Chapter 16 Retreat #2
I feel the heat of him through the pads, the tension in his arms as he tries to get up without making it obvious.
I hear the way his breathing spikes, the quick, shallow inhale that means he’s about to say something.
But before he can, I’m up, rolling off, back on my feet.
I offer a hand, because that’s what you’re supposed to do, but he doesn’t take it. Instead, he pushes up on his own, gives me a tight, unreadable smile, and skates back to his line.
Practice ends with suicides, because Coach believes in suffering as a team-building exercise.
I win the first two, then coast the rest, letting the younger guys get their glory.
When the whistle blows, I’m the first off the ice, gear already half-shed by the time the rest of the team hits the tunnel.
I change in record time, skip the shower, and am out the side door before anyone has a chance to corner me.
Except Ash.
He’s waiting by the staff exit, hoodie up, backpack slung over one shoulder.
He looks tired, like the last week aged him a year, but his eyes are sharp.
“Hey,” he says, voice just above a whisper. “Can we talk?”
I don’t slow down. “Got somewhere to be.”
“Darius—” he starts, but I cut him off with a look. Not a glare, not a threat, just the kind of look that says, “Don’t. Not here.”
He flinches, just a little, then lets it go. “Okay,” he says, but I can hear the rest of the sentence: “I’ll wait. I always do.”
I don’t answer. I just keep walking, jaw clenched so tight it feels like my molars might crack.
In the car, I let myself breathe. My hands shake as I start the engine, and I have to sit there for a minute, watching the steam fog the windshield, before I can drive.
I don’t check my phone, but I know there will be a message. Probably just the word “sorry,” or maybe “call me?” or maybe nothing at all. Sometimes I think that’s worse.
On the drive home, I replay every second of the practice, every save, every slip, every moment I could have said something, done something, but didn’t.
I tell myself it’s for the best. That the only way through this is to keep moving, keep playing, keep the world at arm’s length.
But the truth is, every mile I put between myself and the rink just makes the silence that much louder.
At the apartment, I drop my bag in the hall and head straight for the shower. I turn the water so hot it stings, stand there until my skin goes numb, and let the day wash down the drain.
I tell myself I don’t care.
I tell myself I can do this.
But when I close my eyes, I see him in the crease, breath fogging the air, looking at me like he still believes I’m worth saving.
And that’s the part I can’t shut out.
———
There’s a rhythm to loneliness, and after a week of it, I’m practically a metronome.
Wake up, run three miles, shower. Order takeout, eat it straight from the container.
Work the game tape until my eyes burn, pretend that every save I watch is a punchline to a joke nobody gets but me. When the world starts to blur at the edges, I crash on the couch, then do it all again in the morning. If I’m lucky, I sleep for a couple hours.
If I’m not, I just lie there and count the things I’ve lost.
The apartment’s a disaster.
Empty Thai containers breed on the counter, their plastic lids multiplying like roaches. There are four coffee mugs in the sink, all with the same oily film on top from the cheap beans I’ve started buying, because if it tastes bad enough, I might not drink so much of it.
Every horizontal surface is covered in a thin dust of hockey tape shavings, crumbs, and printouts of shot charts.
The only clear space is the strip of kitchen table where I keep my laptop, open 24/7, screen frozen on whatever the last highlight I was breaking down.
Tonight I’m reviewing a sequence from last season, someone else’s season, actually, some AHL goalie with a flair for disaster.
I run the video on loop, watching him drop too low, chase the puck out of the blue paint, give up a soft goal and then stare into the camera like he’s waiting for the firing squad.
I should be learning from it, but mostly I’m just marveling at the way a single mistake can wreck an entire narrative.
Every three minutes, my phone lights up. Usually a text, sometimes a call. All from Ash.
The preview flashes: “Hey man, you good?” or “You at the gym today?” or sometimes just the three dots of an unsent message. I don’t open any of them.
The longer I wait, the heavier the unread badge gets, but I can’t make myself do it. If I read them, I’ll reply. If I reply, I’ll break.
At 2:17 a.m., I order a burrito from a place across the city, just to see if the delivery guy will judge me.
He does, but I tip extra, so he keeps his mouth shut. I eat half of it, cold, standing by the window and looking out at the dark, rain-drowned street. The city is still.
For a second, I think about how easy it would be to just walk out into the night and keep going, just never come back.
Instead, I open a new tab and search for flights. Oakland is the first suggestion, because the algorithm knows me better than I know myself. There’s a red-eye in four hours.
I click “Book” without even looking at the price, then close the browser before the guilt can catch up.
Packing is automatic. Two shirts, one pair of pants, hockey gloves because it’s the only thing that feels like armor.
I stare at my reflection in the bathroom mirror, wondering when I started looking like a mug shot, eyes sunken, hair overgrown, skin too tight across the jaw. I don’t shave. I don’t care.
The Uber arrives at 4:40, the driver an old man with a beard so thick it looks bulletproof.
He doesn’t talk, which is perfect. The ride is quiet, just the hum of the highway and the distant, late-night pulse of the city.
Every so often, my phone lights up, but I turn it face down.
At the airport, everything’s a blur of halogen and linoleum. Security is a joke at this hour, no line, just a bored agent who glances at my license, then at my face, and says, “Big day ahead?” I shrug.
He waves me through.
I buy a bottle of water and a protein bar at the newsstand, even though I know I won’t eat it.
The gate is half-empty, just a collection of business travelers and the kind of insomniacs who fly standby for fun. I sit by the window, watching planes taxi in the pre-dawn dark.
My hands won’t stop shaking, so I jam them in my pockets.
The phone buzzes again. I don’t look. I’m afraid if I do, the battery will die from the weight of all the things I haven’t said.
Boarding is fast.
I take my window seat, pull my hood up, and try to look asleep before we even take off.
The guy next to me smells like eucalyptus, like maybe he bathes in it, and he keeps sighing as if the whole world is one long, slow disappointment.
When the plane levels out, the turbulence starts.
Not bad, but enough to make the overhead bins rattle, enough to make the flight attendant stumble.
I watch the clouds, endless and gray, the sky a slab of concrete pressing us down.
The guy next to me asks if I’m scared of flying. I say no, but he keeps talking anyway.
At cruising altitude, I order a whiskey, even though it’s barely sunrise. It comes in a plastic cup, the ice melting before I can take a second sip.
I stare at it for a long time, then dump it in the sink of the tiny bathroom. I’m not sure what I thought it would fix.
Back at my seat, I pull out my phone and type a text to Ash.
First: “Sorry.”
Erase.
Second: “I needed some space. I’ll explain when I get back.”
Erase.
Third: “I miss you.”
Erase.
By the time we start descending, I’ve written and deleted a hundred different versions, none of them right, none of them enough to bridge the gap.
I turn the phone off, press my forehead to the window, and watch the California landscape drift into view.
The wheels touch down with a jolt that rattles my teeth.
I wait for the plane to empty before I stand, shouldering my bag and shuffling down the aisle.
Outside, the air is warm, different, like the world here belongs to somebody else.
I stand at the curb, watching cars roll past, watching people hug and shout and drag their luggage home.
I think about calling my mom, about telling her I’m here, about letting her see the mess I’ve made.
I think about Ash, about the unread messages piling up, about the words I still can’t say.
I walk to the taxi line, keeping my eyes down, and climb into the first one that stops.
The driver looks at me in the rearview and says, “Where to?”
I almost say, “Anywhere.”
Instead, I give him the address, and watch the world blur by as we speed into the day.
———
The cab drops me at the curb of the old house, the one with the pomegranate tree out front and the chipped blue paint that my mother always swore she’d get around to fixing “next summer.”
It’s warm, even for Oakland, the kind of sticky, restless air that makes everything feel louder.
I stand there with my bag, staring up at the porch, and for a second I think about getting back in the car and telling the driver to keep going. But then the door swings open, and she’s there.
My mother is not a big woman, but she’s the kind of person who fills every inch of a room.
Even now, barefoot and in a faded Stanford t-shirt, she radiates this forcefield of “don’t mess with me” that could break a lesser person in half.
Her hair is pulled back tight, a few new streaks of gray twisting through the black, and her eyes, sharp and knowing, go wide as she sees me.
“Baby?” she says, like she’s not sure if I’m a ghost or a real thing. “You didn’t tell me you were coming.”
I try to smile, but it probably looks more like a wince. “Didn’t want to make a thing of it. Figured you might be out.”
She laughs, the sound low and a little dangerous. “You know better. I’m always here.”
She’s at the top of the steps in three seconds, pulling me into a hug so fierce it cracks my spine.