Chapter 27 #2
I stay at the arena three hours after everyone else leaves.
The second the locker room empties, panic starts crawling beneath my ribs hard enough that I can't stand the idea of going home yet.
Maddox's words keep replaying. You were happier with her.
She grounded you. You talk about her like she was something to manage.
I shove harder into another sprint across the ice, legs burning, lungs raw, skates carving violently through fresh resurfacing lines, and the physical exhaustion doesn't touch whatever is happening.
The logic isn't working anymore. That's the only thing I can't outrun right now.
I finally leave the arena close to midnight with every muscle in my body aching.
It still doesn't help. At home I shower, eat half a protein bar because actual food sounds unbearable, then open game footage on my laptop at the kitchen counter.
Film review usually calms me. Predictable.
Structured. Objective. Tonight I replay the same shift seven times without processing any of it.
Because my brain keeps drifting sideways into completely unrelated memories.
Arabella dancing barefoot in my kitchen.
Arabella asleep against my chest after late practices.
Arabella laughing so hard she snorted once and looked genuinely offended when I wouldn't stop teasing her about it afterward.
My chest tightens so hard it physically hurts.
I slam the laptop shut. Silence floods the apartment.
I stand abruptly and start cleaning things that are already clean, counters, sink, equipment bag, anything to stop the spiraling.
It doesn't work. Nothing works anymore. The system always worked before.
Push harder. Train harder. Control more.
Now every attempt at regaining control just seems to expose how emotionally wrecked I actually am underneath it.
I brace both hands against the kitchen counter breathing hard while city lights flicker dimly through the windows. The apartment feels suffocating tonight. Not because Arabella left traces behind. Because she took warmth with her when she went.
I close my eyes briefly.
Maddox was right. Everybody was right. I didn't get steadier after losing her. I got colder, angrier, more isolated. I'm not training harder because it helps anymore. I'm training harder because I'm panicking.
I sleep maybe three hours. Not consecutive.
Fragments. Every time I drift off properly, I wake again twenty minutes later with tension locked hard through my shoulders like my body forgot how to rest normally.
By morning my head feels packed with static.
Still, I get up at five anyway, gym, conditioning, cold plunge, the routine running automatically while exhaustion drags through every movement.
I keep waiting for discipline to start fixing this again. Instead everything keeps getting worse. At practice I lose my temper during a neutral zone drill because a winger misses coverage by half a second. Not even a major mistake. Still enough that irritation flashes hot.
"For fuck's sake, pay attention."
The entire rink goes slightly quieter.
Coach blows the whistle.
"Reset."
I skate away before anybody can say anything else.
I used to be calmer than this. Not softer.
Not less competitive. Calmer. With Arabella, pressure stopped living directly against my nervous system all the time.
There was space between things. Warmth after games.
Laughter after bad practices. Something human waiting on the other side of intensity.
Now everything just stacks, scrutiny on top of exhaustion on top of pressure until even small frustrations start detonating wrong.
I make it home sometime after midnight. The apartment is dark except for the city glow bleeding faintly through the windows. Tonight I just stand in the doorway holding my keys while exhaustion crashes through me hard enough that moving feels impossible for a second.
Arabella never asked me to choose between her and hockey.
Not once. She adjusted herself around my schedule constantly, showed up for games, recovery, road trips, practices, celebrated hockey like it mattered because she knew it mattered to me.
The memory of her standing in arena hallways waiting after games flashes through me.
Proud. Patient. Warm. Never demanding more. Never asking me to become less.
I sit down on the edge of the couch.
I treated love like damage control.
My stomach drops.
Because she was right.
Every awful thing she said outside that restaurant was right.
You think being in love is something to manage.
I drag both hands over my face roughly. The guilt is unbearable now that the logic underneath it finally collapsed completely. Because I hurt her while convincing myself I was protecting us. Not from actual harm. From vulnerability.
The apartment feels different tonight. Not empty anymore. Condemning. Every trace of Arabella suddenly looks like evidence instead of memory, her hoodie over the chair, a mug she used shoved near the sink, the blanket she always stole during movie nights folded badly across the arm of the couch.
Proof.
Somebody loved me carefully and openly while I spent the entire relationship waiting for that love to become dangerous.
I lean forward bracing my elbows against my knees while the city glows dimly outside the windows. The silence feels enormous. Not peaceful. Punishing. For years I trusted the same system: control everything, need nothing, stay disciplined enough that emotions never destabilize you.
It worked.
Until Arabella.
The system I trusted my entire life did not protect me from pain.
It created it.