiling for a second.
The apartment is the same apartment it was this morning.
Same size. Same silence. Same city noise filtering in through the windows.
Nothing about it actually changed. But now I imagine what it would feel like when she's in here.
A second coffee mug sitting beside mine on the counter.
Her jacket thrown over the back of the chair.
Her laugh bouncing off the walls because I said something stupid without thinking first.
I've been alone in this apartment hundreds of times. I never noticed the stillness before.
Not without it hurting first.