FOUR
HAYDEN
BOSTON
DECEMBER
My post-game ritual usually consists of going to the trainer to get checked for injuries. My tongue flicks to the side of my lip, where I caught that mean left hook.
Damn, he hit hard.
My temper skyrocketed after the initial burst of pain; all I saw was red as I rained down shots to his face until the refs pulled me away.
Now, as the adrenaline fades, my nose is sore, but definitely not broken.
I’ve broken it enough to know when it is, so I’m not going to the trainer.
I’m not going in the ice tub. I’m not getting showered. I’m not even getting changed.
And I’m definitely not going to that fucking club.
I’m going home to my wife. To tell her that every word I spat was bullshit, not that it makes it any better. What I said out of frustration can never be taken back. The longer I go without seeing her, the worse I feel.
My hands shake as I walk right to my locker, dodging my teammates' comments about tomorrow’s game. I rip off my skates, toss them in, and shove my feet into my sneakers.
Grabbing my bag, I pull out my phone, and the screen lights up with a picture of a smiling Emerald under a rainbow, back in Minnesota.
It was right after a late summer storm, on the balcony of our apartment overlooking Lake of the Isles. She looks so beautiful, in nothing but my oversized Twin City Tornadoes shirt. We spent the day watching movies and making love on every surface we could.
It was a perfect day.
“You know, Ruby and I used to chase rainbows? We always wanted to try to find the end of them, like the pot of Gold. But Mom always said you’re not supposed to chase them, you’re meant to appreciate them.
They always come after a storm, like they’re meant to tell you everything is going to be okay.
That you can weather anything because, in the end, there’s going to be something beautiful for you. ..”
The tension in my chest eases for only a moment as my thumb traces her face.
The only messages on my phone are from Rick about the post-holiday schedule. He wants LA again for December 26, which means leaving early on Christmas Day. No Christmas with Emerald.
My body jerks as if I’ve just been punched.
It never fucking ends.
No.
No more.
No more brand deals, interviews, or meet-and-greets.
I can’t—no, I won’t let this keep happening.
Emerald needs to be my priority.
Hockey will always be temporary. Emerald is not.
Emerald is my world.
I imagine calling Rick tomorrow, telling him no, and the pushback that will follow. Fuck, I’m tired and frustrated just thinking about it.
My fist is moving, and I punch my locker hard enough to leave a dent.
The abrupt sound pauses all conversation .
Simmons, our goalie and my locker neighbor, looks concerned. I only swing my fists on the ice, where there’s a code. Usually, holding up my fist is enough to make someone back down. Like that grabby prick Cole, who groped Emerald while she was trying to tutor him.
“You alright, Sawyer?” Simmons asks. Honestly, he’s one of the only guys on this team that I genuinely like as a person, not just as a good teammate.
I nod.
“Yeah, just…” I trail off, unsure how to explain the mess I made.
“Heard you got in a fight with Emerald,” he winces.
“More like I’m an inconsiderate asshole who embarrassed his wife,” I mutter, fist curling, itching to hit my locker again. My knuckles have already reopened. Great.
He hisses.
“Damn. Denise would skin my ass alive—granted, she’s a doctor, so she’s well-versed in pain.”
“I’ll take whatever Emerald wants to give me—curse me, throw things, hit me—as long as I can apologize.”
Beg her not to give up on us, even if she would be well within her rights to do so.
“Better keep those pads on your knees,” Simmons smirks, shaking his head. “You’re gonna have to crawl, man.”
“Yeah, well, I’ll fucking crawl through broken glass naked if it means she’ll forgive me,” I mutter, opening up the location-sharing app that Emerald and I use.
“See, that’s the spirit!” Simmons laughs, pulling his hoodie over his head.
I don’t laugh. I can’t.
Not when my entire body has gone cold .
Emerald and I got this app after a teammate suggested it at the All-Star game two years ago. I was selected as a replacement for Frank. His wife, Victoria, was at the end of a rough pregnancy, so he missed more ice time to care for her.
It was a no-brainer for him—hockey or his wife, he chose her every single time.
All-Star weekend was chaos.
Emerald had been thrilled for me—a fun little adventure in New York—but the arena was a maze. I got pulled away for a quick interview, and when I got back, she was gone. Security told me they'd relocated families from the box, but no one knew where.
What followed was a full hour of me charging through the arena like an escaped bull, trying to find my wife. Fans gaped at me in my full gear, security tried to redirect me to the locker rooms, but I ignored them all.
I finally spotted my Tornadoes jersey— SAWYER —through the crowd. Emerald was asking a skeptical security guard if he’d seen me. The relief hit me so hard I nearly dropped to the floor. I had practically run over to Emerald and wrapped her in a hug, much to the shock of the guard.
“I told you! He’s my husband!”
“You scared me, baby.”
“You’ll always find me.”
When I told Frank the story, he sent me an app that tracks the exact location of whoever you’re looking for, down to the centimeter. It’s been a godsend during road games. When I miss Emerald terribly, it comforts me to see her home and safe in our bed.
But as I look at it now, Emerald is not home and safe in our bed.
Emerald is still in the parking lot .
Not the private WAG lot—a regular parking lot.
And the dot hasn’t moved for the last hour.
“Sawyer?”
Simmons’ voice sounds odd, distorted, like I’m underwater.
My hands start shaking so badly that I almost drop my phone. I keep staring at the dot, Emerald’s silly little selfie she assigned to the app above it.
She’s still here. She didn’t leave.
Emerald sometimes loses things—maybe she dropped her phone in the parking lot, maybe the dot is just registering where she last was.
But why would she be in that parking lot?
It’s the public one; she always parks in the WAG lot—why is she not in the WAG lot?
Every rationalization my mind comes up with is flimsy. Dread coils in my stomach. I’m already moving, stumbling on suddenly weak legs to the door, bag dropped to the ground and forgotten, still dressed in my jersey and pads.
“Hayden, you alright?” Simmons voice is behind me, getting close as if he’s following me.
She’s in trouble.
I take off through the door, feet pounding as I follow the path Emerald took. People look at me in alarm, and I barely register them.
Emerald. Emerald. Emerald.
I slam through the exit outside and am instantly hit by a shock of cold. My sweaty jersey offers no resistance against the freezing temperature and the snow, which has picked up to a steady, blustering fall.
The sidewalks, the streets, the entire world swallowed in a blanket of white.
“Shit! It’s fucking freezing,” I hear Simmons behind me, but I take off running, my eyes watching on my phone as my dot gets closer to Emerald’s.
Snow hits my face, and it feels like little crystal knives. My mind feels too fast and too slow. I don’t know why my wife is still in the parking lot, in this snowstorm, not moving. I’m jumping to the worst-case scenario, even if I don’t know exactly what that looks like.
I just need to find her.
“Emerald!” I roar, the whistling wind and fallen snow muting my voice . “Emerald!”
“Emerald?” Simmons calls from behind me. I’m grateful for him not even questioning anything, just helping me. “Hey, Emerald!”
The closer I get to her location, in the parking lot marked O, I see fans scattering, running to their cars, some having snowball fights, and a line of cars at the gate to leave. My eyes scan for her car, just in case, but I don’t see it.
I’m within twenty feet of her.
I can’t see her anywhere.
Fifteen feet.
Ten feet.
It’s taking me over to a darkened area near the fence— why would she be over here —five feet, four, three, two...
You have arrived!
“Baby!” I roar, loud and long, until my throat feels raw. “Where are you?!”
I glance around, confused. My dot is right over hers.
Nothing.
There’s nothing even over here besides a flickering street light illuminating the snowfall. There are no cars parked this far out, and the snow has covered up any tracks besides mine and Simmons.
Pulling up her contact, I call her and press the phone to my ear.
I freeze.
Emerald has always said she believes in the dying art of assigning ringtones to certain people. She never keeps her phone on silent—only in a movie theater—because she’ll lose it if not.
My head drops as I hear the song from below.
The song we danced to in her parents' backyard in Ann Arbor, right after we got married at the courthouse. Yellow by Coldplay.
Falling to my knees, I sweep the snow away and find Emerald’s phone, my contact photo staring me dead in the face. My hands are sore and red from the cold, from the snow; my knuckles split and bruised from the game.
It doesn’t register. I can’t feel anything anymore.
Maybe she just dropped it.
Maybe...
Maybe...
Maybe.
Lights from a car illuminate something yellow out of the corner of my eye, in a dark, grassy area that’s covered in a thick blanket of snow.
My heart drops.
Yellow.
Emerald.
“Baby!”
The word tears from my throat, raggedly, scraping its way out.
“Emerald!” I stumble up from the ground, limbs flailing, unbalanced and uncoordinated. I fall once, bashing my knee hard against the ground. I don’t feel it. I don’t care.
All I see is my wife half-buried under the snow.
What the fuck. What the fuck.
How—why—when?
My thoughts are fragmented pieces, not whole thoughts, not even words at this point. I’m all animal now, whimpering and snarling and whining as I fall to my knees beside my wife and frantically brush the snow away from her.
My keening scream rings in my ear when I finally see her face.
Red. She’s all red.
Blood covers her entire face, coating her swollen and blue split lips, frozen around her nostrils, and a nose that looks crooked. Her eyes—her beautiful eyes—are swollen shut, and in the low light, I can see them rapidly turning black and blue.
Her jaw, though. That’s the worst of it.
It looks wrong. Misaligned. Like Tanner back in Minneapolis when he broke it during the playoffs— oh God.
“No, no, no, no—baby, Emerald, oh my God!”
Simmons' voice comes from behind me. “What happened—oh, fuck—Sawyer—”
He’s right at my back, seeing the horrifying sight that I’m crouched over.
My Emerald.
“Simmons, help—help me...” I beg him, helplessly, feeling so lost and so scared. “Please... please... please...”
“I got it, man, I got it—Hey, I need a fucking ambulance—now! ”
Emerald’s yellow jersey, the one I had gotten her when I was traded, is splattered red and frozen solid.
My hands hover over her body, not sure where to touch, not wanting to hurt her more.
When I do finally touch her, gently touching her neck over her pulse, my heart stops dead in my chest.
Cold. She’s so fucking cold. She shouldn’t be this cold. Emerald is warm. My wife is always so warm. She’s cold.
I press harder to her pulse point and hold my breath.
Bump... bump... bump...
Relief doesn’t come from feeling her pulse.
It’s weak. It’s there, but it’s so weak. It’s too weak. Her body is too cold.
“Emerald,” my voice shakes, and I gently touch her face. Even if I hurt a little, at least she’ll be awake, because her not responding is terrifying.
Emerald is always so warm, so animated, so full of life.
“Baby, oh my baby...”
“They’re coming, man,” Simmons breathless, shaking voice tells me. “They’re coming to help—fuck, how the fuck did this happen?”
This wasn’t an accident.
This wasn’t a fall on the ice.
My eyes flicker all over her face.
Someone hurt her. Someone hurt my wife.
Someone beat my wife.
Rage rises, but I can’t focus on it right now. I push it down. Deep down. I need to get my wife to safety.
“Should I move her?” I ask. My voice sounds as small as I feel. I don’t know what to do. “Should I get her out of the cold? Will it hurt her more?”
“I don’t know, Sawyer, I don’t—I don’t think you sh-should move her,” Simmons shivers, crossing his arms, teeth chattering.
Is it bad that I can’t feel anything?
Nothing but fucking fear.
“Baby, baby—wake up!” I demand of Emerald. No response. The gore contradicts the almost peaceful look on her face. “Open those pretty eyes—please— please, Emerald! Emerald!”
Nothing. She doesn’t move. I press my fingers under her nose. Small puffs of breath. Breathing. Only barely. It offers no comfort, but it does give me a tiny bit of relief.
Snow falls onto her face, and I gently brush it away before I crouch over her like an animal, shielding her from the snow. I reach down for her hands and cry out when I see her left hand, her middle and ring fingers are crooked and clearly broken.
Carefully, I slip them under my jersey and press them to my torso. I always run hot. Emerald loves it. I hiss when I feel her cold hands against my stomach.
I need to get her warm. Right? That’s what you do? I think. I hope.
She doesn’t move. She doesn’t react. Not even from jostling her broken fingers.
I can’t look away from her broken face. Her features are so swollen and bruised that she barely looks like Emerald. But I know it's her. My soul knows it's her. My soul will always know who it belongs to.
“Please wake up, baby.... my baby... oh God, my baby...”
“I think I hear them, man,” Simmons says, whipping his hoodie off over his head and laying it over Emerald’s body.
I look at him with gratitude for a brief moment before focusing back on my wife. Simmons stands over me, blocking me now from the snow, even though he’s just in a long-sleeve t-shirt.
“Please... Emerald, please—open your eyes and curse me, tell me to go fuck myself, just please—”
Nothing.
Sirens sound in the distance, and Simmons breathes, laying a hand on my shoulder.
“They’re coming, man. They’re coming. It’ll be okay—”
It almost sounds like he’s trying to convince himself.
I don’t move. I can’t move. I just keep staring at my wife.
My hands are feather-light now, tracing her face.
My eyes catch my busted knuckles.
It all hits me, all at once.
I didn’t swing my fists toward Emerald, but I did this.
I caused this.
My violence. My cruel words. My ignorance. My temper. My failure.
The sirens get closer, red and blue lights flashing over us as the ambulance tears through the snow toward Simmons, waving his arms to flag them down.
But all I can think about is that I brought this upon her.