Chapter 37
thirty-seven
MIKE
The ice is wrong beneath my blades.
I’ve been playing hockey since not long after I could walk, but tonight the rink feels alien.
The crowd’s roar hits me as I step onto the ice for warm-ups, twenty thousand voices that used to be my drug of choice.
But now they’re just noise bleeding together, unable to drown out the echo of my words from a week ago.
If that’s what you need… OK.
My own voice.
My own goddamn surrender.
I fire a puck at the net harder than necessary, watching it ping off the crossbar with a satisfying crack.
The sound used to mean something. Precision, control, the perfect angle.
Now it’s just physics. This is the first time I’ve picked up a stick since agreeing to hang up my skates, and everything feels backward and wrong.
Maine skates up beside me, his stick tapping against his leg in that nervous rhythm he gets before big games, three quick taps, then pause, then three more.
He can clearly feel that something is off, because he’s been lurking around me without saying much since we arrived at the arena, but I don’t want to talk.
“Scouts here in force tonight,” he says, jerking his chin toward the press box.
I follow his gaze and count them. Six men with clipboards and connections who could change my life with a phone call. Six opportunities I’m about to flush because I can’t bear to see Sophie cry. At the same time it feels like a worthy sacrifice and a terrible loss, but the decision is made.
“Fantastic,” I manage, grabbing another puck.
Maine’s watching me with a look. We’ve been friends long enough that he can read my moods with precision, but this is uncharted territory.
How do I tell one of my best friends that I’m about to torch everything we’ve worked for, and give up on dreams that any one of the guys on this ice would do almost anything for.
Luckily, Coach blows his whistle, the shrill sound slicing through my thoughts and any need to engage.
I skate over on autopilot, muscle memory piloting my body while my mind stays trapped in Sophie’s apartment.
The tremor in her hands when she asked. The relief flooding her face when I caved immediately.
“Altman!” Coach’s voice cracks. “You with us?”
Twenty pairs of eyes swivel my way. My teammates. My brothers. The guys who’ve bled with me, celebrated with me, held me up when my ankle gave out and my whole world went dark. The guys I’m about to walk out on halfway through a season.
“Yeah, Coach,” I lie. “I’m here.”
The national anthem plays, and I stand at the blue line with my hand over my heart, staring at the flag while my thoughts drift. Around me, guys bounce on their skates. Schmidt’s mouthing the words—he always does—while Kellerman picks at his stick tape.
I’m a statue wearing Mike Altman’s jersey, wondering who’ll wear my number next year.
The puck drops, and muscle memory takes over. My body knows what to do even when my soul is checked out. Read the play. Angle the forwards. Keep my stick active. Put myself where I need to be. But I’m watching someone else pilot my body, some other Mike Altman.
Halfway through the first, I thread a perfect pass through the neutral zone. Pure instinct. I see Maine breaking before he even knows he’s going to, and the puck finds his tape, magnetized. He dekes the goalie—a little shoulder fake that sells beautifully—and buries it top shelf.
The arena explodes. My linemates crash into me, gloves pounding my helmet hard enough to ring my bell. But as they holler and shout in my ear, I just nod. Then I skate to the bench, sit down, breathe and… feel nothing. This should feel good. This should feel like everything.
But it feels like absolutely nothing.
A few minutes later, I read a two-on-one perfectly, sliding into the passing lane at exactly the right angle.
The puck deflects harmlessly into the corner.
Textbook defensive play. The kind that makes highlight reels and gets scouts scribbling notes about “high hockey IQ” and “positional awareness.”
Still nothing.
Well, not entirely true.
I feel the weight of my decision pressing on my chest.
I feel Sophie’s tears, the way she said please like it physically hurt?—
The hit comes out of nowhere.
The defenseman catches me with my head in the clouds and my feet in cement, shoulder driving through my chest. The ice rushes up with all the tenderness of a concrete kiss, air exploding from my lungs in a whoosh that would be embarrassing if I hadn’t just had my brain and body rocked.
“Shit, Mike, you OK?” Schmidt’s face hovers above me, concern creasing his perpetually sunburned forehead.
I push myself up, ribs singing protest. “Peachy.”
But I’m not peachy. Haven’t been peachy since I left Sophie’s apartment with her ultimatum ringing in my ears. As I head to the bench and the trainer starts prodding at my ribs—fingers finding every tender spot with sadistic precision—I wonder why I’m even here tonight.
What’s the point of playing out this last game?
Coach leans over, breath minting the air between us. “You need to sit?”
“No.” The word comes out sharp. “I’m good.”
He studies me for a heartbeat, then nods and calls for a line change. Just like that, I’m over the boards again, but my timing’s off even more now. Everything’s a half-second behind. I feel sluggish. On the backcheck, I coast when I should drive hard, letting my man drift into the slot unchecked.
The pass is inevitable.
The shot follows.
The red light blinks on, like hockey’s middle finger.
As the line heads to the bench, Maine’s stick meets the boards in an unhappy marriage.
The crack echoes through our bench, but I can’t even muster that much emotion.
Instead, I just sink onto the bench and marinate in the disappointment radiating from my teammates.
It’s almost visible, shimmering off them.
Another shift. Another goal against. This one’s not directly my fault, but I’m not helping either. And by the time the buzzer sounds for intermission, we’re down 3–1, and the crowd’s excitement has soured. I follow my teammates down the tunnel, each step heavier than the last.
The locker room greets us with morgue-like warmth.
Guys slump on benches, staring at nothing. The usual chatter—jokes to break tension, chirps to keep things light—is as extinct as the dinosaurs. There’s nothing but heavy breathing and the perfume of athletic failure: sweat, gear funk, and crushed dreams.
Coach storms in, face thunderous. “What the hell was that? Where’s the hustle? Where’s the heart? Where’s the team I’ve been coaching all season?”
He dissects our failures with surgical precision. Words blur together— lazy backcheck and mental mistakes and heads up your asses —but they slide off me, meaningless. Because why would they matter? I’m done after another two periods, so what’s the point?
“We’re better than this!” Coach finishes, smacking the whiteboard hard enough to make the markers jump. “Figure it out!”
He storms out, leaving silence thick enough to choke on.
I sit in my stall, studying my skates. Around me, guys attempt resurrection. Rook cracks jokes that land badly. Cooper rewraps his stick with focused intensity. Maine keeps shooting me looks, wanting to say something but unable to find the words.
They deserve better than this.
Better than a captain who’s already got one foot out the door.
Something cracks inside me—not broken, exactly, but opening.
I stand. “I need to tell you something,” I say. “After this game, I’m done. I’m not entering the draft and this is my last game for Pine Barren.”
The reaction ripples through the room in slow motion.
Shock, confusion, disbelief painted across every face.
“What?” Maine’s voice breaks.
I force myself to meet their eyes. “I’m hanging up my skates after tonight.”
“But…” Kellerman looks lost, younger than his nineteen years. “You’re going to get drafted. You’re supposed to be our success story.”
“Not anymore.” The words sit heavy in my mouth. “I’m choosing… something else. Someone else.”
Nobody speaks.
I clear my throat, needing to fill the horrible silence.
“You guys gave me everything when I couldn’t give anything back.
When I was riding the bench in a walking boot, feeling sorry for myself, drowning, you still called me Captain.
You still included me and made me feel like I mattered when I was useless. ”
Nobody moves.
My voice catches, but I push through. “I owe you better than that garbage first period. I owe you everything I’ve got left.
So the rest of this game isn’t about scouts or the draft or contracts or what comes next.
It’s about us. This room. This brotherhood.
I want to leave it all on the ice. One last ride. ”
The quality of the silence shifts, transforms.
Maine stands first, quick and decisive. Others follow, one by one, until they’re all on their feet. There’s no battle cries or theatrical speeches, just quiet determination settling over us. I extend my hand, and they pile theirs on top. Twenty hearts beating with shared purpose.
“Devils on three,” I say. “One, two, three?—”
“DEVILS!”
The roar shakes dust from the ceiling, and for the first time tonight, something pierces the numbness. Not quite hope. Not quite happiness. But maybe enough. And when we burst back onto the ice for the second period, the rink feels different.
Not friendly—never home again—but familiar.
The puck drops, and everything changes.
I play with nothing left to lose.
When the opposition forward sets up in our zone, I drop to block a slap shot that catches me square in the thigh.
Pain blooms immediate and vicious, tomorrow’s bruise already announcing itself, but adrenaline transforms it into fuel.
The crowd roars approval, and I remember why I fell in love with hockey.
Two minutes later, I dig a puck out of a corner scrum that would make a rugby player wince. Someone’s stick catches me across the lower back—accident or intent, doesn’t matter. I stay upright through pure stubbornness, spinning away from the pressure, but fuck it hurts.
Thirty seconds later, Maine’s breaking toward the net with that sixth sense that makes him special, and I thread the pass through a forest of legs and sticks.
He doesn’t hesitate. The goal horn blares, and Maine bee-lines straight for me.
His glove crashes into mine hard enough to sting through the padding.
The bench erupts when we return.
Not because it was pretty or because scouts are watching.
Because we’re alive again.
Because we remembered why we play.
We’re possessed now, playing with the desperation of men who just remembered what they’re fighting for. Every check finished with authority. Every battle won. When Rook makes a spectacular glove save on a breakaway—full extension, like flying—he points his stick directly at me.
It’s a gladiator’s salute that lifts twenty thousand asses out of seats.
With eight minutes left, we tie it. Schmidt’s goal off a passing play so beautiful it belongs in a museum.
I watch from the bench, too winded from selling my body for loose pucks to contribute, but my heart pounds with something that might be pride.
Or maybe just love for these beautiful idiots who refuse to quit.
“Keep pushing!” Coach roars. “They’re gassed!”
We hunt them. Wave after wave, searching for blood. My body aches from hits and pucks, and I feel the scouts’ eyes boring holes in my jersey, but for once, I don’t care. This isn’t about them anymore. This is about giving these boys one last memory of what we can be together.
It’s about saying goodbye.
With ninety seconds left, their best forward tries to spring on a breakaway. I read it perfectly, angling my body to force him wide. He tries the pass anyway, because desperation makes people stupid, but the puck hits my skate and bounces to Kellerman.
I don’t chase the play.
Don’t need to.
Instead, I watch my teammates fly up ice in perfect synchronization, a puck moving from tape to tape. It’s poetry in motion. Cooper to Martinez. Martinez to Schmidt. Schmidt to Maine in the slot. Maine to the back of the net as the buzzer screams.
Bedlam.
The bench empties, bodies crashing together at center ice. But then something beautiful happens. They turn—all of them—and skate toward me. They surround me, lift me, chanting my name. The crowd joins in as we flood toward the locker room, twenty thousand voices unified in appreciation.
But they don’t know they’re cheering for a ghost.
Because this Mike—hockey Mike—is dead.
And in his place, Sophie gets exactly what she needs—a boyfriend who’ll never leave, never chase dreams away from her, never be more than what fits in her carefully controlled world. It hurts me, the most painful thing I’ve ever had to do, but I want her and she needs me.
So that will have to do.