Chapter 24 #2
I unlock my apartment Friday night and look toward the couch.
Instinct. Arabella usually sprawls there while pretending to watch television and stealing my hoodies like she legally owns them.
The image arrives so vividly it nearly knocks the breath from my lungs.
The apartment stays silent. Still. Cold.
I stand in the doorway too long holding my keys while the emptiness settles.
Coffee orders. Passenger seats. Practice routines.
Post-game silence. My body still expects her everywhere.
It hits hardest after games. Win or lose, my brain still reaches for her first, phone already in my hand before I even think about it.
Need to hear her voice. Need to know where she is.
Need — nothing. Every instinct keeps running full speed into absence.
The habits aren't fading. They're getting sharper.
The words people use to describe me now are locked in, focused, disciplined, which sound complimentary until I realize all of them mean the same thing: less human.
Practice becomes quieter around me. Not because I improve dramatically.
Because I stop engaging with anything outside hockey entirely.
I show up early, leave late, watch more film, talk less, and everything narrows.
Coach notices it during video review one afternoon.
"You're simplifying your game again. Cleaner decisions.
" Cleaner. Because what he's actually describing is emotional reduction.
No hesitation. No distraction. No softness.
The team starts adapting around me subtly.
Conversations stop when I walk into certain rooms. Teammates hesitate before joking with me.
Nobody asks if I'm coming out after games anymore.
They don't think I'm thriving. They think I'm inaccessible.
One of the defensemen catches me staring too long at nothing between drills.
"You good?" "Fine." He studies me for another second like he doesn't fully believe it.
Then lets it go. Everybody lets it go. That's the problem with functioning well externally. People stop looking deeper.
Games feel strange now. Not sharper. Not stronger.
Simpler. I stop playing creatively, stop reacting emotionally, stop taking risks instinctively.
Everything becomes controlled systems hockey, safe hockey, the version built entirely around minimizing mistakes.
Commentators call it maturity. Coach calls it reliable.
I know better. Reliable is what happens when you stop letting yourself feel enough to improvise.
We win against Vancouver on a Friday night after grinding through one of the ugliest games of the season.
Low scoring. Physical. Exhausting. I play well enough.
Solid defensively, disciplined positioning, no unnecessary risks, exactly the kind of game coaches love.
The locker room afterward feels loud in a way I can't connect to anymore.
Music, shouting, celebration. I sit in front of my locker peeling tape slowly from bruised knuckles while everybody else rides the adrenaline high around me.
And all I can think about is the fact that Arabella would have hated this game. Too defensive. Too cautious. "You looked miserable out there," she would've said afterward with a grin. "Efficient. But miserable." The memory hits hard enough to tighten my chest. Because she would have been right.
Hockey itself feels smaller now. Not because I care less, but because there's nobody waiting emotionally on the other side of it anymore. No post-game decompression. No softness after impact. No feeling of returning somewhere human once the intensity ends. Just silence.
I sit alone in my truck after the game with the engine off while arena lights glow faintly across the windshield.
The win should feel satisfying. Instead it feels completed.
Like checking a task off a list. Successful execution.
Nothing more. She never made me worse at this.
She made the rest of my life exist around it.
Without her, everything technically functions — practice, games, recovery, performance — but none of it connects to anything once it's over.
Then one night after practice I unlock my apartment door and realize I've been standing motionless in the kitchen for almost five full minutes. No television on. No music. No movement. Just silence pressing against every wall. Not peaceful. Vacant.
I glance toward the couch automatically.
That tiny unconscious part of my brain that keeps waiting to find Arabella curled sideways beneath one of my hoodies while pretending not to fall asleep during movie nights.
Nothing. The emptiness hits differently lately.
Less sharp. More constant. Like background pressure settling permanently beneath my ribs.
I open the fridge. Meal prep containers stacked neatly.
Protein shakes lined up. Everything organized perfectly.
Functional. Arabella used to leave absolute chaos behind her in this apartment, half-finished tea mugs, blankets everywhere, hair ties on every flat surface somehow.
At the time I pretended it annoyed me. Now the apartment feels sterile enough to echo.
I shut the fridge without taking anything out.
I'm not hungry anyway. That's happening more often too.
Food tastes like obligation lately. Sleep does too.
After games my nervous system never fully comes down.
I shower, drive home, lie in bed staring at the ceiling while adrenaline burns itself out slowly through my bloodstream with nowhere emotional to go afterward.
After games she pulled me back into myself. Conversation, laughter, touch, softness. Not by fixing anything. The rest of life just felt bigger than hockey when she was there.
I sit heavily on the edge of the bed and drag both hands over my face roughly. I thought Arabella was destabilizing me. She wasn't. Coffee after practice. Texts during road trips. Falling asleep with somebody against my side after games.
I regained control. Privacy. Routine. The relief I expected never came. She was never distracting me from my life. She was the part making it feel like one.
The next road trip starts at five in the morning.
Bus to the airport, team check-in, coffee, meetings, routine layered over routine.
I move through all of it automatically. Headphones in.
Minimal conversation. Trying to keep my thoughts narrow enough that nothing emotional catches properly.
The media attention faded once Arabella disappeared from public view.
No more articles. No more speculation. Privacy restored.
Exactly what I thought I wanted. It lands hollow every single time I think it.
I sit beside the window on the plane watching runway lights blur beneath the wing while teammates talk quietly around me.
I used to text Arabella before takeoff every single flight, a photo of the sunrise, a complaint about airport coffee, some stupid comment about road-trip sleep schedules.
Tiny things. Human things. My hand reaches for my phone before my brain catches up.
The movement stops halfway. It keeps happening.
Everywhere. My entire life has become a collection of interrupted instincts.
Coach stops briefly beside my seat before takeoff. "You good?" The question catches me off guard. "Yeah," I say automatically anyway. The lie feels thin even to me. Coach studies me for half a second longer before nodding once and continuing down the aisle.
I stare back out the window. The plane begins taxiing slowly across the runway while dawn light starts bleeding faintly across the horizon. I can't remember the last time I genuinely relaxed. Not distracted myself. Not exhausted myself. Relaxed.
Coffee orders. Post-game calls. Her feet tucked beneath my leg on the couch. Somebody waiting on the other side of pressure. Home.
I didn't remove distraction from my life. I removed the person who made the rest of it feel human.
Hockey still gives my life structure. The structure just feels empty now.