Chapter 24
Calder
I drive straight from the restaurant to the arena, not home.
I don't notice until I'm already pulling into the underground players' lot with white-knuckled hands still locked around the steering wheel.
Midnight bleeds across the dashboard clock.
The city outside feels strangely unreal. Too bright. Too loud.
Inside the truck everything is silent except for my own breathing. And underneath that silence sits the memory of Arabella saying: I don't want to feel hidden anymore.
I shut the engine off hard enough to make the entire truck jerk slightly. Then I sit there staring straight ahead until the feeling passes. Or until I force it down deep enough that it stops interfering with function. Same thing.
The arena is almost empty this late. Just overnight staff, security, a couple assistant coaches still working upstairs. Good. I don't want anyone talking to me right now.
The second I step onto the ice for extra conditioning, everything inside me narrows. Cold air. Sharp edges. Movement. Better.
Skating drills blur together mechanically beneath my blades while exhaustion slowly starts burning through the adrenaline still trapped beneath my skin.
Push harder. Turn sharper. Faster transitions.
No thinking. Thinking is the problem. Arabella's face keeps surfacing anyway.
Tears drying against cold skin. Her voice shaking when she said: I shouldn't have to earn being acknowledged by the person who loves me.
I shove harder into the next drill.
Legs burning. Good. Physical pain is simple.
Manageable. Contained inside the body where it belongs.
Emotional pain spreads. That's the problem with it.
I skate until sweat soaks through my shirt completely, until my lungs ache, until my muscles start trembling slightly from overexertion.
Only then does the pressure inside my chest dull enough to function around.
I sit heavily on the bench afterward breathing hard into the empty arena. The silence feels wrong. Too big.
My phone buzzes once beside me. Every muscle in my body reacts before I can stop it.
Arabella. I grab the phone too quickly. Coach.
Tomorrow's revised skate schedule. The drop afterward feels sharp enough to make me briefly close my eyes.
I throw the phone back onto the bench harder than necessary.
Then force myself to breathe slower. Control.
That's the point now. Control. Focus. Discipline. The exact things I almost lost.
I lean forward bracing my forearms against my knees while sweat drips slowly from my hair onto the rubber flooring.
Arabella made Worlds today. The thought arrives quietly.
Uninvited. And pride hits instantly. Sharp enough it almost feels physical.
Then grief crashes directly behind it. I shut both down.
Not tonight. I already made the decision.
The relationship was becoming unsustainable.
Distracting. Too exposed. Too emotionally consuming.
This was necessary. The repetition sounds steadier in my head every time I think it.
Like eventually it might become true enough to stop hurting.
I stare out across the empty rink. Cold white ice stretching endlessly beneath harsh arena lights.
Order. Structure. Routine. Before Arabella, this was enough.
But even now, exhausted and emotionally stripped raw, part of me still expects to look up and find her sitting in the stands watching me.
Warm coffee in her hands. Smile softening when she notices me looking back.
The emptiness where that expectation lands feels catastrophic.
I stand abruptly before the thought can deepen further.
Grab my gear mechanically. Practice, film, conditioning, sleep, repeat.
Back to the system. Back to control. Back to the version of myself that survived perfectly fine before Arabella existed.
The problem is that walking through the silent arena toward the locker room, I already know with terrifying certainty that version of me does not feel fully real anymore either.
The next four days become mechanical. That's the unsettling part — not difficult, easy.
I rebuild structure fast. Wake up at six, conditioning, practice, film review, recovery, nutrition, sleep, repeat.
No empty space anywhere. No time to think long enough for emotion to settle properly into my body.
I add extra skating sessions after practice, extra lifting, extra cardio, and nobody questions it.
If anything, the coaches look pleased. Focused Calder.
Disciplined Calder. Reliable Calder. The version of me everyone trusts most. I lean into it hard enough that my apartment starts feeling temporary.
Functional instead of lived-in. Protein containers lined up neatly in the fridge.
Meal prep stacked precisely. Laundry folded instead of abandoned over chairs for days like it had been lately.
Like I can clean emotional damage away through efficiency.
The thought almost makes me laugh once. Almost.
I stop going out with teammates after practice.
No drinks, no dinners, no hanging around the locker room longer than necessary.
Straight home. One of the younger defensemen asks if I'm coming to somebody's birthday thing after Friday practice.
"No." Too fast. Too flat. His expression shifts slightly before he covers it with an awkward nod.
The interaction lingers unpleasantly afterward.
Because before Arabella, people used to describe me as reserved.
Now they keep describing me as cold. The distinction bothers me more than it should.
Coach praises my focus during film review.
"You're sharper this week." I nod once. Say nothing.
Because what am I supposed to tell him, that emotional devastation apparently improves defensive positioning?
That heartbreak makes reaction times cleaner because there's nothing soft left inside me to interrupt instinct anymore?
Everything becomes brutally efficient. My body feels stronger already from the extra conditioning. My game tighter. Cleaner. No distractions. Exactly what I wanted. Exactly what I told myself needed to happen. So why does every part of this feel vaguely wrong?
I notice it most at night. Not dramatically.
Quietly. I climb into bed exhausted enough that my muscles ache constantly, and still something inside me stays restless.
Waiting. No texts from Arabella, no random voice notes, no half-asleep conversations after late practices.
The silence should feel peaceful now. Controlled.
Instead it stretches too large around me.
I start sleeping with the television on just to kill some of it, and that unsettles me enough that I nearly turn it back off the first night, because suddenly the apartment feels less like discipline and more like absence management.
This is better, I tell myself. Safer. More sustainable.
I eat cleaner. Sleep more consistently. Train harder.
My life regains shape quickly after losing her.
The efficiency of that should probably reassure me.
Instead it feels vaguely inhuman. Like watching myself slide back into an old version of existence that technically functions while missing something essential I only notice now because it's gone.
After Saturday practice I stay behind for another hour running drills alone.
Sharp turns. Sprint transitions. Shot repetition until my shoulders burn.
The puck rebounds hard off the boards. I catch it automatically.
Reset. Again. Movement, impact, precision, no softness.
Before Arabella, I thought this was balance.
Now it just feels empty with better organization.
I don't notice most of it at first. Tiny things. Instinctive things. Habits I didn't realize existed until there's suddenly nowhere for them to land anymore.
Thursday morning I stop at the coffee place near the arena before practice.
Same order. Same routine. The girl behind the counter smiles when she sees me.
"The usual? And the vanilla latte?" My chest tightens so fast it physically hurts.
For one awful second I almost say yes. Because my body still expects Arabella beside me.
I just stare at her blankly for too long.
The cashier's smile falters slightly. "Uh.
Sorry." "No," I say, my voice rougher than intended.
"Just the black coffee." I take the cup and leave.
The smell of vanilla follows me all the way back to the truck.
I start driving with the radio off. At first because I want focus.
Then because every song somehow starts sounding like her.
The empty passenger seat keeps catching my attention at red lights, not consciously, just instinctively glancing over before my brain catches up.
No tangled headphones. No coffee balanced dangerously between her knees.
No distracted talking while she fixes her hair in the mirror. Nothing. The absence feels physical.
After practice I keep checking my phone without realizing I'm doing it.
Locker room, hallway, elevator, phone out, screen checked, put away again.
Nothing there. No texts, no voice notes, no random photos from Arabella captioned with something sarcastic and unnecessary.
The absence settles heavier every single time, because I didn't understand how deep the routines went. Not until now.